Language

Academic language. Language. That thing that we use to communicate our ideas. That thing that connects human culture.

The first ICW Ethics Bowl is currently going on. I have stepped out to baby-watch while the others observe the final round. The first was rather collegial. School #1 did not wear suits and only rarely mentioned ethical theories. School #2 fit hundreds of words into a mere ten minutes. Ethical theories informed each aspect of their argument. Should there be robots that look over the sick, the infirm, the shut-ins? How about a side of consequentialism with that Kantian order of duty ethics?  What seemed like a fair match during round one resulted in a  rout in the second. What was it that differed?

Language. The opposing team's students had a vocabulary of ethics, of philosophy, of order. School #3 students had anecdotes and personal accounts. What did the banker, the aerospace executive, and the lawyer prefer? Well, the stories about Colonel Sanders were laughed at and tollerated, but the language of logic, reason, and something more academic was better received.

What does this then require of students who are merely in the process of learning the language? Must they have mastered the dominant language in order to subversively introduce the language of the other? What does this mean for the lawyer, the banker, and the executive? Must they merely tolerate the non-native as they struggle to translate their language into the dominant language? 

I do not know. 

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