The Fiction of Ideas
I read Babel 17 for the fiction of ideas section of the course. This novel is really about language and how it shapes your mind and perception of the world around you, as well as how you interact with it. Babel 17 is discovered by Rydra Wong, the main protagonist, to be a language after the military believed it to be a code used by their enemies in an ongoing space war. She herself is really interesting as a character because she is a genius linguist, which is reflected in her speech and interactions with those around her. Rydra has a lot of confidence and is self assured. This begins to change once she learns Babel 17. She loses some of her ability to do things, and her perceptions about the world around her change. The language brainwashes the user into becoming a traitor, which is how the other side has been staying in front of the human military forces throughout the war. This reminds me of 1984 in that language as we know it is taken away from the population and rewritten so that vocabulary is limited, thus thought and self expression is limited. The language only gave terms for the government and the ideas that the government approved of. This created a perception of life that revolves around the government.
The implications of this exploration of language and how it shapes thought and expression is very applicable to our world today. Language is important in all cultures around the world. Each culture has different languages within itself, and they all have ideas and words that mean something unique to that culture. This helps people to perceive the world in a specific way. This is very important to understanding a culture and set of ideas. So if we lose parts of these languages we lose parts of theses cultures. We must preserve language in order to preserve all of the different perceptions of life and the world around us that exist. We must also remember that language can also be used against people and cultures, and that it is happening and has happened in order to oppress and destroy ideas and ways of life.
The implications of this exploration of language and how it shapes thought and expression is very applicable to our world today. Language is important in all cultures around the world. Each culture has different languages within itself, and they all have ideas and words that mean something unique to that culture. This helps people to perceive the world in a specific way. This is very important to understanding a culture and set of ideas. So if we lose parts of these languages we lose parts of theses cultures. We must preserve language in order to preserve all of the different perceptions of life and the world around us that exist. We must also remember that language can also be used against people and cultures, and that it is happening and has happened in order to oppress and destroy ideas and ways of life.
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