Category: Post

4.1 The inner

The following paragraphs focus on the inner part of human beings so that this writing emphasise the necessity to think about the development of the inner part of human beings, not just thinking about the policies or regulation implemented in society. In order to think about how we can deal with the problems around expression and the difference of context or background among peoples, the following writing gives us at least an idea to think about.

In the world at the beginning of 21st century, when the topic of freedom of expression comes to the table of discussion, typically the left or human rights advocates raise their voice to claim the importance of freedom of expression. Although the right to speech and express opinions is fundamental one, it often deepens the tension between those who claim the importance of freedom of expression and those who are in the opposite position. This is particularly seen in Europe as well as Asia for example in 2010s. This type of cases may repeatedly occur, and it made me think about how we can alleviate the tension among people of different opinions. In the tense situations where two opposite parties have opposite opinions each other, it is not easy, or I would say difficult to soften the tension.

In order to cope with this kind of situation, I would like to focus on a concept that human beings can share in the deeper part of their mind. What I focus on in this part is the concept of sentiment. It is related to the inner part of human beings that triggers care about others. When it comes to freedom of expression, many debates tend to talk about policies and regulation such as improving the policies on online platforms or regulating hate speech by new policies. They are outside human beings and involved in the improvement of environment in which people live. However, I don’t think we only have to talk about the environmental policies, and I feel the necessity to talk about the inside of human beings as well, that is to say the inner part of human beings.

One of the concepts that is related to the inner aspect is thymos. It appears in The Republic by Plato(1). The concise explanation of thymos is that “Thymos is something like an innate human sense of justice: people believe that they have a certain worth, and when other people act as though they are worth less—when they do not recognize their worth at its correct value—then they become angry”(2) and it “refers to a part of the soul that invests objects with value”(3).

The sentences describe that thymos is “an innate human sense of justice”, which signifies that it is more related to human nature, and mentioned a certain relationship with anger. Additionally saying, another concept which is dignity, is often related to the discussion of expression. The dignity is related to the inner part of self and “‘Dignity’ refers to a person’s sense of self-worth; ‘in-dignation’ arises when something happens to offend that sense of worth”(4).

As regards this thymos, what should be kept in mind is that it applies not only to oneself, but also to others. This is to say that the former is the case when a person feels anger when another undertreats them, the latter is that a person feels anger when, for instance, their friend is undertreated by others.

When those who are believed by some persons are targeted by the expressions of others and those expressions are perceived as uncomfortable, there’s a tension between those who have beliefs and those who claim their right to express. Human nature of feeling anger if one is undertreated has been talked in a topic of Thymos, the anger arises in things related not only to oneself but also adaptable to others(5).

This adaptability towards others matters when those who or which have been receiving faith from the citizens are the target of expressions by others. As far as one’s dignity is maintained, one may not take action in seeking it. If not in the enough level one considers, one may further seek. Dignity applies to the ones who have respect in another, and another is irrespectfully treated by others, for example in religious context.

The topic of the inward in oneself has been profound in philosophy. Particularly, the link between the inwardness of oneself and freedom is not separable. The inner part of oneself is the unalienable sphere by the physical force. This topic triggers curiosity in looking at the perspective that “Ancient world alienation in all its varieties—from stoicism to epicureanism down to hedonism and cynicism—had been inspired by a deep mistrust of the word and moved by a vehement impulse to withdraw from worldly involvement, from the trouble and pain it inflicts, into the security of an inward realm in which the self is exposed to nothing but itself”(6). Rule and law put in place are outward factors surrounding persons. In order to have a better society for the public, the efforts of government are welcomed, but eventually “The care of Souls cannot belong to the Civil Magistrate, because his Power consists only in outward force”(7). The growth of the inward has to be the true contemplation by oneself, it hasn’t been done by coercion from outward. Coercion is often denounced, and freedom of conscience is protected in many countries. Even human’s mind has not been fully captured in details by science as of the beginning of 21st century.

There are different types of thoughts. Some believe that “all aspects of mentality (including conscious awareness) are merely features of the computational activity of the brain”, that is why they believe that “electronic computers should also be capable of consciousness, and would conjure up this quality as soon as they acquire sufficient computational power and are programmed in an appropriate way”(8). What Penrose thinks about it is that “whatever consciousness is, it’s not a computation”(9).

If one spends some time in their life, one has felt a variety of sentiments in a variety of situations. The feeling of imagining the situation as I were in that circumstance is what I respect for human beings.

In the following part on sentiment, I put focus on how we cultivate the inside of human beings such as sentiment or mind as the inner part of human beings is related to the understanding of expression as well as of how others would feel from expression one makes. It is to talk about the sentiment of those who make expression and those who receive expression, and also others living in community.

(1) Francis Fukuyama, The end of history and the last man (New York: Free Press, 2006), p. 163.

(2) Francis Fukuyama, The end of history and the last man (New York: Free Press, 2006), p.165.

(3) Francis Fukuyama, The end of history and the last man (New York: Free Press, 2006), p.165.

(4) Francis Fukuyama, The end of history and the last man (New York: Free Press, 2006), p.165.

(5) Francis Fukuyama, The end of history and the last man (New York: Free Press, 2006), pp.171-172.

(6) Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2018), p.310.

(7) John Locke, Second Treatise of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), p.129.

(8) Roger Penrose, The Emperor’s New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and The Laws of Physics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), p.xv. Which Roger Penrose disbelieves in.

(9) ‘Roger Penrose: Physics of Consciousness and the Infinite Universe | Lex Fridman Podcast #85’, Lex Fridman, published 31 March 2020, accessed 27 July 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orMtwOz6Db0. Around 40:20-.

3.3 Action

Taking action which is different from the conventional has two senses at least, one is that the rare action that one takes is the conventional for the person as one bases the context which is different from other people. The context itself is different for the one from others, and the action comes from one’s original context is ordinary to oneself but rare to others. Another is that one is aware of the norm of society but disagrees with it, that is why one attempts to get diverted from it. Action often takes place when one tries to change the present state or when not convinced by the current social order. One consciously takes their action towards society. In addition, they take action more reactionally in the sense that they had no choice to react given the situation which is going on in the society.

The actions have effect in their community: “When people speak, they are disclosing important aspects of themselves to the world, staking out their own place in a society that consists of millions of distinctive individuals, each defined by his or her principles, values, convictions, and beliefs”(1). Speech is a type of action that claims oneself to the outer world of oneself. When some present something progressive to the world, there is certain possibility of backlash arising from it. Taking action against the conventional has its risk. That often comes from those who prefer the conventional contrary to the one presented. Also, among those who, not prefer the conventional but, are dubious against the idea may oppose it. The stronger the power which moves toward one direction, the more intense the reaction could be. If that is little by little incorporated in the society, the increasing number of people may come to accept it without questioning rigidly, with the probability of conflict decreased. This acceptance is not necessarily what one explicitly, or consciously, admits, it is presumably more frequent to take it for granted without questioning, that is to say getting accustomed to it.

There’s a variety of expression in general. Although the term expression is often used for writing, speech, and painting, it can be taken in a wider meaning. It doesn’t have to be limited within speech and publication, how one behaves is a certain kind of expression. The reason why to take the word in a wider meaning is to suggest behaviours and actions of persons can be recognised as expression and it has more general effect towards society than the limited sense of the word. Although it may be better to use the word in its limited sense in discussing the topics of freedom of expression so that the arguments align with others, it is written in a wider sense so that this indicates the wider link with the general life of persons. Expression is required to change the present state. It is not merely conscious expression but also unconsciously one expresses based on what they perceived. The unconscious reaction is contained in the category of expression, contrary to action which is, not always but, more conscious behaviour.

In terms of the interaction with the world they live in, people’s behaviours are related to the past ones. Things put in the world by the present or past members of community are used. A number of agents involved in a person change the direction of their behaviour. If one has met an admirable person, one’s activities after that may have been greatly influenced. Intangible rules by which people spend their life are accumulation of the past experiences, in other words they are lessons from the past to live a better life for coming generations.

Context could be recognised as accumulation of actions. Person’s action is connected to the context. When one moves their right leg forward to move ahead, it should be accepted if that is to go to a grocery store, but if that is to do wrongdoing, people who noticed it would stop him. The same action can have different context.

Action moves the reality to a certain direction. It can be described as the power to push and the power to pull of context: the former is to expand the sphere progressively which applies to activism, even if it is unconventional, one attempts to expand the frontier; the latter is to pull the edge of the sphere back inside which is more conservative and a resistance to the unconventional action taken by another. Apart from the manipulation of sphere, pulling has another sense that is to pull new things into the norm as such that pulling an interesting cultural product of another country to their own. Also, some sets of norm disappear as time passes by in some cases.

Persons’ action is connected to community, and its norms. In community, it has certain stream of thoughts such as conservative, liberal, globalism, and nationalism. When some group of more globalism moves the norm of their society towards globalism, other group of more nationalism or anti-globalism would pull the norm back to their own end so that the norm of their society doesn’t get diverted that much from what they recognise acceptable. Towards the direction that one prefers, they make action of one’s view. It is also a matter of how society architectures the way in which the reaction caused by one’s action is flowed. For example, in terms of expression, the platforms may create the structure that prevents the spread of misinformation. Restricting every direction is too restrictive and doesn’t progress the society. The early progress of human rights culture has been fostered by the human rights activists who unconventionally questioned the norms that had been oppressing the minorities and the rights of women, for example. The human rights advocates who think the violation of the rights of certain groups of people are not right, they make protests or start movement towards its change. Though there are cases that need to be advocated for the development of society even if that is different from the conventional norms, one needs to be careful of whether it truly has benefits to the public.

If try to go beyond conventional norm, there should be certain public benefit. If one goes against the conventional norm, just violating the dignity of persons harms the society. Society changes over the history with the demand from the citizenry to change the wrong aspect of society in which they live in. It had been taken for granted for some time that “The smallest acquaintance with human life in the middle ages, shows how supremely natural the dominion of the feudal nobility over men of low condition appeared to the nobility themselves, and how unnatural the conception seemed, of a person of the inferior class claiming equality with them, or exercising authority over them”(2). The less powerful positions of certain groups of people such as racial groups or women and the activism to protect their rights and dignity is the examples that some asserted the wrong norms prevalent in previous ages and tried to correct it.

People’s speech is limited by the context, against which some try to expand the sphere of speech. If that is radical, often they cause backlash. Those who speak of what is different from the conventional of society are often criticised. Their publications are tried to be suspended. A shared norm is to work to dislike a certain sort of behaviour. Where justice is too strong, once one happened to have unjust one, even if it is slightly unjust from what has been in the history, one may commit the disappearance of oneself if noticed the deadlock of one’s situation. Justice narrows acceptable conduct. It feels a certain progress coming out of the human rights culture and advocation of justice by liberals, it has been moving towards the good direction. In the meantime, how society with the progress and implantation of the concept handles the deeds which is a bit diverted from justice.

People experience and learn the custom of their society, weaving the threads of custom towards the ideal point which is changeable over time. If radically try to change it, it collides with those who do not agree. One may say that to the extent that doesn’t offend the dignity of another, one can challenge going beyond the present paradigm. In the plain state, when people take actions such as speaking, if not offending they can exercise their power to that direction. The standard is based on the present life circumstance, which means the plain state of plus minus zero at each time, though it is a continual thread of history.

Beyond activism, there’s a choice that one chooses not to express though one can express the view to the public. The choice is because, for example, one can imagine that expressing as one wants is offensive to certain groups of people. People often find the necessity to make action in a certain way. If it is societally obvious to hurt the feelings of others, it would be better to think about the publicness of that publication.

Oppression is attempted to oppress the actions, by which more and more power is charged at the bottom of the oppressed. Not everything is straight, but some are twisted. Distortions in society can cause that sort of twist in society itself, that can get unleashed unexpectedly. They are absorbed as distortions in persons which in spiral causes distortion in others.

(1) Jeremy Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014), p. 161. In the page that Waldron talks about C. Edwin Baker.

(2) John Stuart Mill, On Liberty and The Subjection of Women (London: Penguin, 2006), p.145.

3.2.2 Context

Looking at objects from different context is often seen. One of them is that in humanities, people reinterpret the old works written by authors who wrote them in different social context. Even, to quote some passage from other authors’ works are to pull the sentences, and often context, of another and to connect it to the writing of one’s own.

The difference of language is not limited to the case of, for example, English and French. It also includes the case that even if they both speak English, if what they have in their background is different what they mean by using the same kind of words is different. Word is a box in which one can put the meaning into it.

The difference of context can be explained by the plus and quus functions. These functions were explained by Kripke. He described that a person, who has “never performed” the “computation” of “68+57” but has computed others in the past whose “numbers smaller than 57”, responded the answer of “68+57” is “125”(3). He meets another person who claims that the answer “should have been ‘5’!”, and suggests the misinterpretation(4).

Context changes over time in terms of social surroundings including norms, technology, and the changing characters of persons.

Depending on context, the meaning of a word changes.

Apart from the societal view, in individual view, context partly consists of one’s philosophy. As one reread the same book which they have read before, they may notice a new finding which they haven’t got in the previous reading because of their changing character and thoughts over time. Also, one can point out the wrong of another, the person told can recognise it but may not fully understand at the moment in their mind and may understand when their surroundings changed.

Some people come to become stubborn when getting older that is because they are surrounded by solid context from their past experiences. Their views are more fixed than when they were younger, having more factors that underpin them.

People do not talk to the person in front of them especially when they first meet. They talk with people of similar category they have met before. Categorisation and what is required to be said is processed in themselves. People change what they talk, imagining what is in necessity there. That is to say that they presuppose those who listen to it. Humour is in part what kind of speech you make towards a given context.

Whether one recognise it is a lie or not depends on the circumstance. Lying is often perceived negatively, however in some case it also is recognised as not merely negative, that is to say whose case is not able to be just condemned as the action of lying. Lying has arbitrariness in the expression. It is not simple failure or success, lying is different. Deception is intendedly to play different linguistic game between them. In addition, whether what one talked is perceived as arrogant or not depends on what the receiver thinks.

Take the meaning of words superficially, and claim that what it is written becomes an excuse in some cases. It attempts to take advantage of literal sense. The word “literally” is used because people often do not use the word literally.

In the societal perspective, a case is that interpretation of constitution changes depending on the time it is read. Around constitutional issue, in the late 18th century in which US needed to abolish the Articles of Confederation to have the new Constitution in place, their basis on that move was what’s written in the Declaration of Independence that “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness”(1). The “rule was valid not because it was found in some authoritative rule book, but because it had become taken for granted by the Framers’ generation. Not by everybody, but by enough”(2). This rule is not likely to be accepted as valid in a different age, and demonstrates the relationship with social surrounding.

As social surroundings change, technological advancement such as computer enabled the rapid spread of information from one place to another. It can be spread in a moment, and peoples’ expressions are abundant in the lives of persons.

The negative aspects also need to be paid attention to. The problem of disinformation is one of them, which is also a problem of informational structure of how to manage the flows of information on the platforms. Besides, when speech is globalised, peoples of different contexts face each other. Compared with the previous ages, it is more likely for different peoples to interact each other with less context shared. It in some cases is beneficial to the development of some intelligence as such that scientific discovery can be shared rapidly in a global world through the communication tools, though some conflicts also arise.

While I feel that it is necessary to spend time in updating the policies put in place in our community, even if we (try to) erase hate speech from public places such as the walls that we see in a city or town, the prejudices or hate which at least partly are the cause of hate speech doesn’t get disappeared from society. In this respect too, the necessity to look at the inner part of oneself to cultivate their compassion towards others is required. Especially, the feeling of what if I were in that position is an essence for having this value in society.

The true creates the context. A true philosopher makes people aware of the important ideas or perspectives in their society, some of which they were even not aware of. Then, they make a history of ideas.

Footnotes

(1) Lawrence Lessig, Fidelity & Constraint: How the Supreme Court Has Read the American Constitution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp.12-13.

(2) Lawrence Lessig, Fidelity & Constraint: How the Supreme Court Has Read the American Constitution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), p.14.

(3) Saul A. Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1982), p.8.

(4) Saul A. Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1982), pp.8-9.

3.2.1 Context

What I would like to emphasise is that the difference of context or background among different groups of people causes the confrontation in a society. When it comes to the debates around the topic of freedom of expression, I do believe that the context of expression is what should be paid attention to more. In order to progress the debates in this domain, I make my argument on the context of expression. That is because what people perceive from an expression differs, if they have different backgrounds. In other words, if context differs, even if the expression is the same, what people perceive from the expression could differ. Besides, even if both persons claim the same argument, if what each experienced in their life is different, it could be different. This is a complex aspect of expression, but it is worth being taken into account provided that this aspect of expression causes tension among different groups of people in a society.

In a society of large population, there is a variety of people with different background. Of the limited time one has spent, they are not likely to imagine all the patterns of situation which persons in the same community face. Even the number of people crossing boundary of nation-states is enormous. In that situation, regarding the interpretation of an object, it could vary by each person. The community of larger scale is difficult to maintain compared with the smaller one as in the larger community it is more likely that what each person believes could differ and they often organise their own group that they share the same purpose, and others organise their own groups that the purposes are different.

Those groups could in some extreme cases are going to be a divide in a national scale. One of the particularly important differences among people is what happiness means to each member of the community. Some would seek the wealth of capital that maximises their happiness with abundant materials in their life, others would not feel happiness from that type of wealth and they rather feel happy when they spend their time in calmer way such as being surrounded by nature. In addition, when community is larger, there are different groups of people with different background emerges, these are represented by educational, geographical background. The latter geographical background means that the difference of geography has different culture in one’s background. Some culture is tied with the geographical factors such as abundance of nature or what has happened in a particular place and how it affected in the region over time and how the effect remains today. Where one was raised and spent his life so far, and that is sort of time and place matter affects the context in which one lives. Plus, the different living standards, that is different living conditions, such as the income would little by little differentiate the interests of people living in the same nation-state. There are different units as a globe, a continent, a nation-state, a province, etc. It depends on to what extent they would like to govern the region, but if it gets larger the more difficult to implement a kind of law which has legal and illegal distinction given the differences in each scale of community.

It would be much easier to refrain from having conflicts if the community is small and homogenous as it is with the people seeking the similar interests. However as the world is globalised in a sense that development of transportation system and information became available to huge number of people living on the earth and securing the freedom to choose the way they want to live, at least some in the world moves to the direction that the flow of persons into other communities and diversity in a community needs to be tolerated rather than enclosing the communities.

In the complex world where a vast number of persons look at the same expression, it is viewed by those who have different contexts. When controversy occurs, the different contexts have been claimed by different peoples. Even if different context among people may cause conflict, the difference doesn’t justify the restriction on freedom. It is because in ultimate sense every individual has different context of their own, and nobody is able to express if that restriction is put in place.

Around dispute on freedom of expression, it often seems that there’s group of people who feels uncomfortable by the expressions of another group. The latter group claims that they have their right or freedom to express it. These disputes are often seen in the topic of belief. There’s a different degree of importance in one’s life that some may have deeply been rooted in person’s identity and others are less related. If an emperor of a country is who has been receiving beliefs from the public over the decades, it is more likely to cause anger when some expression hurts the feelings of the public.

Even if the publisher claims the freedom of expression on the one hand, the perception or opinion of another is different, and it often seems that each side has the different context. Fundamentally, the contexts of persons are different depending on them as each has different experience in their life linked with when and how one has spent their life so far. It has inevitably to do with the physical world in which one has lived. The geographic and timely factors are tied to oneself. This is what is related to the idea of the reality, people are in the different positions, that is why different views arise.

Paving the context is seen in art and museum. The curation of art in a museum is an important element in the exhibition as it is how the works are presented towards the audience. It is how they provide the context to the audience.

On sensitive issues such as the ones related to their history, the same opinion uttered by a person of one nationality is perceived differently if that is uttered by another person of different nationality.

3.1 Expression

People express their emotion, views, opinions, and so forth with their friends, parents, and others. Expressing at least in some cases removes the complexity of the world in human recognition. It emphasises some parts of the world, which are included in the expression, and others are not. It is key for the receiver how to perceive the expression whether they also think of the unexpressed parts to what extent.

Communication can tell another more than what one supposed to tell if another has more knowledge or imagination in it. When one talks about a certain thing, another could interpret the meaning different from what one had intended.

One of the important propositions in thinking about communication is the “notion of holistic proto-language” — the alarm calls of vervet monkeys, according to Alison Wray, “should be compared with complete messages rather than with individual words in human language”, and “holistic” means “no internal structure” and “never combined with any other vocalization to form a multi-component message”(1). Voice changes based on the sentiment that speaker feels(2).

Experience, or what people sensed in their life, fulfils words. It is often said that as people get older people get sympathetic. That is presumably because of the accumulation of experience in their life. Even if they watch a part of a film they can see their closer experience in it or can feel that situation more realistically.

People come to have the ability to use language. It is a matter of how people use their ability to distinguish. It is to tell the difference. Adding words in a publication is to limit the context in general, however using abstract words sometimes opens up the context.

When it comes to languages such as English, they tend to precisely specify the objects that it refers to and a sentence can be divided into further smaller parts.

Letters such as A of alphabet have generality(3). The letter A “of the Phoenician alphabet” “plausibly” comes from “a head of ox”, later it became generalised to “represent” the widest reach of the sound(4). This generality makes possible that different persons communicate via letters. At the standpoint of using the medium, it is possible to communicate, however in more profound sense, what persons interpret from them can differ.

The information also tries to be borderless by translation. The threshold became lower but previously it was chosen by those who engage in translation and who speak different languages by which information cross border.

To write a larger volume of texts takes time, compared with the short text of 200 words, for instance. A long text, which is a book of 200 pages, is presumably written by an author who was at their desk for many hours to write a book, before publishing as a book it in addition goes through the publishing company and its editor. In contrast, a shorter text can be written without careful consideration and it may be spent just a few minutes to be published, or it may be written by spending a few hours during which the author spent their time in choosing the words carefully. By having the Internet available, barriers to send/receive a writing became removed.

Being unable to use metaphor makes expression poor. And where they cannot make their expression in long length, they would have to shorten their expression though they may be aware that it could be interpreted in a variety of ways.

Nuance of an expression is delicate. Manipulate it to spread in a negative way or it was spread by accident in a negative way happens. In the age where rapid spread of information is possible by for example social media, the spread of the sort described above is instantly possible.

If words they encounter are difficult to understand, they don’t try to care about the order of words unless they are intellectual or enthusiastic. The use of words, how it is constructed sometimes are looked with attention unconsciously or consciously.

In typical cases, most people cannot endure the moment that one talks to another person, but the latter in conversation doesn’t respond to them. The conversation from another triggers one to respond to. In case of writing, this binding is weaker as it can be remote or distant.

There is a variety of aspects which arise from speech and expression, it includes historical revisionism. In the pandemic started worldwide around 2020, a negative phenomenon of information called infodemic took place, and the years around then more particularly in US context, how to deal with conspiracy was in dispute as well. Dating back further, in 2016, the word post-truth was in trend, and Oxford Dictionaries recognised it “as its 2016 international word of the year”(5).

As regards the privacy of persons, there are magazines which publish the photos or articles on the private life of those who are well known to the public. Apart from the misconducts, and the similar sort of wrongdoings, revealing the private aspect of persons even if their professions are publicly visible ones undermine the privacy of those targeted people.

With regard to the ethics of persons, even if one put in emphasis one’s freedom, how to speak and present needs to be taken into consideration with one’s ethics. If works supposed to be presented is likely to have inflammatory aspect, whether it will really work for the public good needs to be discussed in advance.

Verbal attack on dignity of others by expression causes a conflict among peoples. Enemy of dignity is, as literally means, perceived by recipient as what they express offends their dignity. When receiver of the expression felt their dignity is offended, unless they are convinced by the explanation of expressor that it is not intended so, it has the risk of dividing groups of people, and it would be better for the expressor to think about what kind of public benefit it has. In other cases, for example, media often publish the information which is not favourable to authorities. However, it endeavours to have the public benefits in it and it is perceived often as an opponent of argument.

By expression, people can damage the dignity. As a supplementary framework, offending dignity is judged as negative as people of different contexts collide. In this sense, despots should not oppress the citizens as it offends the dignity. Racial discrimination that causes unfair judgement on certain groups of people is not tolerable.

Footnotes

(1) Steven Mithen, The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body, first Harvard University Press paperback ed. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2007), p.109. Steven Mithen mentioned the concept of holistic proto-language by Alison Wray.

(2) This sentence is written by being influenced by p.102 of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Essai sur l’origine des langues (Paris: GF Flammarion, 1993).

(3) Henri Bergson, Histoire de l’idée de temps: Cours au Collège de France 1902-1903 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2016). Particularly p.38.

(4) Henri Bergson, Histoire de l’idée de temps: Cours au Collège de France 1902-1903 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2016). Particularly p.38.

(5) ”Post-truth’ declared word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries’, BBC, published 16 November 2016, accessed May 15, 2023, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-37995600. The original text is bold, which is removed in this writing.