“Language commonly stresses only one side of any interaction.”

— Gregory Bateson

Source: Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity, 1979, p. 56

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Language commonly stresses only one side of any interaction." by Gregory Bateson?

Gregory Bateson 49

English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual … 1904–1980

Melissa Farley (1942) American psychologist

"Prostitution and Trafficking in 9 Countries: Update on Violence and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder" in Journal of Trauma Practice 2 (2003) http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/c-prostitution-research.html, p. 33-74; co-written with A. Cotton, J. Lynne, S. Zumbeck, T. Spiwak, M. E. Reyes, D. Alvarez , U Sezgin
Context: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), commonly occurs among prostituted women, and is indicative of their extreme emotional distress. PTSD is characterized by anxiety, depression, insomnia, irritability, flashbacks, emotional numbing, and hyperalertness. In nine countries, we found that sixty-eight percent of those in prostitution met criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD, a prevalence that was comparable to battered women seeking shelter, rape survivors seeking treatment, and survivors of state-sponsored torture. Across widely varying cultures on five continents, the traumatic consequences of prostitution were similar.

“Ther are not two sides to any question that really concerns a man, but only one, and this side only a fool can fail to see if he tries.”

Coventry Patmore (1823–1896) English poet

Aurea Dicta XX, p. 8.
The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895)

“If we insist on defining all human interactions as matters of people giving one thing for another, then any ongoing human relations can only take the form of debts.”

David Graeber (1961) American anthropologist and anarchist

Source: Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Chapter Five, "A Brief Treatise on the Moral Grounds of Moral Relations", p. 126

“A full flowering of the arts is only possible when Literature and Art, Philosophy and Science interact with one another. Kalakshetra is among the very few institutions where all such disciplines interact.”

Rukmini Devi Arundale (1904–1986) Indian Bharatnatyam dancer

About Rukmini Devi

“Pragmatics studies the factors that govern our choice of language in social interaction and the effects of our choice on others.”

David Crystal (1941) British linguist and writer

Source: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, 1987, p. 120

“The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth, never a question of adequate expression; otherwise, there would not be so many languages.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)
Context: The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth, never a question of adequate expression; otherwise, there would not be so many languages. The "thing in itself" (which is precisely what the pure truth, apart from any of its consequences, would be) is likewise something quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for. This creator only designates the relations of things to men, and for expressing these relations he lays hold of the boldest metaphors.' To begin with, a nerve stimulus is transferred into an image: first metaphor. The image, in turn, is imitated in a sound: second metaphor. And each time there is a complete overleaping of one sphere, right into the middle of an entirely new and different one.

“Stress: the word comes up often in the study of rage murders. The problem is that even in spite of the awful effects of stress- from mental and physical health ailments to provoking massacres- we, the ones who suffer stress, are ourselves loath to describe our own stressed condition with language that might match the suffering it produces, for fear of sounding melodramatic, whiny- of not being able to tough it out. A little light goes on in most "normal" people's heads warning them not to complain about cracking under stress and risk being marked as a loser.”

Mark Ames (1965) American writer and journalist

Part I: If He'd Just Got the Right People, page 23.
Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion, From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond (2005)

“The young cult of sociology, needing a language, invented one. There are many dead languages, but the sociologists' is the only language that was dead at birth.”

Russell Baker (1925–2019) writer and satirst from the United States

"Come Back, Dizzy" (p.187)
So This Is Depravity (1980)

“The development of cross-strait relations is not decided unilaterally by any one side. It depends on a consensus on both sides.”

Eric Chu (1961) Taiwanese politician

Source: Eric Chu (2015) cited in " Eric Chu to discuss China policy during visit to the United States http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2015/10/22/448969/Eric-Chu.htm" on The China Post, 22 October 2015.

“The poetical language of an age should be the current language heightened, to any degree heightened and unlike itself, but not…an obsolete one.”

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) English poet

Letter to Robert Bridges (14 August 1879)
Letters, etc

“Language commonly stresses only one side of any interaction.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Gregory Bateson 49

Related quotes

Related topics