Mentalese bound (Not every flowering dream should bloom)

Viewing this gem from the “thinking allowed” archives; found it amusing how Herr Mishlove’s peculiar smile and enquiring expression invited the then young professor Pinker to engage in max lucidity. The argument chains appeared to be so clear that I fancied an impromptu objection. At some point (@ 19:07) they came to discuss, if “cadence” may affect the environment in which we think. Pinker mentioned lines from Woody Allen adding that “there is something about the rhythm and the cadence of Spanish that puts us in the mood, perhaps, of more romantic thoughts. But I think that's probably the extent of it…” 

If as Pinker states,“The sounds of the language might make (it) more appropriate to express (it) in kinds of emotion that might resonate more with certain kinds of experience” then should not a ranking be possible? One that would rank each such assemblage of sounds (Cadences of a language) according to how well they lend themselves to expressing “kinds of emotion”. Where the ease with which say the prosody of a Bengali dialect may put us in a melancholic mood would out compete that of Icelandic.

There's the rub I guess for if we assume a correlation between emotions and moods with such sounds, pitches or timbres; it would by definition be a subjective resonance not available to investigation. The cadence of Finnish appears not to lend itself to “my softer thoughts”. But since their respective qualia cannot be analyzed, their “lack of resonance” with vowel harmonies of that language as perceived by me is not measurable. The data for our ranking would be no more than reports by subjects about the resonance between two sets of qualia. There is no reason to believe that the subjective experience of a set of sounds are the same for different people, nor that of what they may label melancholia.

Had it been possible then languages could be assessed as regimes of repression. With let’s say Bengali allowing for easier expressions of certain "thoughts and their accompanying emotions" whilst those same would find far fewer available propositions with appropriate sound and timber in Icelandic. Such comparative assessments can be done by a single person with results that may serve to amuse at least him or her. Each language on the other hand will, during this subject’s lifespan, adopt or invent thousands of new terms or phrases with varied intonations. Possible witty anecdotes on the deficiency or superiority of Bengali over Icelandic for "creamy hatred which I would like to spread on my enemies as when I imagine them to be air bound intrusions" then, will never stand to be true even for a single subject. Unless each such assemblage of sounds (languages) in its capacity for borrowing or adopting new sounds (not words or terms) were more conservative. Take the mandatory vowels at the end of Poliisi and Posti in Finnish. Do these suggest that the mood or character that inhabits a language in an era; which cannot be objectively analysed has a self-preserving character? Such an aspect should limit the mutation of Finnish intonation into  hip-hop prosody or Caribbean drawl within a few decades. 

At an earlier section (@3:52) of this interview were cadence is discussed, Pinker talks of translations. Since translations are possible at all he explains “There has got to be something, I think, underneath it, something like a set of propositions that don't really have sounds, that don't have any left-to-right linear order the way language does, but that has a web of connections between concepts, and that are also connected with other aspects of experience -- with visual images, with body sensations.” But why not sounds? If this set of propositions (mentalese) is a web of connections between concepts and aspects of experience, then why does he limit these and not couple them with sounds too. The sonic aspects of these mental propositions can hypothetically be in disharmony with a staccato set of sounds of that proposition in say Dutch.

It seems then to some tiny extent as Lacan would put it “signifier’s displacement” does determine the “subjects’ acts, destiny, refusals, blindnesses, success, and fate, regardless of their innate gifts and instruction, and irregardless of their character or sex;”. Tiny since that juicy quote knows no limit; as success, fate and destiny and many more notions are at risk. The disharmony I imagined under each such regime of repression or displacement was far less and if anything not noticeable by less expressive subjects. But if it can add up to create a more acute sense of entrapment, it would be intriguing.

Curbstones

How is an act (A) where a person is beaten to death different from (B) where that same person is raped and beaten to death? In what way can the aggression of perpetrators be distinguished in a non-symbolic way? What makes an injury inflicted on the neck, ears or knees more grave than one on genitalia? What role do cultures play in distinguishing the above, to the extent that they may be blamed or lauded for the efficiency with which they prevent either?

There are arguments among some homo sapiens for extending protection to chimps, bonobos and other great apes since studies have shown them to have a sense of self and capacity to exercise empathy; demanding consideration of them as persons. Leaving aside the fact that genocides are carried on currently by the concerned sapiens on their own kind, how much sense would the question on the distinction between acts A and B have when they occur among other Homininae? Who is the Asaram Bapu of bonobos or hojatoleslam Kazem Seddiqi of chimps whose attitude, comments and shrieks may produce a favorable climate or legitimize violence amongst those species? And if they have no need for such varieties of pant-hoots, in what way are such vocalizations crucial for the sum total of violence possible amongst sapiens? If one were to install loudspeakers on tree tops all over Gombe Stream national park and play Moody blues instead of Lata Mangeshkar can we hope to see a decline in incidents of “overpowering”? If so how much of the trend can be attributed to the lyrics?

Power is a dirty word; but once present in physical or cognitive form in a member of a species it takes a variety of mechanisms to prevent that agent from practicing it. Let us allow cultural codes to be amongst such; containing mechanisms of moderation. Does not the moderation of existing powers then always come at a cost? And are they not like all mechanisms of control subject to laws of nature which impose limits on the efficiency of such systems? In the light or shadow of such formulations, mechanisms such as segregation of sexes in public places, as reactionary as they sound acquire sense as attempts to optimize a system’s objective; given the available funds or resources. In response one may already hear cries that exercise of “humanity” needs no funds or resources; with nonviolence and restraint seen as cost free aspects of a “human” essence, the evidence for which need not be produced. Yet co-founders Sonya Barnett and Heather Jarvis are not likely to stage one in The Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Freedoms and rights and practice of “humanity” are a function of what is possible within a system of moderation which apart from resources, requires the consent of the powers that run the system. This consent, which, in a modern democratic society is labeled consensus; while impacted may not necessarily be reflective of the resources of that societal system. Where by resources it’s meant the sum total of material and intellectual funds and the institutions for channeling them.

To digress Let's take some choice quotes from the feminist canon:

"Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women's bodies." -- Andrea Dworkin

-Contempt is seen as inherent in an encoded behavior, needless to say that feelings of contempt require ideas of status, hierarchy, which are less immediately primordial compared to an urge to penetrate. Nonetheless the specie has to resign as it has come to be, before it becomes worthy or free from blame. Not too uncommon a take, considering millennia of religious traditions east and west which have variously asserted a fall from a state of "heavenly no intercourse". The sentence also provides an endless potential for contemplating just how much contempt I have for oranges when I drink my juice straight from the pack rather than pouring it into a cup. So to the following from Valerie Solanas’s S.C.U.M manifesto:

 “To be male is to be deficient, emotionally limited; maleness is a deficiency disease and males are emotional cripples………………He (the male) is trapped in a twilight zone halfway between humans and apes, and is far worse off than the apes because, unlike the apes, he is capable of a large array of negative feelings -- hate, jealousy, contempt, disgust, guilt, shame, doubt -- and moreover, he is aware of what he is and what he isn't…the male is, nonetheless, obsessed with screwing; he'll swim through a river of snot, wade nostril-deep through a mile of vomit, if he thinks there'll be a friendly pussy awaiting him. He'll screw a woman he despises, any snaggle-toothed hag, and furthermore, pay for the opportunity. Why? Relieving physical tension isn't the answer, as masturbation suffices for that. It's not ego satisfaction; that doesn't explain screwing corpses and babies.

Completely egocentric, unable to relate, empathize or identify, and filled with a vast, pervasive, diffuse sexuality, the male is psychically passive. He hates his passivity, so he projects it onto women, defines the make as active, then sets out to prove that he is (`prove that he is a Man').

His main means of attempting to prove it is screwing (Big Man with a Big Dick tearing off a Big Piece). Since he's attempting to prove an error, he must `prove' it again and again. Screwing, then, is a desperate compulsive, attempt to prove he's not passive, not a woman; but he is passive and does want to be a woman...”

I don’t know if these passages answer the initial question about the difference between act A and act B, but in a perverse way they seem to come close by allowing nature and violence endless echoes. They share in their urgency, truths which only reactionary and fundamentalist forces utter mindlessly. But whilst failing to locate these same set of psychic complexes in the “second sex” they also omit that; irrespective of the stance (passive or active) in the absence of power, in the absence of brute physical force, it fails to be an issue. Desperate compulsive Dodos (yes Raphus cucullatus not the band) are not likely to rape and torture me or my family.

As incorrect as it may seem, I want to share what I believe is another instance of this misapprehension of costs. A deluded Izetbegović who seems to have as much grasp of power dynamics as a slutwalk organizer or participant is presented with an inconvenient truth (@2:12)

In retrospect he says that he expected war but not genocide. It serves; I think to never, not expect it, and to go further there is something criminal in this lack of grasp. Recognition is not an endorsement. But to set aside the power equation and the fact of limited resources for enforcement; is to forget, that the same impulse which enabled the recent Delhi gang rape also powered the protests. And contrary to this slate article it really needs little encouragement from a sexist culture.