The fewer words we have, the less we think
Updated: Oct 12
From Jeanne: I just found these notes I took while listening to an interview with French philosopher Michel Onfray and loved rereading them. I thought I’d translate and share them here. The three other Frenchies in the group might want to listen to the full interview, so I’ve linked it below!
Learning subtlety, nuance, observation and delicacy; developing critical thinking. This is what the whole art of being French rests upon.
Even in France today, we can see that the French language is being used with an extremely reduced vocabulary. Today, we are forced to use a vocabulary of 500 words for French people to understand.
We need to give people the tools for reflection, thought and analysis, and make Descartes, Voltaire and Montaigne accessible.
The fewer words we have, the less thought we have. How can you formulate a complex thought with 40 words?
It’s as if you took your car to a garage to be repaired, they opened the toolbox, and inside there was a hammer and a screwdriver. That’s all you have to repair the car. In some cases, that’s enough. But not for everything.
The less vocabulary we have, the less language we have, and the fewer tools we have to think about the world. When we don’t think about the world, we become susceptible to slogans and ideology.
It is simplification, in the worst sense of the word.
In the past, rhetoric was taught. People were taught how to construct an argument: the art of deliberation, the art of demonstration, how to build a paragraph, why you start a new paragraph, how you structure different sections, what an introduction is, how you construct a conclusion.
If you don’t teach children these things, they end up giving you this sort of general discourse, like a lukewarm tap left running. They just keep talking until someone stops them. They don’t know how to construct an argument or a demonstration. They don’t know that thought can be constructed. They just churn out words.
The objective today is to turn the planet into one giant supermarket.
What once distinguished our Christian West were its churches and cathedrals. What distinguishes our new era? The supermarket: the place where you can find everything. The consumer.
We want people to think in binary terms, people who don’t use their intelligence: “It’s good, it’s bad. I like it, I don’t like it.” We are told that truth is binary. But the world isn’t binary.
To read Voltaire is to discover subtlety. To read Montaigne is to discover free and independent thought. To read Descartes is to learn that reasoning has to be constructed.
Full interview (in French):https://youtu.be/jCMI_pjHFkw
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