Language, the Ultimate Psychedelic
How language changes the way we think
Magic mushrooms, mescaline, ibogaine, salvia, DMT, MDA, LSD, 2CB, SCI, and MDMA are to languages what a rowboat is to a Boeing 777.
Look, I don’t mind rowboats. They're great fun, but the 777 ensures trips that shape our world. Whereas rowboats function best with a small number of close friends, 777s give you a chance to communicate with people across the—
I'm dropping this analogy before I start writing about planes. The point is language changes the way we think. And I can already see the culture war-obsessed swooping in and arguing about whether or not using the words like "banned" vs "blacklisted" or "manhole" vs "utility hole" can change anything.
BTW, this entire time I thought manhole referred to a male anus, but anyway, I digress. This article is not about whether PC language can change how people think and behave. I started this newsletter with pieces like How to Understand Culture and WEIRD People, Japanese Food for Thought, and The Quick Culture Guide for Global Business, but lately, I've gotten hung up on politics. I spend a lot of time thinking about how to create a better future, but for the rest of the article, I'm keeping politics out of it.
You can find an updated and improved version of this article on bornwithoutborders.world.
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Ghost lets me publish like I think: across cultures, languages, and formats.
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Casually dying at this bit “For instance, frequent gym-goers who fall for Joe Rogan's supplement advertisements (like myself) can distinguish between a whey protein isolate fart, hemp protein toots, rice protein air biscuits, soy protein gas, and pea protein isolate butt trumpets. The hardcore can even tell who is a vegetarian, vegan, lactose intolerant, or gluten intolerant. However, this is simply observational data, and I have yet to receive funding to conduct double-blind procedures.” 😂😂
Thanks so much for the shoutout, Nolan! (For the record, sometimes politics creeps into my stuff from the side - https://everythingisamazing.substack.com/p/three-ways-that-kindness-can-save - but yes, it's not overt, because I don't have the ability of Mónica Guzmán from that piece to tackle it head-on - I'd much rather be sly/cowardly about it (unless someone wanders in spoiling for a fight rather than a conversation, in which case I'm very happy Substack lets me act like an autocrat)...
So much here. Thank you for those videos on the Greek language and blue, because - yes, I looked at that while researching my season on colour, and it's such a tangled issue now, possibly even bordering on a philosophical one. (William Gladstone of all people wrote a highly influential piece about it, and people have been chewing it over ever since.) I haven't chased that rabbit-hole deep enough to feel comfortable writing about it yet, so I appreciate the extra material here...
And yes - smells and language! It does seem like English at least is relatively barren of language concerning olfaction, so much so that popular wine tasters on TV regularly get mocked for shoehorning in non-smell metaphors to cover some of the gaps in their descriptions. That alone feels like such an interesting thing to study at length...