If you follow the news on TV or on the
internet
or in newspapers and in magazines or other outlets, you're sure to be
familiar with a staple of the digital age: when items go
viral - which is to say when a piece posted to
X or Facebook or YouTube etc is
viewed
a simply ginormous number of times. An item going viral
indicates people are talking about something. Then when it becomes
newsworthy an item has gone viral, it's people talking
about what people are talking about over and over and over
again a ginormous number of times. This is essentially what I
distinguish as talking about talking about.
The huge numbers of such viral posted items, is evidence that we love
talking about talking about. Entire multibillion dollar social media
industries and commentators commenting on multibillion
dollar social media industries, are founded on (and provide eloquent
testimony to) this global phenomenon.
Now, in order to say something useful about the distinction "talking
about talking about", I'd like to say something about distinctions in
general, and about the act of distinguishing itself, and about the way
we listen when something is newly distinguished. The way we're
thrown to listen when something is newly distinguished
(actually, the way we listen all the time, but
especially the way we listen when something is newly
distinguished) is like
something's
wrong.
Listening like
something's wrong
is at the root of being skeptical - whether it's a healthy
skepticism or not. Look and see if it's true for you, or not.
It's all pervasive. It's pernicious. And there's no power in
listening new distinctions skeptically ie as if
something's wrong.
So (to be clear), there's
nothing wrong
with talking about talking about. It's simply a distinction ie it's
simply something you can distinguish. When you distinguish something,
it doesn't make it better than something else. When you
distinguish something newly, it doesn't make something older or earlier
wrong. It's simply a new distinction.
When you start looking at talking about talking about as a new
distinction, you'll see it's everywhere in our daily lives. You'll also
see how we, without any
rigor,
have elevated it to the highest realms of our lives and our cultures
where it's even become embedded in our spiritual beliefs and in our
faiths and in all that we cherish and hold most precious. Look: in all
those bibles, there are accounts of people talking about
God,
yes? When we, then, with the very best of
intentions,
are talking about what they're talking about in all those bibles, we
are in effect talking about talking about
God,
yes? There it is again: even religion, even that which we cherish and
hold most precious is, for the most part, talking about talking about -
if not merely just talking about.
It's everywhere. And there's
nothing wrong
with that. It simply goes with the territory of being human.
But it is cause to pause for
reflection.
For example, is there any other possibility for speaking, is there any
distinction for
language
that isn't merely talking about, or isn't merely talking about talking
about? Talking about, and talking about talking about, both live in the
domain of what we human beings do. And it's clear we do a
lot of both of them. But they don't live in the domain of
who we human beings
are.
That's a separate domain. And it's a separate distinction.
Here's the difference:
Talking about, and especially talking about talking about, deploy
language
descriptively but not generatively. In particular, talking
about, and talking about talking about, deploy
language
in a way in which the
presence
of
who we really are
isn't required. Another way of articulating this is talking about,
and talking about talking about, deploy
language
in a way which doesn't require
who we really are
to come forth.
It could be argued that this essential distinction which differentiates
between
language
deployed in talking about and talking about talking about, and
language
deployed in bringing forth, in expressing, in generating
who we really are,
is the foundation, is the bedrock on which
Werner Erhard's body of
workstands.