As world leaders gather at the old Munich Wehrkunde today with some declaring a renewed commitment to a common cause, Talleyrand’s mind wanders to the notebooks of Andrzej Bobkowski and some thoughts on language:
It turns out, in effect, that the Chinese language and its grammar are much more logical than the grammar of Western civilizations…. Most basically, Western languages, by virtue of their plasticity and the ability to twist certain words and – what’s worse – attach them to ideas they don’t perfectly match, are more abstract and less apt for the expression of exact ideas. In expressing ideas, all Western languages run the danger quite simply of missing the target, especially when it comes to abstractions, because each one of our words has a large margin on both sides. That’s why it’s not surprising that when it comes to abstract thinking and abstract ideas, the same written text can be interpreted in endless ways….
The Chinese ideograms, which is to say words that express exactly what we lack words to express, diminish the possibility of ideological misunderstandings – and fist fights. Things we interpret in different ways and on which we are unable to agree, thus leading us to ‘impose an understanding’ on each other in a purely external and painful manner, the Chinese materialize in words that enable them to move more freely in certain areas of thought and thereby avoid conflicts or limit them to struggles within clearly defined spheres…. One thing is certain, namely, that it’s easier in Chinese to express MEANING, and that’s already significant and spares many misunderstandings. The lack of such precision in words is particularly apparent today, when certain words and concepts linked to them have become so fluid that the same sentences can be uttered on two separate occasions, regardless moreover of the speaker’s intellectual standpoint. The West today perhaps best illustrates the parable of the Tower of Babel. In fact, the West has gone farther – marvels occur within the confines of a single langauge…. The use of certain words, such as ‘Freedom’, ‘Justice’, ‘Democracy’, and the ‘Person’, has become impossible without miles of commentary, without defining the speaker’s intellectual position, his doctrinal adherence, religion, origins, grandfather, father, mom, personal preferences, brand of toothpaste, most frequent dreams, and shoe size. Without such commentary, each of these concepts can represent thousands of different things, millions of freedoms, and billions of laws. (13 August 1943)