Replying to LO29001 ("Intellectual Passions") --
Dear Leo,
You write, "Although it is probably wise if I let my original and wrong
thoughts pass away, but I beg you - please, let me hug these thoughts,
because they make me happy - passionate; otherwise I will suffer too
much."
Why not have the best of two worlds - a rich understanding of the word and
how it developed, and your own poetic interpretation?
Etymology systematically studies the history of words. It is an art and
science that studies what human beings in many times and places have
created. What we learn and report about the history of what others have
done or created is a property of the external world rather than a property
of our personal preferences.
To be mistaken about an historical fact, case, or situation is common.
Learning involves amending what we think better to fit our understanding
of the external world. (I will not develop the complete argument about
notions of a real world and the basis of adequate understanding or
accurate information.)
One of the deep problems in organizational learning or learning in general
is a failure to distinguish among causes of happiness and suffering. To
believe that you would suffer unhappiness because a word does not have the
history you believed it to have makes little sense to me. Should a
medieval professor of astronomy have said that he would suffer the sun did
not revolve around the earth? Some did. Should a nineteenth century
surgeon argue that he would suffer if it were unsanitary to perform an
operation dressed in street clothes with unwashed hands? Some physicians
argued seriously that since surgeons were gentlemen, the idea that they
should wear surgical whites, scrub up, and perform in a sterile atmosphere
was an insult to their standing as gentlefolk and professionals. In
essence, they said that the idea of antiseptic practice offended their
pride: it made them suffer.
I do not propose that there is one "truth" or one single set of eternal
and correct facts in any matter - including etymology. I do suggest that
abandoning inadequate facts or understandings to accept better facts or
understandings should not make us unhappy.
Rather, I propose a distinction. This is the distinction between discovery
and invention, between the meanings and facts that belong to the world and
the meanings we create through imaginative power.
The word passion means what it means because it arises from a history of
prior meanings. These meanings shift and inflect differently in the
different languages and word families that have adopted it.
Many words begin with "pass," but the sound these words have gives you a
clue to their descent. In English, words deriving from the Latin "passion"
tend to be pronounced with a "sh" sound, as in passion, patient, and so
on. Words with the "s" sound, such as pass, passage, passenger, and other,
tend to be related to the Latin "passus." these words deal with transition
and motion. Some of them are also related to the "pass" words in other
Germanic languages (Dutch, Frisian, German, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish)
with meanings of protection, sufficiency, adequacy, etc.
Etymology studies where words come from. It tells us what they meant to
the millions of people who built those words and endowed them with the
meanings and relations they hold today.
In contrast with etymology, poiesis - the art of making - allows you to
build ideas and meanings in any way you wish.
You can create a poetic reconstruction of the word passion using any
creative method you wish: analogy, similarity of sounds, linkage of
meanings and sound, pictures, color synthesis, acrostics, tone
frequencies, and more.
There is nothing wrong with your ideas unless you use them for etymology
or linguistics. They serve well for analogy, metaphor, and association.
My suggestion is that you keep your original thoughts. Simply file them
under a different category, replacing, "Where these words were born,"
with, "Ways to connect these words to other concepts"
Best regards,
Ken
--Ken Friedman, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design Department of Leadership and Organization Norwegian School of Management
Visiting Professor Advanced Research Institute School of Art and Design Staffordshire University
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