Essays on Language, Culture and Capitalism

–Judhajit Hore

Language is a structured system of symbols that is consciously created and infinitely combined by humans to convey an infinite number of variations of meaning.

This question often arises in our mind what came first the thought in our minds or the language which is necessary to convey the thought? Or is it the case that, to convey or disserminate their thoughts, people developed language? It is a paradoxical question similar to the one which asks what came first, a hen or an egg. At this point in human civilisation, we usually think something before conveying it through language, unless it is a reflex to some kind of sudden or strong instigation. We write, which is also a use of language, to note various things from factual details to abstract theories to poetry and fiction. But are thought and language truly mutually exclusive?

Let's do an exercise: think about anything for two minutes an event, a person, a feeling without speaking or doing something else.

Now let me ask you, what did you think, and when you were thinking, were you not using language? When we think about something which has even the slightest complexity and layers, don't we use language? Suppose you were thinking about the ghats of the River Ganges, didn't you use the words "Ganges," "clear sky." "ebb and tide," and other arbitrary symbols (words in the language) to register the scenery in your mind in a known and organised manner? And when you create a complex scenario in your mind where you are dealing with an event where, suppose, fifty things, emotions, places, and people are included, don't you use arbitrary symbols known as words to name each of them, and conjunctions and rules of subject-verb agreement to form sentences in your mind which let you think clearly without losing cue?

Well, let us look at an example: suppose you're forming or solving a complex mathematical problem. The complex mathematical problem is built with many equations, and those equations are built with numbers and symbols (plus, minus, divide, multiply, etc.), and those big numbers are further built with digits. So, to keep the record of the complex mathematical problem, we need to make and understand equations. We need to know the basic symbols and digits for those equations. And without registering these values as symbols called digits, the operations of addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication in various symbols, and without the laws of mathematics, we cannot keep a record, understand, or form a complex problem.

Similarly, if we do not know the alphabet and phonetics, the words and structure of a sentence, and if we do not have the vocabulary (assigning arbitrary symbols or names to things to help ourselves and others make meaning and convey it and these symbols vary across languages, hence they are arbitrary), and if we do not know the laws of sentence formation (grammar or syntax), we can neither form paragraphs nor clear, logically coherent thoughts in our minds. Just like the complex problem requires so many symbols and laws of dealing with it, thought requires primarily knowing the symbols (alphabet and words) and the rules and contexts of using those symbols to play language games that is, permutations and combinations to make infinite variations of meaning, as the first line says.

Hence, without language and its rules, we won't be able to register things in our mind or understand them, as they exist not as things but as symbols which have been assigned to them, and our minds can interpret them only through a language.

So how can there be a thought first? We need to register its layers, keep track of its progress in the mind, and the thought itself remains abstract and will need arbitrary symbols (which language provides to give meaning to various things, feelings, and processes) to be understood, registered in the mind, and remembered for further reference. So, first we get acquainted with these arbitrary symbols, and then learn the process of permutation and combination of these words to register realities, and we then use evolved mental faculties to think complex and abstract things and register those in the mind. Hence, without language, thinking is impossible. In our childhood period, there was a time when out of sight was out of mind, and we didn't have object permanence (the understanding that whether an object can be sensed has no effect on whether it continues to exist). Also, we have no memories of our carly childhood, which is known as childhood amnesia. In the Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 years) and the Preoperational Stage (2-7 years), first understanding objects demands physically manipulating them (object permanence), and then reasoning is egocentric and intuitive but not abstract. Reasoning starts. becoming logical in the Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years), but children still struggle with hypothetical concepts. In the Formal Operational Stage (11+ years), the emergence of abstract reasoning occurs, and individuals can use deduction, consider multiple perspectives, and solve complex and hypothetical problems without immediate physical objects.

This vouches for the hypothesis that thinking requires language, and advanced thinking requires advanced knowledge of language. It is evident from Pia Piaget's stages of cognitive development where it can be seen that abstract reasoning and the capacity to deal with hypothetical matters occur as the individual grows and learns language in a more advanced way, and has an expanded schema and growing expertise in playing language games.

Humans started using language for basic communication, such as calling or expressing anger or pain, and early man used simple, broken language or words to retain these feelings and thoughts in a shared and uniform way for their tribe to understand. Then, humans' level of consciousness or thought was primitive, as was their language. Neither were thoughts and emotions complex, nor was the language complex, and hence the reality of early man wasn't complex like today either, as language shapes the conception of reality, and perceived reality. and material conditions in turn shape language.

(One might think that various sounds of nature made humans imitate them, and that is how language came into being. Well, there might be onomatopoeias shaping language or parts of it, but how do words like 'love' and 'sacrifice' come into being? They do not have sounds.)

From these things, we can assume that the level of consciousness and thought of man and the level of his language grew bi-directionally, hand in hand. The developed language gave man the ability of complex and abstract thinking, and with enhanced thought and consciousness, man developed his language, expanding its vocabulary, syntax, and generative features and making it more complex so that the language can retain, convey, and portray his nuanced and further complex thoughts and reality. Without a developed language, the levels of thought and consciousness can’t intensify, and without development in thought and consciousness and the escalated complexity of reality and mind, language itself can’t be developed. 

LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND IDENTITY

Culture is "an accumulation of thoughts, values and objects, it is the social heritage acquired by us from preceding generations through learning, as distinguished from the biological heritage which is passed on to us automatically through the genes." Graham Wallas.

Language is the retainer of culture. Language is like a vessel which retains culture, reproduces it, and makes it intelligible across generations. The ability to symbolise is man's most defining trait, and these symbols, when shared and used by humans, grow into languages. Each language has unique symbols shaped by its particular realities, material conditions, geography, traditions, and practices, which together constitute its unique culture. These symbols are embedded in the language itself, which carries and preserves them while disseminating them to all who learn the language or are born into the culture and receive it as their mother tongue by default

Hence, language is the roadmap of culture and also its primary vehicle. Language, in its different forms-reading, writing, and speaking-makes it possible for present generations to understand the achievements of earlier ones. Language is part of culture, and at the same time, it preserves and ensures its survival over time. Once language is acquired, it unfolds before the individual the wide field of culture it retains. Culture preserves knowledge, and language preserves culture through symbols and arbitrary names, transmitting it from generation to generation. Language not only enables the transmission of culture and knowledge but also preserves, accumulates, and diffuses them.

There are views of social structure influencing linguistic behaviour, linguistic structure influencing social structure, a bidirectional influence where hoth shape each other, and an asocial theory where it is assumed that both not at all related.

According to the second hypothesis, also known as the Whorfian hypothesis (which has two parts, namely linguistic determinism and linguistic relativity), language is the driving force influencing culture, and it also defines how we perceive reality. The grammar and vocabulary we inherit dictate how one perceives reality, which in turn forces society to organise itself in a specific way. The external language becomes the internal architecture of thought, and the specific language one speaks becomes a fundamental, inescapable building block of one's reality

But in some cases, society and culture force language to mutate. Here, we can assume culture as the operating system and language as the coding language of that culture (OS), which the culture itself can rewrite. Mutations in language due to changing cultural and material realities can be seen in the form of addition, expansion, refinement, exchange, etc. Many vocabularies have become obsolete as they fail to portray the realities of present times. Many have lost their significance and usage, while many new words have been added to symbolise and retain the developments of our times. Some words have been broken down, where a single word was insufficient to explain diversity. For instance, coffee has acquired many new names according to its specification, such as espresso, doppio, americano, latte, French press, etc. In many languages, social hierarchy is visible-like in Bengali, where three different degrees of respect are given to people according to their personal or social positions while English has none of that sort. The notions of right and wrong, and the taboos of culture, have given birth to euphemisms.

Language is the primary index, the ultimate symbol, and the core register of human identity. It is who we are. It is the mechanism through which we express our distinctiveness and transmit our innermost selves from one generation to the next.

How are identities kept alive? How do we know and continue to believe that we belong to certain identities? We say, "I'm a Hindu," or "I'm a Muslim," or "I'm a member of this family, clan, or caste," or "I'm a citizen of this country" Hut how are these identshes made and sustained?

Society and culture, for human beings, mean the sum total of their direct and indirect relations with their contemporaries and with all the people of earlier generations. Society and culture provide individuals with common sense values, moral vardsticks, definitions of right and wrong, and also the structure and content of thought. All these identities survive and continue through collective remembrance, recollection, and reinforcement (স্মরণ পদ্ধতি). To remember the identities imposed on us at birth, we are told innumerable stories, folklores, and oral hustories about those identities. Some stories glorify them, others recount how oppressed they were. These narratives tell us who I am, who we are, and who they are, dividing us into ingroups and outgroups. Whether it is our religious identity, caste, place of birth, or community, by repeatedly engaging with the histories, stories, ideas, greatness, and even the perceived wickedness of others, our identity becomes attached to those groups which we begin to see as ingroups. Initially, it is our surroundings that impose these identities, and later we ourselves elves keep keep them th alive by repeating them in our minds and attaching our sentiments, development, and harm to them often unconsciously

Suppose a Hindu boy hears about the "golden age" from his parents and grandparents, he hears about the mythologies and epics like the Ramayana and Mahabharata, and takes pride in the culture, moral righteousness that is preached, and grandeur. He learns about the Vedic and later Vedic periods, the Mahajanpadas, and the rule of various Hindu kings, and comes to believe in the heights his religion had achieved. Then he hears about the Muslim rulers and how they oppressed his people; he begins to divide and tag Maharana Pratap as "us" and Akbar as "them," often ignoring the fact that Maharana Pratap's army general was Hakim Khan Suri, and that Akbar's army chief was Raja Man Singh.

Then he is taught about the Partition and Direct Action Day, where the people whom he now considers his own were slaughtered mercilessly. Now his attitude acquires both cognitive and conative elements, his blood boils, and he believes he knows his friends and foes, his people and his so-called civilizational enemies (as the RSS tends to frame them), Soon, he begins to act according to these attitudes and labels that were bestowed upon him through the ovarian lottery. The same process applies to a Muslim, a Christian, and members belonging to various kinds of reference groups. To be free from biases which may never be entirely possible we must attempt to dismantle these constructed selves; we must engage in a kind of self-destruction (আত্মনাশ), We must escape these nese shelves that have been thrust upon us. All these identities come to us through language; just as culture preserves them, language keeps this entire ecosystem alive and breathing, connecting thoughts across time. 

MOTHER TONGUE AND ME

A person is born with multiple identities and labels of being someone, or belonging to a family, state, nationality, religion, caste, and also with a set of expectations which people around him/her will have just because the person was born in that particular setting. He/she is born in a society and family which is entitled to, and most probably will, impose their "common sense" values and parameters or yardsticks of discerning right and wrong, good and bad, and permitted and forbidden. Of so many identities and labels, two elements couldn't be ignored or overlooked by anyone, and neither are they as synthetic or fabricated in the manner of the others. First is class: the economic reality of a person is the main factor influencing how his life will be, what choices he will be able to make, and what amount of freedom he will enjoy in every sphere. You'll see no major difference between a rich Hindu and a rich Muslim living in Kolkata or Delhi when it comes to the quality of life they have, the quality of education and healthcare they can avail, and the freedom of choices they have. Of course, there are cases of religious discrimination in today's India, and there is discrimination based on caste, and at many times these caste-based identities and religious problems supersede the definition of an ordinary superstructure, but it is the fact that economic privilege at least gives a safeguard to people of identical identities, where one suffers more brutally for being economically impoverished, and the economically privileged has attained some amount of immunity and socio-economic security due to his disparate and better economic status.

It is true that during Partition, Hindus had to flee from their native lands, but the way a rich Hindu survived was mostly by fleeing to the other side of the border without much physical. damage, whereas the poor ones lost everything their lives, kin, and honour and those who survived ended up in refugee camps with worse accommodation and facilities available, and had a lifelong trauma, while those elites lost a considerable amount of property and land but managed to live decently by the grace of economic privilege and accumulated capital. The reasons for Partition can, in present times, be presented through a communal lens, but the division of power and the division of the consumer base/market-both serving the interests of an elite minority who did not even pay one-fourth of the heavy price borne by common people remain key contributors.

The second one is linguistic identity. What is a mother tongue? It is not necessarily the language of my mother or parents; it is the language in which we are programmed. The language that shapes and builds my "self" is my mother tongue. Like a computer or system programmed in a particular language operates most efficiently in that language and processes inputs through it, our mother tongue serves the same purpose. We navigate the world through this language, and through it we process, permute, and engage in rumination and critical thinking.

Whatever memory and schema (a cognitive framework that helps individuals organise and interpret new information by relating it to existing knowledge and experiences) we have is primarily built in one's mother tongue. When we approach something novel or unknown, we try to understand it through our memories and existing database. Suppose we encounter something new-a thing we aren't acquainted with and that is not registered in our database we often say, "It looks like that" or "It's similar to that," referring to already known things to decode and understand the new. After attempting to understand it, we place it in the same group as those known things to which we find it similar, and hence our attitude and bias towards the new thing-at least until we understand it fully or identify it. differently is shaped in accordance with the attitude we have towards the pre-existing category with which we have grouped it.

We think, feel, and imagine intrinsically in a language, by default and with the greatest ease and that is our mother tongue. As my language develops and becomes more nuanced, so does my thinking and its complexity. At times, our incapacity to use language and the poverty of language become limitations of our imagination. In our mother tongue, we carry out most of our abstract thinking and emotions, understand them, and express them most efficiently. It is the language in which we can play language games most effectively, the language in which we engage in dialectics with ourselves. Our highest consciousness and perception are shaped and built by our mother tongue, and our conscience is also shaped by and formed within it. If we attempt to discard this identity, we would have to dissolve or unlearn our entire schema the very tool we use to navigate the world. Hence, it is impossible to overlook this aspect, much like class.

SUBTRACTIVE BILINGUALISM AND HOMELESSNESS

"Subtractive bilingualism refers to a phenomenon where an individual learns a second language at the expense of their first language, leading to a decline in proficiency or even loss of the first language. This often occurs in environments where the second language is more dominant and used frequently, which can negatively impact the maintenance of the first language." In the process of subtractive bilingualism, the mother tongue of a person is institutionally taken away from them. The dominant language, which is mostly a requirement of the local or global market, is forced upon people. The learning of this dominant language is seen as a symbol of status and is rewarded with acceptance and reverence, alongside economic and occupational advantages, while the mother tongue faces neglect and diminished relevance as it no longer serves the market. Learning that language proficiently is then seen as a luxury only the rich can afford, rather than a necessity to remain rooted in one's culture.

The result is profoundly destructive to the cultural creativity of the group, and it also adversely impacts the cognitive development of individuals. Individuals literally lose the specific sights and sounds associated with their native roots and become cognitively and culturally untethered from their own history. It is not just the erasure of a language and its day-to-day use, but the erasure of personal history and the severing of the linguistic bridge to their ancestors. It is a kind of sensory amputation, wiping out an entire universe of human experience that is stored in the language. Without language and its symbols, we are trapped in the present, and we have no history, heritage, legacy, or shared memory of co-existence, nor any accumulated experience and knowledge, as it is language that retains and transmits all of these. It is language that allows us to pull the past and the future into the present reality; otherwise, we would be trapped in the immediate moment like animals. Culture is a shared social space where meanings are produced, validated, and exchanged among members of society; it is a space where people build meaning together. Language and human communication do not merely exist in reality but actively connect contexts.

Language is the tool that brings our internal identities, our feelings, and our cultural beliefs into the present shared moment. When one speaks, one actively manifests one's culture's moral universe in real time. Hence, language is the vehicle of culture, and at the same time, it is a cultural symbol in itself. If one loses access to and proficiency in a language, one loses it all. Once institutions, markets, or authority shake the linguistic foundations of a society, they effectively banish people from their own territory their mental nation.

As our entire consciousness, which is written in a language, constitutes our mental nation, losing access to the language, its accumulated experiences, contexts, symbols, and memories, amounts to being banished from one's own country, one's own home. At this point, when our ties with history, collective experience, and moral universe are severed, we are reduced to mere puppets, easily made to do what authority dictates. With no history and no collective aspiration left, we are trapped in the present and become incapable of navigating the world or reality. We are reduced to commodities and subjects. 

CRISIS OF CULTURE AND CAPITALISM

Culture is the enduring way of life, beliefs, and traditions of a group, while fashion is (mostly) a fleeting, visual expression of style. Culture shapes identity over generations, whereas fashion changes rapidly as a reflection of current cultural, social, and economic trends.

Not all fashions are adverse in nature. For instance, the fashion of speaking up, of not normalising abuse, and of respecting differences and equality is not only positive but also necessary and timely. A fundamental difference between culture and fashion remains that culture possesses an intimacy, soulfulness, and connectedness arising from the soul (আত্মিকতা), and culture is something that needs to be cultivated regularly. It may be riyaz, painting, or cooking a particular cuisine.

Culture comes naturally to us; it emerges intrinsically from our schema and worldview, which are themselves shaped by it. Its elements are embedded in our thinking, in our desires and yearnings, and hence it is reflected in the art forms we enjoy or engage in, as well as in what we consume. It is our default, unfeigned taste (সহজাত রুচিবোধ)-what we genuinely love.

Fashion, in contrast, has to be followed and adapted; one has to carry it even if it doesn't naturally suit them or come to them organically. Excessive indulgence in fashion-the fashion of consumer culture, mass culture, and those engineered by capitalism including the commodification of greed, fetishes, ease, and everything possible, from sexual fantasies to distorted definitions of success from being educated and humane to being rich, from having human values and a cooperative mentality to obnoxious competition for vanity and power, from the reflection of our minds in poetries and ghazals to fleeting fashions and trends dictating what we think while shrinking imagination. and creativity completely can all be traced to the poverty of culture in individuals and in society as a whole..

Culture is recorded in the mother tongue, and capitalism, or the state machinery run by corporates, targets one's language first to shake one's foundations. After successfully severing one's roots from one's culture by making one forget one's language-the vehicle, the symbol, and the retainer of one's culture capitalism banishes them from their mental nation. Once they become refugees in their own land, they can be forced into anything. As cultural decay starts within a linguistic group, the poverty of culture creates an emptiness of mind, a crisis of identity, and a need for something some identity, aesthetics, or culture to hold on to, to give contents for one's thoughts and also to find reflections of it.

That is the moment when consumer culture, mass culture, and the fads and fashions which capitalists sell take over the entire society, which they have successfully converted into mental refugees a community with no history, legacy, accumulated experience, or shared moral universe. Capitalism does what it has always done: it monetises this manufactured poverty of culture as it pushes us into consumerism and commodifies everything possible while establishing materialism as the norm.

Does it stop here? No, the ruins of our culture still exist in our schema-the bits and fragments of things we have heard from our grandparents, but never cared to learn about, as it didn't seem necessary for our CVs or careers. Maybe a type of clothing, rituals of marriage, or a food that we last ate before our grandmother passed away. All these suppressed fragments yearn for reflection in some form. It is called nostalgia, and we turn nostalgic often, thinking about various bits and aspects of our culture which we never cared to nurture or preserve. Capitalism monetises nostalgia as well and sells us back a means to feel good by engaging with the ruins of our culture for a day or a few hours-not authentically or with the motive of giving us back our culture, but just enough to keep it alive and breathing so that it can be monetised for the rest of our lives. From traditional thalis in restaurants to branding pickles which our grandmothers made at home, to organising "proper traditional weddings" for a hefty amount, to chai cafës imitating North Kolkata's rock-er adda-these are all part of the same process. This too has turned into a fleeting fashion, requiring no cultivation but only random engagement and the expenditure of monemoney. And after popularising the trend of flats and apartments and bulldozing our houses, we now go to homestays in bonedi bari (traditional houses) and pay to observe their rituals like foreigners. Indeed, we are foreigners-but in our own land. As I call it: mental refugees with no history.