Common Air

From Summa Bergania

by David Bergan - January 17, 2005

Without some common medium, it is impossible for two things to relate to one another. If you strike a tuning fork near another identical tuning fork, the second one will resonate in sympathy with the first. But if the tuning forks are placed in a vacuum, and the first is struck again, the second fork will not resonate at all. The common air is necessary for the second fork to relate to the first.

Among people, the same concept applies. In order to relate to another human being, I must have a common medium with them. Usually we relate to people with words, and the common medium is our common language. However, we can also relate with body language, paintings, songs, and so on. I cannot speak Bach or Stravinsky’s language, but I can relate to the very different emotions they each composed. Bach’s ‘Air on the G String’ conveys a sense of neatly calculated peace and serenity, whereas Stravinsky’s ‘The Rite of Spring’ attacks with passionate, vulgar chaos.

But there is more common air between human beings than we are likely to realize. We have language in common, but as Aristotle said, language is the manifestation of “affections of our soul.” When I say the words out loud “I am lost,” it does absolutely nothing to anything else in the world unless another person hears it.^[1] But here is the catch. Language is nothing but labels—labels for the affections of our soul. The word “lost” is just a combination of ink or sound waves dictated from my pen, printer, or larynx. The word “lost” is a symbol of an affection in my soul. It’s a feeling I have in me and choose to represent with that arbitrary design of ink. However, unless you have the same affection in your soul, “lost” has no meaning. If you do have the same feeling in you, then we can relate. This is what I mean by ‘common air’, that the feelings (affections) of my soul can be understood by your soul, and every other human soul on earth.

If you have followed this far, then next spin this concept out with a myriad of our soul’s affections. The fact that I can use the word love and that you may know its meaning indicates that love is a real thing and that our souls both have capacity for it. The fact that I can use the word justice and that brings up a common concept to us means that justice is real. Same for beauty, same for goodness, same for health, same for hotness, same for coldness, same for grief, same for joy, same for peace, same for passion, same for anger, same for wit, same for truth, same for falsity.

With nearly every sentence you speak, you can find at least one implicit assumption that you made about the hearer. If you tell him that you feel well, you are assuming that he knows what it feels like to be well... or at least what it feels like to be unwell with the desire for being well. If you tell him you are cold, you assume that he knows what it’s like to be cold, otherwise you wouldn’t have said it. This is why we don’t tell a parking meter or a tree that we’re cold, because neither has nerves with which to feel cold and therefore cannot relate to us.

But let me come to the point. Many philosophers of varying degrees of talent will try to lead minds astray. They will say things like, “Justice does not really exist. It is merely an imaginary concept through which tyrants keep control over mobs.” Or “Truth does not exist. Our minds merely cling to prejudice and we call it truth.” Or “Love does not exist. People always do exactly what is in their own selfish nature, and sometimes they selfishly want to help other people because it makes themselves feel good.” Notice that all these attempts are trying to get rid of a word from our language... ultimately they are trying to remove a soul’s affection from Man.

But we can talk of justice, truth, and love, because all humans recognize them, just as we all recognize coldness and hotness. Pretend that a philosopher told you that coldness doesn’t really exist. He would be laughed out of your presence because everyone knows what coldness feels like. Even the idiot who’s talking to you knows what coldness feels like, because he wouldn’t be able to even argue against it unless he did.

However, consider for once what it would be like if no human being had nerves… If none of us had nerves, and none of us could consequently determine hotness from coldness, then we would never have even been able to add the words hotness and coldness to our language. Or from the other side, I could invent a word, glinknoharmen, and tell you that glinknoharmen is a quality that we could measure with a sixth sense, if we only had one. But glinknoharmen is doomed to its own literary abyss, because the word does not represent a feeling/affection in us. When you hear it, it is as worthless to you as when you tell the parking meter about coldness. The word is totally useless, and there is no need for philosophers to come along and tell us that it is fictional. Actually, he can’t even do that much, because to argue against the existence of glinknoharmen means that he first understands it.

So in the same sense, if justice (or truth, or love) is really a work of fiction and there truly is no guiding principle of how one ought to treat his neighbor, then we never would have been able to come up with the word justice. But because the word does resonate in the souls of all humans who hear it, even those who wish to be rid of it, we can know that it is real.

Notes

^  "I am, I said, to no one there... and no one heard at all, not even the chair." –Neil Diamond