Why Definitions Matter
Greetings and good day to you all and welcome to the mind for life podcast. I’m glad that you have joined us. My name is Jeff Bogaczyk and I will be your host for the next several minutes as we explore in greater depth the idea of “Why definitions matter?” If you listened last week, you have an idea of what this podcast is about and that it is based upon the idea that how we think – not simply what we think about or the content of our thoughts, but the patterns and the structure of the ways in which we think have mostly been handed down to us rather than been chosen by us through our experiences in life. Our parents, our teachers and friends growing up, the systems within our culture and many others all have contributed to affecting the ways in which we think.
What we want to do in this podcast is to help make that process, which is typically hidden and happens to us under the surface of our awareness – plain and evident. We want to begin to make intentional and proactive choices about how we are going to see, understand and experience ourselves and the world around us. Why? Why is this important? Well first of all, I would say that a negative or dysfunctional mental attitudes about ourselves or about other races, religions or nationalities obviously influence our actions. This is how stereotypes affect our actions – the ways in which we treat others.
A well-known example is the situation regarding the Jewish people and the Nazi regime during World War 2. The Nazi government had succeeded in convincing the mass population that Jews were sub-human. That they were an inferior race and needed to be exterminated. Through propaganda and other means, the Nazis were able to conduct the mass extermination of Jews and to do it, they had to get people – to convince them that it was ok, that Jews were inferior to the Aryan race and needed to be eliminated from the planet. This is how a really bad mental concept can have absolutely catastrophic effects.
Another infamous example is the 3/5 compromise during the 1787 US constitutional convention, a compromise was reached between southern state delegates and northern state delegates to define a slave as 3/5 the worth of a free human. Of course this was because the south wanted to count all slaves for population so they could have a greater representation in the legislature and government and the north, of course didn’t want the south to have more legislative power. The compromise was about government representation – to consider slaves as 3/5 the worth of a free person – but what it really did was define one human as less than another – and this was done as a matter of government policy.
The fact that there were discussions and policy decisions on defining the worth of certain groups of people is incredibly disturbing, but even more so is the consideration of what that policy and those definitions do for the actions of people toward those groups. It’s not difficult to treat people as less than human once they are defined as less than human and even more so, the government states it as a matter of policy.
This is incredibly similar to what is going on now with the abortion debate. Our government and certain groups refuse to define an unborn baby as a child – as a human life. We have even substituted another term – fetus – so we don’t have to use the word baby. The ambiguous aspect of the term fetus, a mass of tissue – does what? It does exactly what a 3/5 definition of a slave did. It does the same thing that the Nazi dehumanization of Jews did. It establishes within our thoughts a designation about that person – a definition that says they are not “as valuable” as we are, or as the mother is, or as the free men were, or as the Nazi’s were. And once the definition is accepted, it allows and invites a certain type of treatment of that person. Once Jews were considered inferior, it was no problem to have them exterminated so that the supreme race wasn’t compromised. Once slaves were only granted 3/5 human status, and before that not even considered human, it allowed all manner of inhumane treatment. And once an unborn child is considered an ambiguous mass of tissue – a fetus – rather than a baby, extinguishing that life is nothing more than removing a tumor or another unwanted tissue mass from the body.
This is happening again now in the immigration debate. Governments and nations need laws about citizenry and immigration, I get that, but we must be careful that the “illegal immigrant” doesn’t begin to be defined as “other” than us and in that sense, less valuable or less human.
What I’m describing here is how the language or definitions we use force, limit, allow and prevent our thinking about and our actions in the world and we need to be careful about how we allow others to define people, things and even ourselves for us. We will talk more about this but let me leave you with a few questions for you to think about – how do you define yourself? With what words? How do you define others who may be “different” from you? Those definitions form the basis for how you think about yourself, how you think about others, how you treat yourself and how you treat others. Don’t just accept the definitions that have been handed down to you, from past influences – parents, friends, peers, teachers, society, or culture, but endeavor to intentionally choose those definitions, knowing they are the foundation for how you think about and ultimately treat others. To act humanely, you must begin with defining someone as human and an understanding and consideration of the inherent worth and value of the individual.
Jesus, in the New Testament when asked about the two greatest commandments in the law, said Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and then gave the second one, which he said is just like the first – love your neighbor as yourself. Think about that. What does it mean to love your neighbor as yourself? I don’t have time to go into depth but to simply say what CS Lewis said – that it means to consider others as a “self” in the same way you consider yourself a self. In the same way we typically consider ourselves worthy of some inherent value as a “self,” we are to think of other in the same way. In the same way we love ourselves, despite the mistakes and failures, we are to love others. You know that regardless of our actions, our failures, our shortcomings, we love ourselves because we are just that yourself. And we are to do the same for others – to define them as a self, worthy of the same love and treatment that we give ourselves.
Well, that’s all for today. Thanks for listening. This has been the mind for life podcast. You can always follow us on the blog “mindforlife.org.” Feel free to comment, ask questions, or make suggestions for topics. You can also join our email list for updates and news.
Thanks again and as you go through this week, think about how you are defining your experience and the people around you – and make a conscious choice to define others as human beings, selves in CS Lewis terms who hold inherent value by just being them.
Have a great week!
C.S. Lewis – Mere Christianity:
