I just read a fascinating interview between Dr. David Boulton and Dr. John Searle about how language influences, or rather creates civilisation and defines humanity. I'd love to hear your opinions on this:
Link to interview

Very provocative, CW. I especially liked this:

"That you cannot only think in ways that you could not possibly think if you did not have the written word, but you can now think about the thinking that you do with the written word. There is danger in this, and the danger is that the enormous expressive and self-referential capacities of the written word, that is, the capacities to keep referring to referring to referring, will reach a point where you lose contact with the real world. And this, believe me, is very common in universities. There's a technical name for it, I don't know if we can use it on television, it's called 'bullshit.'"

Isn't that true?!

Right! Very true! I also thought it was interesting what he said about publishing and how there is no way anyone could possibly read all the stuff that's out there anymore. Boy, I certainly sympathize with that!

And with the online information, it is nearly impossible to have a handle on the accuracy of the information. Publishers used to at least attempt to do this. Now you find data being quoted by Blogs and Web sites that have absolutely no supportive evidence. I think we all have to become even more skeptical of what we read...and we must teach this to children.