Dear Richard:
What a challenge! Though I don't have an answer, it is the direction that
is interesting. I agree we have built up a whole rational of logic based on
certain key concepts such as money, value, work, employment, income, savings
and a whole legal body of law and accounting practices to contain and make
valid these words.
To start some new thinking off, I would like to introduce a new concept.
Out of the linguistic studies of Noam Chomsky and NLP came the idea of a
class of words called "nominalizations". A nominalization (I don't have the
time to look up the official description right now) is a word used as a
noun, but it is not a noun. A noun is classically described a person, place
or thing and the test we use to decide whether a word is being used as a
nominalization is to ask the simple question, "Can you put it in a
wheelbarrow." All other words used as nouns are verb forms that are being
used as nouns and from this "distortion" false logic begins and builds into
a major monster.
Well, I decided to get out the old books, so I will transcribe a small
portion.
Practical Magic
by Leslie Cameron Bandler
Page 51
4. Nominalizations, (words like "pride", "respect", "love", "confidence",
"harmony", are introduced as nouns in the sentence but they represent
activity and process in the person's deeper understanding and not static
nouns.)
Statement:
"There is no respect here." (Note respect would be parsed as a noun)
Challenge Question
Who is not respecting whom? (Note the conversion of the nominalization back
into a verb form. This stops respect from being a thing and converts it to
it's rightful use as a process.) As long as "respect" is a thing then you
end up with the logic of who has this thing or who doesn't have this thing.
We spend much of our life arguing and defending processes masquerading as
things when a properly framed question would remove this "distortion" and
allow a more accurate perception of reality.
Let's now take this to the topic's you have brought forth. Work is
traditionally used as a nominalization - a thing.
Everyone must work. (Accepted meaning is everyone must have this thing
called work in their life.)
Who is not working? ( Moves the nominalization back into a process and
requires a different dialog from the first statement.)
I think you are right, that we have been hijacked by language and certain
improper usages have become so commonplace that we cannot readily recognize
the distortions they introduce into our thinking processes. It is like
going back on a statement even further than questioning the assumptions, it
is the question of the form of the statement by having a formula that will
reveal that the form is improper, therefore whatever answer comes forth is
also flawed.
There is much more than this simple example to explore and if there is
interest, I can suggest books and we can engage in a List dialog on how to
remove some of the deletions, distortions and generalizations that occur in
converting reality into language. The map is not the territory and the map
can never contain the territory, however the trick is to create a map that
accurately reflects the territory of reality by eliminating or reducing
deletions, distortions and generalizations by having questions that allow
for a fuller explanation of the reality that we are attempting to reflect
with language.
Respectfully
Thomas Lunde
