"Ordinary language," antiintellectualism, and language as a barrier to understanding

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

Stopping in here for the first time after coming to a realization about the quasi-religious role of a certain brand of American civil religion in my life and the effect that had on my flawed understanding of theology.

I concur with slimey that frankly, a huge portion of academics, especially on here, seem to display an inability to relate to most people, let alone speak in their language. Hell, I did the IBDP and all that where they try and teach you how to be a classical Renaissance Person and none of that philosophy sank into my head. They talked about Spinoza and Bentham (actually that was one of the few that took hold) and the trolley problem and the roots of modern philosophy but it all amounted to jack because there was nothing to relate it to my life.

And then I studied game design and we asked "What is a game?" and we learned what Wittgenstein, Callois, Costikyan, Salen & Zimmerman, and Suits think a game is. Which kinda sunk in a little bit but also asking a buncha college freshman "What is a game?" about 50 times turns it into a meme instead of provoking further introspection into the nature of language.

And then this week, it hits me, not because someone explained it to me or rattled off a bunch of names and concepts. After reading about the history of American secularism and what faith and salvation really are, it hits me. F**k. F**k. Religion doesn't mean what I think it means. That's what Wittgenstein means by 'language game'. 

Then again, I'm probably an edge case as a CS major who learned first-order logic before really studying rhetoric. But it's not like that's the only case. Like slimey, I learned philosophy from media analysis. Junior year, I picked 2001: A Space Odyssey and frankly now my entire criticism of modern English education is that kids aren't given the chance to pick personally-affecting media for analysis (I get why but also seriously, Victorian lit killed any chance I had at liking lit analysis).

Taking a real look at that movie for the first time was an epiphany after bullsh**tting my way through every single lit analysis assignment I'd had till then. If you'd said 'Nietzsche' to me before then I'd have been clueless. Coming out of it, I finally understood what all that academic bullcrap actually meant within my understanding of the world.

I get that florid language and high-minded discussion of abstract issues go together, but modern philosophy is a bit like trying to cross the 405 on foot at 5.15 pm on a weekday. It's like the expectation is to understand all these philosophers in the abstract but that's just so fundamentally incompatible with any normal person's worldview that it immediately comes off as unparseable gibberish. I can testify. My brain literally shuts off halfway through half these posts.