Charles Cist had a very good education from Halle University in Germany during the mid 1700's. He spoke Russian, German, and English, possibly French. When he made his escape through Europe and sailed to America he knowingly or unknowingly brought with him his own individual ideas and cultural influences that needed to be translated towards the ideals of a transformation from the British Colonies to The United States of America. He was just one individual. Multiply this by the many more influences of people coming to the New World at this time just before the American Revolutionary War. Think about Macro/ Micro economics and those two levels within a single concept. How do you translate culture from Old World to New World into a common language, English?
Charles Cist was in the cultural center of Philadelphia when town hall meetings were taking place. Town hall meetings were taking place in the thirteen colonies, too. It took time for the farmers and the educated clergy, statesmen, and others to translate literal words and phrases to understand shared ideas, listen to ideas and to understand ideas. After these meetings a unified presentation was presented to the Continental Congress for these ideas to be ratified. There were still verbal upheavals at these ratifying meetings, too.
The Use and Misuse of Language, edited by S. I. Hayakawa illustrates how different cultures from Old Europe were brought over to the New World. Mr. Hayakawa states that he is only qualified to discuss European influences. I will illustrate a section from pages 52-55.
Mr. Hayakawa gives credit on page 52 to Professor Karl Pribram who has pointed out the importance of language concepts in Pribram's book, Conflicting Patterns of Thought. Professor Pribram gives four patterns of reasoning, (1) Universalistic reasoning (2) Nominalistic, or hypothetical reasoning (3) Intuitional ,or organismic reasoning (4) Dialectic reasoning.
Universalistic reasoning is about the premise that the human mind can grasp the order of the universe. Reason is credited with the power to know the truth with aid of given general concepts and to establish absolutes in human relationships.
Nominalistic reasoning is illustrated on page 53 about how French tourists view the New York subway system. The New York subway system is designed to be efficient for moving large populations of workers in and out the the city to different suburbs when their work shift is over. The Paris Metro system is designed to move populations to and from different monuments within the city limits. These are two totally different uses of transportation systems and it can affect how a French tourist views his/ her visit as pleasant or frustrating when using the New York subway.
Intuitional, or organismic reasoning stresses intuition rather than systematic cogitation. Professor Pribram goes on to explain about biological organisms and its component cells move around by intuition.
Dialectic reasoning. I am being honest. I am going to have to re-read this part of the book to fully understand it first myself before I can write about it so it is clear to me and to readers. More to follow.
Can you put yourself in Cist's shoes when attempting to translate these four different thought patterns and then translate words and phrases so everyone understands and agrees. Cist was not the sole person doing the work, but because of his multiply language skills he was in demand in Philadelphia meetings during this process.
I can imagine Cist first, listening to foreign accents, agree or disagree without praise or censorship, until we understand what those views are stating, then reviewing what was said and reviewing what was said in multiply languages. I have not even touched on the implications of the non- verbal and what was not said connotations of such meetings in the 1770's. The process took time.
I am observing society today with the current immigration conflicts, and world events.
Andrew C . Allen
1841 West Main Street, #212
Troy, OH 45373
513.638.7140
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