As you can undoubtedly tell, I am no politician. If I were, I should not have chosen this topic. I am, rather, a self-appointed representative, hailing from the country that some citizens of the earth call "The Great Satan." The term "Satan" means to them the "other force." To us, in the United States, it means "the evil One," the "evil force." Otherness is all around us, if we see ourselves in the centeregocentricity at its best, terrestriality at its worst! From the witches of Salem to the Darth Vaders of science fiction, otherness is the enemy, too often seen as such by people possessed, possessed of themselves, possessed by their political leaders, and possessed by that which they would deem to be the force of righteousness.
In this paper I am presenting a paradigm of cognitive linguistics that is the political other of the more familiar paradigm of my many esteemed colleagues. What I am trying to establish here is the reality that there are two ways of seeing, two ways in which cognitive linguistics may shed light on the words we speak and hear, write and read. My thesis, essentially, is this: opposing political forces need not destroy what has been built; they may, but they need not. Rather, one force may gain strength and direction from the other and, in the spirit of Hegelian compromise, come to embrace "otherness" as a good thing, a way of saying to the other, "Thank you for that lesson I no longer must learn the hard way." Our values may then reflect that which we have learned from analyzing their semantic components. Our words and the meanings of our words may be granted freedom from strict individual interpretation.
"Political otherness,"
therefore, contrary to popular opinion, is not all bad. In this
paper I shall attempt to show how four cognitive considerations
may be used to further the ambitions of corrupt leaders. Thereupon,
I shall try to establish the truth of the memorable line William
Shakespeare wrote, that is, Mark Anthony's assertion: "Ambition
should be made of sterner stuff" (Julius Caesar, III,
ii, 97).
The "sterner stuff" of which my thesis consists will
reduce the four cognitive semantic instruments of the politician
to mere phantoms with no power to corrupt, no absolute power to
corrupt absolutely, no power to corrupt semantically.
Certain assumptions about the nature of cognitive semantics and
about the relationships between cognition and political aims and
outcomes have guided this study. First, cognitive semantics,
as a term, assumes that meaning is not "out there" but
is subjectively inside each of us, mediated by sensory data, or
sense experiences. Each of us constructs a metaphysical universe
or world, if you will, from our perceived experiences.
The percepts and concepts in this personal universe form themselves
from analogy or metaphor, little by little into networks or strings
of subatomic particles and wave patterns that parallel, I believe,
the superstring theory of modern physics. The binding between
these codes and those of the language or languages one hears constitutes
the cognitive component of a person's experiences at the most
elementary level of human existence. The encoding, therefore,
is both dynamic and static, the particles stringing into a stasis
that gravitationally bend the waveforms with it until the encoding
becomes spherical, somewhat like a bubble, familiar to engineers
of the new "bubble memory" for computers.
Features of an experience, therefore, may be recalled to consciousness
by the use of symbols (i.e., words and phrases), not necessarily
limited to the context in which they were first encountered. Thus,
for political purposes a leader of one group of people may employ
words that a would-be follower acquired years earlier when but
a little boy in a context of highly charged emotions in a neighborhood
fight. "We will bury you," said Nikita Kruschev to Richard
Nixon during their train trip across the United States. The features
of the earlier confrontation need not be entirely identical to
those of the present leader's mental picture. Yet, a Richard Nixon
can induce feelings from a specific past in his listener or reader
that render the follower amenable to the leader's own purpose,
defending a country's position during a cold war.
The term political otherness, like all other nouns (or
noun phrases or terms functioning as nouns), consists in a form,
a function, and an essence at least at six levels of significance,
conscious or otherwise, corresponding to six dimensions of realityin
cognitive semantics, six dimensions of metaphysical resonance.
Within each dimension the polarity of the concept assumes extremes
that range from the political identity of the politician and her/his
immediate others (his/her followers) to the features of the concept
rooted in individual experience(s) with policies not their
own.
Cognitively we know, we conceptualize, we perceive, we notice,
only by contrasts. Without contrast a perception cannot become
a concept. If there is a word for the contrasting element, we
use it to label the other end of the spectrum. If no word or experience
exists with which to construct the dichotomy (the polarities),
we construe (construct) the opposite by arbitrary and abstract
means. We use the cognitive equivalents of non-, anti-, un-, counter-,
contra-, meta-, (etc.) as in non-linear and linear, anti-matter
and matter, etc. We use dia- (as in dialectic, diatribe, etc.)
to label the entire dichotomy (both poles at once). Otherness,
then permits expansion of conceptual experience and enlarging
of the number of sememes permitted to map this expansion of first-hand
and/or vicarious experience.
Out of these constructs the politician enters four stages of cognitive
semantics in the concept of otherness in political leadership.
He or she enters the first stage of self-awareness or self-identity,
moves upward to the stage in which metaphorically he/she becomes
aware of "otherness." The next stage operationalizes
the metaphor in special definitions, permitting conceptualization
of the "other" with features drawn from the political
leader's own earlier experiences. Finally, comes the instrumentation,
or acting on the awareness of the "otherness" previously
constructed, in such a way that the other is perceived to be the
opposition, even at times the enemy.
Any would-be political leader, whether an Alexander the Great,
or a Reverend Jerry Falwell (U.S. leader of the so-called "Moral
Majority"), must rise or fall on the identity of his/her
movement, as perceived in the context of differences or otherness.
One's identity is established cognitively on the basis of contrast
to others. If no others are perceived, identity is neither possible
nor necessary. For Alexander the otherness that drove him to conquest
was his awareness of any political state outside his own domain.
Later, for him to stand atop a mountain and view his world, without
any others to conquer, was to acknowledge to himself that the
identity of conqueror he had long enjoyed was no longer possible.
There was, as far as he knew, no political otherness. Nothing
remained for him but to weep.
For Jerry Falwell, on the other hand, the world of his morality
becomes even more distinctly different from the changing moral
otherness that defines his self-hood. He sees his political challenges
multiplying and at age 65 is hoping to lead his dwindling group
of religio-political followers for yet, at least, ten years. His
otherness is the world of birth control and legal abortions and
agencies that distribute contraceptive information. The political
otherness seems to be drifting away from his policies, ever widening
the gap between U. S. public policy and the Falwell positionno
church approval for unwed parents, no condoms, no pills, no information
provided teenagers about contraception, and definitely no abortions.
Identity, cognitively, becomes easier to achieve in the context
of great conceptual extremes. The concept of "otherness"
makes such political identity possible.
Shakespeare's often quoted question "What's in a name?"
may be answered in the context of the identifying function of
a noun and its otherness. Until a cognitive node has been identified
by its association with a symbol, the percept or concept is not
easily available to recall in its own context or in other contexts.
Moses, for example, found leadership of his people much easier
when he could name them, not as separate tribes known to the Egyptians
as "Hebrew slaves," but as the "Children of Israel."
The inscribed stone tablets of law, the shepherd's crook, and
rod of disciplineall became visible symbols of Moses' leadership
until the Ark of the Covenant took ascendance over them. The Philistines
were identified by a catch-all semanticism, a term associated
with "otherness," i.e. "strangers." Even to
this day, the Hebrew language adheres to the ancient syllable
(Pe or Phe, minus Masoretic pointing, Lamedh, Shin, Taw, and YodhYTSLP)
in its modern term "Palestinians," "PLSTY."
Etymologically the Palestinians are simply the "others"
(the "strangers") of ancient animosities toward "otherness."
Many years later King David's star (consisting of two intertwined
mirror-images of triangles) became Solomon's great seal, still
the symbol of the modern Nation of Israel. The mirror image suggests
co-existence with and co-dependence upon "otherness."
When the epoch of legalism was spent, and Christianity began to
assume its place, the persecuted Christians in the catacombs of
Rome identified themselves to each other by the secret symbol
of a stylized fish, an elongated Greek "alpha," representing
Jesus as "Alpha and Omega," suggesting "The Great
Fisherman" with His commission to make his followers "fishers
of men," and with the added mnemonic of the Greek word for
"fish," becoming for the early Christians a convenient
acronym, " icqus ," (Iesus, Christus, Theos, Uios, Soter:
"Jesus, Christ, God, Son, Savior"). The fish symbol,
then, became a node for a cognitively rich network of mental images,
creating an identity of separateness from the "others"
(the "non-Christians," who were perceived as "persecutors").
This political otherness soon gave way to synthesis and unification
under Constantine, The Great, whose sign of the cross remains
to this day the symbol of Christianity.
Cognitive semantics permits another stage of political development,
beyond merely affording identity to a political leader and his/her
movement. The concept of otherness may be used to single out features
of the imagined opposition, or other side, that may not be shared
by the leader and followers of the identified in-group. The "other"
may be ostracized by being cast in the image of "barbarian,"
another term for "other." Features or attributes of
the so-called "outsiders" may then be made cognitively
significant through exaggerated contrast to the valued manners
or behaviors of the newly identified "inside" group.
The political leader, by repeatedly calling attention to these
disapproved attributes, may elevate the conceptual patterns to
a higher level of cognitive generalization in the minds of his
followers. The resulting images may then be easily made to fit
pre-conceived notions of barbarism. The "barbarian"
thus created may be lifted up to scorn. The leader may call for
his followers to separate themselves from contact and communication
with these "others" that do not share the values, the
manners, the behaviors of the "in-group."
Again, the early Christians were called upon to separate themselves
from the "world," the "otherness." The Greek
term for "church" denoted exactly that separation. "Ecclesia"
was a semantic element that literally held the association of
"calling out from," or "summoning away from."
A political leader may find this use of semantic "otherness"
useful, even necessary, as does Jerry Falwell, in maintaining
the solidarity of his/her followers.
Once separation has taken place, the leader may offer no opportunity
to his followers to interact or communicate with that which now
is perceived to be the "other side," the "opposition."
It is a small conceptual step from this "otherness"
to the level of enmity. The political leader may be able to paint
a picture of urgency for his actuation of power. The strategem
may go something like this: "They are going to defeat us
if we allow them to gain any advantage over us." Nathan Bedford
Forrest, an old American military leader of the nineteenth century,
has been remembered for one maxim, "Get there fustest with
the mostest." At this level of perception the "other"
becomes little more than a "target," dehumanized and
totally adversarial. The opposition is perceived as such a threat
that it often gives rise, as it did in the regime of Adolph Hitler
and more recently under the Serbian leadership of Slobodan Milosevic,
to a purging of the "otherness" under the euphemism
of "ethnic cleansing." Such abuses of perception and
cognitive processes lead to atrocities against humanity beyond
the imagination of most of us. War is the inevitable result.
To rise above the divisiveness and destructiveness of politics, we can acknowledge the otherness as a source of alternate perspective. We can be grateful that our identity has been made clearer within the context of contrasting attributes. We can see both Arab and Jew as sons of Abraham, as offering diverse histories of political otherness, each contributing to the rich heritage of remarkable identities in a common land. Perhaps the term "Philistines" (or "Palestinians") is no longer pejorative but descriptive. If we see those not-ourselves as Barbarians, we may, at least, thank them for helping us to see important features of ourselves and for showing us our natures. Those who would see the "alien" as distanced or politically separated from us may take comfort in the territoriality conferred upon us by our perception of a presence not politically native to "our soil." Analysts and synthesists, deductive thinkers and inductive thinkers, particularists and generalists, lexicographers and folk etymologists, meticulous linear logicians and intuitive meandering creators from the imagination, the focussed and those with open-ended questions, the scientist and the philosopher, the agnostic and the devoutly faithful worshipper, the researcher of wave-particle physics and the writer grounded in matters grave, the student observing stars that are light-years away and the archeologist/anthropologist studying the magnetic signatures in fossils from ages long since passedall of us ideally will put a lie to the politician whose sole aim is to divide us and deify himself. We seek to learn from him and thereby come to love this neighbor, this erstwhile "otherness."
If we truthfully say
we value love, we must love "political otherness." If
we claim to be "God's chosen people" (as both Israel
and the Arab countries insist is true), we must find a way to
love the "Philistines." If we see those not-ourselves
as Barbarians, we must thank them for showing us who we are, or
think we are. If we fear the "alien," we must seek mercy
and forgiveness and come to love him/her/it as a fellow being
having differences that enhance our own selfhood. Only then will
we conquer our fears and defeat our so-called "enemies"
through compromise, not "otherness"' but through unity,
through "We-ness" or "Us-ness,"in a spirit
of non-judgmental gratitude, loving acceptance, and faith for
the future. No longer, then, will we assume the perspective of
the politician. We will assume the perspective of an author-researcher
who gratefully adds to his bibliographical listing, "et
alii." We will assume the cognitive semantic perspective
of a single word, not of religious philosopher Martin Buber's
hyphenated term, "I-Thou,"but a single, powerful term"We."
Fellow lovers of truth and beauty, whatever we know, we owe to
others and each other. Thank us every one.
©Copyright 1999, by Lewis P. Sego, Indiana State University,
Terre Haute, Indiana, USA.