[MD] Thus spoke Lila

[John Carl]

Jan Anders,

Without common sense and the right to be stupid the human society would be
> boring as hell. Truth don't exist without lies. Low quality...
>
>
I agree.  Truth also does not exist without confusion and ambiguity.  That's
because it's a process, not a thing.  Or as Ellul puts it, in his *Humiliation
of the Word*:

"Meaning is uncertain;  therefore I must constantly fine-tune my language
and work at reinterpreting the words I hear.  I try to understand what the
other person says to me.  All language is more or less a riddle to be
figured out; it is like interpreting a text that has many possible
meanings.  In my effort at understanding and interpretation, I establish
definitions, and finally  a meaning.  The thick haze of discourse produces
meaning.


All of intellectual life (and I use the word "all" advisedly) even that of
specialist in the most exact sciences, is based on these instabilities,
failures to understand, and errors in interpretation, which we must find a
way to go beyond and overcome.  Mistaking a person's language keeps me from
"taking" the person--from taking him prisoner.


We are in the presence of an infinitely and unexpectedly rich tool, so that
the tiniest phrase unleashes an entire polyphonic gamut of meaning, The
ambiguity of language, and even its ambivalence and its contradiction,
between the moment it is spoken and the moment it is received produce
extremely intense activities.  Without such activities, we would be ants or
bees, and our drama and tragedy would quickly be dried up and empty.


Between the moment of speech and the moment of reception are born symbol,
metaphor and analogy.

Through language I lay hold of two completely different objects.  I bring
them together, establishing between them a relationship of similarity or
even identity.  In this manner I come to know this distant, unknown object,
through its resemblance.


It becomes intelligible to me, because through language I have brought it
near this other one that I know well.  Tis an astonishing process, and
logically a foolish one.  It is obviously an indefensible operation, yet
there it is, utterly successful, utterly enlightening. "