LANGUAGE AND TRAFFIC AS INTERDEPENDENT SYSTEMS
Language is one of the many tools within communication. Where we can use words we also have a whole spectrum of other expressions, like body language, which we can utter. Communication can be seen as an attempt to reach the state of oneness. It is an utterance which tries to synchronise to different minds to one state, a state of understanding, co-operation and thus interdependency. Whether we look at language or communication in general, the principal of transmitting a message and interpreting a message remains the same. Now we have to ask ourselves what it is that makes us interpret the message send more or less as the sender intended.
As an analogy or example we might look at traffic. Daily we are endangering our lives in the public sphere, putting our trust in the hands of others who are driving 15 ton trucks. Is this because there are rules to live up to? Partly yes I would say, but if there were no rules written down, would we stay at home? I think these sort of interactive surroundings and our actions undertaken there depend on conventional manners of doing things together, even if it is just waiting for somebody to pass or, the other way around, knowing you are the one to pass first. It is our trust in the use of the system by other users to be likewise to our own use of that system which allows us to operate in an interactive surrounding.
When we look at the adoption of technology within our domestic sphere, when it becomes part of our natural perspective, for instance the moment that ‘google’ became a verb, this can be seen as a common understanding of its meaning, a meaning shared as a convention, the same as reaching out with your hand is understood by the other to shake hands.
THE NEED FOR EDUCATION
Shaking hands is quite easy to understand and adopt as a convention. But what about music or arts? Obviously the artist is including a message in its art, for instance an emotional state. To some degree this message is commonly understood by the tools the artist uses (although differences might appear inter-culturally). In music for example the use of a major chord will be generally interpreted as happy, while a minor chord has a connotation with sadness. But on other occasions we might not easily be capable of interpreting a piece of art, as our context is not rich enough. We might find ourselves in need of the explanation or commentary of a specialist to add context to our perception, enabling interpretation.
This shows the interactive relation between knowledge and capabilities. It is not the mere one of both, but the coordination that makes us as species interactive and interdependent. Key factor in this seems to be education. Education enables us to interpret messages, communication, on a certain level. It increases our awareness of messages that are expressed through making us familiar with the context, the conventions, the commonly accepted connotations of communication. That is where the artist finds the social role and meaning of his work, in the multi interpretability of his work that doesn’t lead to an ‘anything goes’, but to a general accepted or recognized context of meaning.
THE POSITION OF HUMANITY AND SUSTAINABILITY
Now lets try and focus from here onto the subjects of humanity and sustainability. We have talked before about how our own education increases our awareness of oneness with others, that being informed pushes our motivation to make some effort in helping others. In this we say that communication leads to action in the transformation from thought through idea to action. But, as I would like to state here, this idea seems to me to much attached to western centralized thinking and neglects the equality in the system of interdependency, forcing us in the role of saviours over the victims of the third world. This would very much be a relation of dependency instead. So is it us that need to be educated? I would say yes, but probably in a different manner as we think today. In order to be interdependent we need to be educated in order to let go control, to share control, while the developing and emerging regions need to be educated in order to gain control, serving the same goal in ultimately sharing control. To me it is in this sharing control, the same sort of interdependency, trust in the system, that we have seen in language and traffic, that we can formulate moral values, views on humanity, that are accounting for the whole group, hereby stating that the name ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ is quite ridiculous until it has truly been discussed universally on a base of equality and interdependency.
INTERDEPENCY THROUGH EDUCATION
Well, to work towards an end for now, I think it remains us only to state something about the correlation between education and interdependency, whether or not they are related direct or indirect and the function and effect of formalizing interdependent agreements or conventions.
Interdependency can be understood in two different ways, of which I hope it becomes clear that one is not interdependency, but rather dependency. We would maybe say that interdependency is able to make us passive. We see in it the oneness of the whole system and relativize from that complexity and size the effects of our own actions, thus argumenting to defend our passivity that others will take care of business. But that I would say is dependency and from there, as we follow the Fromm model, we go through the stage of not-dependent, reached by anarchy and revolution, to the state of independency. And that is where education sticks its head around the corner.
Education emancipates us and, as we have stated above, it enables us to act in an interdependent play as it provides context for interpretation of communication. In education we develop ourselves and our talents, thus increasing the value we assign to ourselves and the value that others assign to us. And that is why the independency we reach through education is necessary to reach interdependency. It ensures every individual of its role in the interdependent network through their value for themselves (motivation to act) and through the value they and their actions have to others (expectation to act). We educate our children to become independent, but that independency prepares them to function within an interdependent system. So I would state that independent, emancipated and educated entities are likely to function within an interdependent network, as where non-independent, non-emancipated and non-educated entities will most likely function within a dependent hierarchy.
FORMALIZING INTERDEPENDENCY
So finally now the formalization of interdependent relations. To my opinion with the formalization of such relationships we create a new autonomous entity, lets say a law. Characteristic for this entity is that it stands above all other entities of the network, it has an hierarchical position (at least for as long as it is not changed). Thus with the formalization of interdependent relations we create the stage of dependency, but not any longer to a certain person, but to a non-human entity, namely the law. This is basically how democracy works. My point now would be that this formal entity, the law or the Declaration of Human Rights, needs to be an open, flexible and adjustable entity. If the ideas within the interdependent network change, if the composition of the collective changes, and this will occur through education as may be clear by now, the formal entity needs to be able to change with it. That is when the formal entity is incorporated within the interdependent network and is not ruling over the community, but rather with the community.
As a treat the speach of Barack Obama in Berlin in which he, without saying the word once, holds a 25 minutes plee for interdependency.
