Divided and Conquered

By Mokokoma Mokhonoana

What makes you, you? Is it your mother tongue? Is it your country of birth? Is it your ethnicity? Is it your bank balance? Or could it be who or what you call God?

Mokokoma takes the reader through a mental tour. An exploration of social constructs that have divided the human race, i.e., language, culture, nationality, the monetary system, religion, ethnicity, race, et cetera. A journey through familiar territories. But, for a change, with an unfamiliar set of eyes.

If this book does not un-divide the human race, nothing will.

Mokokoma argues that the civilized man is technologically ahead of—but intellectually behind—his time. This one of a kind life-changing book is our opportunity to catch up.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sekoala Publishing Company (Pty) Ltd
• Release date: Oct 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9780620600484

Book preview

Take a group of men.

Speak of culture, class, language,

nationality, or religion.

And you are likely to be left

with groups of men.

cover title

Mokokoma Mokhonoana,

Copyright © 2014.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any manner whatsoever without a written permission from the publisher. The only exception is of a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in their review.

ISBN: 978-0-620-57555-3 (Paperback)

ISBN: 978-0-620-60048-4 (eBook)

Sekoala Publishing Company (Pty) Ltd

www.sekoala.com

"Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled:

This Could Change Your Life."

— Helen Exley

CONTENTS

Prologue

The Tower of Babel

Weapons of Mass Separation

Social Criticism ≠ Pessimism

Language

What Is Language?

Words and Meanings

The Name and the Named

Speed Does Not Kill

The Named and the Named after

Words, Meaning, and Background

The Impact of Context on Meaning

Porn Shops That Sell Second-hand TVs

Words Do Not Convey Actual Emotions

Putting Words into Words

What Do You Mean By That?

Right Word, Wrong Referent!

Crossing Swords Over Words

Translation and Bloodshed

Niggers, Bitches, and Assholes

Invisible Technologies

Culture

Culture: Contact Lenses We All Wear

Weird Cooks and Disgusting Meals

Sense, a Box of Chocolates, and Romance

Culture, Sex Appeal, and Erections

The Monetary System

Meaninglessness and Valuelessness

The Cost of Convenience

Bags of Money and Starving Islanders

Money Never Had Hands

The Commodification of Copulation and Reproduction

Paper Chasing’s Impact on Trees

Scarcity, Boredom, and Infidelity

Infidelity and Tap Water

Heaps of Bank Notes and Heaps of Corpses

The Government’s Skinny- and Fat-cats

The Profitability of an Intentional Misdiagnosis

One Man’s Panic Funds Another’s Picnic

Countries

Made In China

The Fear Our Invention Invented

The Region of Birth and the Religion of Choice

Religion

First Things First

The State of Man

My Mother Is Selfish (and so Is Yours)

Every Man for Himself

Faith and Rationality

The Religion I Subscribe to

Faith and Rationality: Oil and Water?

Labelling: By Belief or Lack Thereof

The Lifespan of a Miracle

The Burden of Proof

God’s Dad’s Mom’s Dad’s Mom’s Dad

Clergy Robes versus Lab Coats

Believing Is Seeing

Who or What Does God Refer to?

Writing in Tongues

Love Is Conditional

In Defense of Divorce (and Breakups)

A Man’s Other Half

Love Thy Neighbour as Thyself

Predestination, the Will of God, and Free Will

The Purpose of Life

Preachers and Teachers

Man and Beliefs

Religious Faith: a Need or a Want?

Morality and Religion: Which Came First?

Our Bodies’ Needs vs. Our God’s Wants

Heartbeats In Heaven

The Role of Prayer

A Refuge from the Present

Holy Water and Tap Water

Truths, Contexts, and Facts

The Uselessness of Truthfulness

Epilogue

The End Is Near

The Observer and the Observed

A Red Rose Isn’t Red, It Looks Red (to Some People)

Sometimes: The Truth + Time = An Untruth

I See It, Therefore It Is

The Exploitation of Everyday Languages’ Defects

Twins Is Made up of Two Individuals

All Generalizations Are Dangerous, Even This One

The Reason Why The Sight Of A Poor Obese Man Is Puzzling

Beliefs Are Believers’ Facts

The f.Law of Law

The f.Law of Identity

How Many Bricks Make a House, a House?

Judging Kids with Kids

The Hardships of Womanhood

True Colours of a Politician

I Am, Therefore I Act

Clothes Make the Man

Beliefs Make the Believer

Man Is Man-made

Culture and the Fools It Fools

Fooled by Patriotism

Bushmen and Prawns

The f.Law of the First

Prophets, Untruths, and Profits

Alcoholic Doctors and Smoking Nurses

Why Do Sane Men Imitate Each Other?

Real Men Do Rape

Believers’ Eggs and Nonbelievers’ Sperms

Why Are All Parents Tyrants?

The Cycle of Indoctrination

In Defense of Annoying Jehovah’s Witnesses

Perpetrators Are Victims

Social Constructs and a False Sense of Unity

One’s Own Flesh and Blood

The End Is Here

Bibliography

References

In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it.

— Ernst Fischer

PROLOGUE

The Tower of Babel

Once upon a time, gazillions of men grouped themselves in pursuit of a common goal; namely, to go to heaven. They attempted to do so by erecting a tower as tall as necessary.

As unrealistic as their ambition was, they were not all talk and no action; they did manage to get their endeavour off the ground.

After some months (possibly years) of working their fingers to the bone, their dream seemed, I presume, attainable. For it is said that God then devised a plan to obstruct their endeavour to set foot in His neighbourhood. Apparently, God was intimidated by humanity’s unity—the power and the possibilities that were made possible by a united human race, to be precise. (And the Lord said, ‘Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.’ — Genesis 11:6, ESV.)

It goes without saying that the simplest way for God to stop them was to either kill all those involved or, less bloody, make the tower collapse. However, God opted for arguably the most ingenious tactic: he used language. And all of a sudden, the men toiling to set foot in heaven whilst they were still alive spoke different languages (remember, they had only one language before that); languages that were, of course, alien to most men whom they spoke with and whose tongue they understood not so long ago. (Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech. — Genesis 11:7, ESV.)

Out of the clear blue sky, it was then impossible for the men to communicate with each other—effectively, that is. It is said that because of nothing but the then recent division of the physically united men, by a mental fence called language, when one man asked for, say, a spade, the other gave him a wheelbarrow.

Believe it or not, the men remained adamant in spite of that; they all tried their level best to overcome the hurdle that suddenly speaking completely different languages brought about. But after some time, all men gave up. And to this day, there isn’t, I presume, a single human being with a heartbeat in heaven.

Weapons of Mass Separation

Because of nothing but a social construct, which is, of course, reinforced with a fence called a border, a man in Musina (the northernmost town in the Limpopo province, South Africa) readily calls a man in Zimbabwe an alien, whereas he calls the one in Cape Agulhas (the southernmost point of South Africa) a brother. Yet the man in Zimbabwe is way closer to him, with regard to distance, than the one in Cape Agulhas!

It goes without saying that while the erection of borders sure provides us with some benefits, there are gazillions of men who have lost and countless who continue to lose their lives because of nothing but the mental division that was brought about by the invention of countries.

I will, with this book, attempt to explore things that have in a way divided the human race. Having said that, my interest is not in all kinds of things that do so. I am only interested in man-made things (particularly those that only exist in our minds). For example, while the division of the human race by means of continents can undoubtedly be labeled as natural, the division of human beings by means of countries is man-made.

Though there exist gazillions of such social constructs (i.e., a perception of an individual, group, or idea that is constructed through cultural or social practice—in other words, things whose existence is dependent on the human mind), this book is only made up of five social constructs; namely, language, culture, the monetary system, countries, and religion. Having said that, I will, in the course of exploring the aforementioned social constructs, necessarily touch upon gazillions of other social constructs.

Social Criticism ≠ Pessimism

At the risk of coming across as a pessimist, i.e., a creature with a tendency to see only the worst aspect of things, I will exclusively focus on the undesirable, detrimental, and at times deadly, aspect of the social constructs that I am about to attempt to explore, even though I, like most people, am aware of their usefulness.

So, while many a man blindly praise, say, technology, for what it gives, I, as a social critic, am one of those Jeremiahs who will bring, to their praise, what technology takes. And while most people are mindlessly praising, say, a penis, for the pleasure that it affords some women and all men, I, as a social critic, am one of those party poopers who will bring rape to their excitement, even though I am well-aware that, apart from occasionally affording me the opportunity to experience an orgasm or two, like most human beings, a penis played an essential role in my being.

Allow me to justify such a seemingly pessimistic approach. There really is no value, unless for their ego or for perseverance’s purposes, in telling someone who is doing something right that they are doing something right. Your observation is more likely to be of significant value in instances where you tell someone about something that they are doing wrong, or that what they are doing is wrong, as opposed to telling them about what they are doing right, or that what they are doing is right. Owing to the fact that the former increases the chances of them: (1) attempting to do right whatever that they are doing wrong; or (2) abandoning whatever that they are doing, if it is indeed wrong.

To wit, to help a good-looking woman with a bad breath: talk about her breath, not her looks. Granted, telling the poor woman about her good looks will make her feel like a million dollars. However, choosing that over telling her about her bad breath will impoverish her relationship with those who she frequently converse with and, perhaps more unfortunate, he or she or they whom she will kiss.

Anyway, in many a case, pessimist is nothing but a label given to someone who calls a spade a spade. While in some cases, a pessimist is merely someone who has carelessly phrased an observation differently. For example, though the two would have technically said the very same thing, he who says that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure is likely to come across as an optimist, whereas he who says that one man’s treasure is another man’s trash is likely to come across as a pessimist.

Speaking of calling a spade a spade, I would like to cite, in defense of the hard to find men who call a spade a spade, what Walpola Rahula is said to have said about Buddhism. "First of all, Buddhism is neither pessimistic nor optimistic. If anything at all, it is realistic, for it takes a realistic view of life and of the world. It looks at things objectively (yathabhutam). It does not falsely lull you into living in a fool’s paradise, nor does it frighten and agonize you with all kinds of imaginary fears and sins. It tells you exactly and objectively what you are and what the world around you is, and shows you the way to perfect freedom, peace, tranquility and happiness.

One physician may gravely exaggerate an illness and give up hope altogether. Another may ignorantly declare that there is no illness and that no treatment is necessary, thus deceiving the patient with a false consolation. You may call the first one pessimistic and the second optimistic. Both are equally dangerous. But a third physician diagnoses the symptoms correctly, understands the cause and the nature of the illness, sees clearly that it can be cured, and courageously administers a course of treatment, thus saving his patient.1

In other words, as Aldous Huxley is said to have said, Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.

— Bertrand Russell

LANGUAGE

What Is Language?

Take a group of men, ask each to define language, and you are likely to get as many different definitions as the number of men who have responded.

When people communicate, language functions as an attempt to move, or rather duplicate, a thought, a question, or an order, from the speaker’s mind to that of the listener, or from the writer’s mind to that of the reader. The same can, of course, be said about the deaf, who rely on visual gestures and signs to achieve the very same thing.

I moved from move to duplicate. But as fitting as duplicate might be, it is misleading, in every single instance of a misunderstanding, to refer to the process of human communication as the duplication of a thought or thoughts. More on that later. Anyway, I opted for duplicate simply because, in instances where communication is without a misunderstanding, after a speaker speaks, though the listener will then be thinking about whatever it is that the speaker said, whatever the speaker said will by no means be lost (by the speaker’s mind); it will merely be duplicated (by the listener’s mind).

For a simple analogy, think of the process of combustion. When a burning candle, candle1, is used to light another, candle2, it is not at the expense of candle1’s flame. Even though candle2 will, at some point, have the same flame as candle1.

Perhaps the word attempt is the most important part of what I said as to what the function of language is. I regard the process of communication as an attempt simply because communication isn’t always a successful exchange of information: it is merely an attempt to do so (in other words, a misunderstanding is nothing but such an attempt’s lack of success). And, equally important, by seeing something as an attempt, we become less defensive whenever someone directs our attention to the thing’s defects. For once we have agreed on what the function of a thing is, it then becomes possible for us to objectively examine the thing in question (i.e., look at the thing through eyes that are not contaminated by our worldview, our beliefs, our affection for the thing, etc.) and, more important than the thing itself, the thing’s effectiveness. For you cannot sensibly call a man lost, unless you know where he is and, more importantly, where he intended to be.

Having said that, this book isn’t merely an attempt to tell the reader what a particular social construct is, and then comment as to whether or not the social construct achieves its purpose. Every single social construct that I will explore in this book achieves, as I am about to attempt to illustrate, what I believe it was made to achieve. My interest is in why and how these social constructs divide the human race, not in whether or not they fail to achieve what they were supposedly invented to achieve.

Lastly, let us return to the question that this writing’s title is made up of.

Perhaps the most insightful answer to that question is that that depends on who is using the word language. That is to say, the answer to What is language? depends on what the person answering means by language, whenever he or she uses the word language. In addition to that, an observant person is likely to include, in their answer, the illusion (and thus the confusion) that the word is usually bring about. Thanks to such an illusion, we inevitably end up believing that things and people are their attributes or characteristics.

In any case, we cannot really say what a thing (e.g., an apple) is. We can only say things (e.g., red, juicy, round, nutritious, cheap, stolen, etc.) about the thing. What’s more, it is usually impossible to perceive and therefore know, and for that reason say or write about, every single thing about a thing. And because of that, this chapter will by no means cover every single facet of its subject: language; the same applies to every single subsequent chapter and this book as a whole. Apart from it being impractical to explore every single aspect or facet of the social constructs that constitute this book, doing so is not a prerequisite to achieving what I am hoping to achieve with this book.

Words and Meanings

Words are inherently devoid of meaning. When reading about the relationship between words and meanings, we are often told that words are nothing but vessels, which we fill with meaning.

That is, to some extent, true. Having said that, such a statement is misleading because some people then end up believing that whatever meaning a word is given resides within the word. If that were true, then there would not exist things called dictionaries, since the meanings of words would be carried within the words.

Anyway, words are used to refer to whatever meaning or meanings that we have attached to them through usage. Words do not, in themselves, mean anything. As someone once said: Words don’t mean, people mean.

To illustrate the assertion that it is people who mean, not words, I will simply share two words that went through a semantic change, that is to say, a change in one of the meanings of a word. "Awful — originally meant ‘inspiring wonder (or fear)’. Used originally as a shortening for ‘full of awe’, in contemporary usage the word usually has negative meaning." Mouse — primarily used to refer to a small rodent. Informally used to refer to a lump or a bruise. However, a new meaning was added to that word when computers were invented. Since then, mouse is also used to refer to a small hand-held device with which a computer user moves a cursor.

As we all know, the meaning attached to some sentences has absolutely nothing to do with (the meaning of) words that the sentence is made up of. Such a sentence is, of course, called an idiom, which is defined as, a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words.

Allow me to share a few idioms (with their meanings bracketed): add fuel to the fire (whenever something is done to make a bad situation even worse than it is); barking up the wrong tree (be pursuing a mistaken or misguided line of thought or course of action); curiosity killed the cat (being inquisitive can lead you into a dangerous situation); hit the nail on the head (find exactly the right answer); lastly, relevant to this book, a doubting Thomas (a skeptic who refuses to believe without direct personal experience—a reference to the Apostle Thomas, who refused to believe that the resurrected Jesus had appeared to the ten other apostles, until he could see and feel the wounds received by Jesus on the cross, more on that later).

To sum up, a word is used to refer to a person, an object, a thought, an emotion, or a meaning. For example, the word car can be used to refer to a type of a thing (e.g., she bought a car) or a particular thing (e.g., she bought his car), or to say a road vehicle, typically with four wheels, powered by an internal combustion engine and able to carry a small number of people with just one word.

The Name and the Named

What we call things does not really matter, provided that the word that is used to refer to a thing refers to the very same thing in the minds of those communicating.

For example, if you and I, for whatever reason, decide to call a pencil a horse, and then I ask you to pass me that horse (without pointing at the pencil), you would undoubtedly understand what I meant. Whether or not you will do so is beside the point. What would matter is that the word horse would have achieved what we would have in that case used the word to achieve, by referring, in both our minds, to the drawing instrument in question.

Finally, I would now like to