In his short story "On Rigor in Science," Jorge Louis Borges describes an empire where "the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province." But the cartographers were not pleased with the maps, and decided to make a perfect map, abandoning approximation for complete precision: They completely gave up on scaling the map, instead stretching the sheet depicting the empire until it covered the entirety of the empire. This map was an accurate one-to-one representation of every street, house, flower and grain of sand. I was reminded of this story a number of times in the last two months when I came across several events that occurred in the British academic world. Cambridge University students protested against being served "Tunisian rice" (because it did not accurately represent Tunisian culture); Cardiff University prohibited the use of terms such as "founding fathers," or "gentlemen's agreement" (because they are not gender neutral); and in Oxford they went as far as to declare avoiding eye contact as a form of racism. In and of themselves, there is nothing extraordinary in these occurrences, but precisely for that reason they provide an excellent glimpse into the possible future of this aspiration for perfect equality -- is it possible? Is it harmless? In the 19th century, French political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville contemplated what can be defined as the paradox of equality. Like any desire, the desire for equality balances itself out. At a certain level, satisfying it creates more yearning. Finding a solution to one inequality exposes other inequalities -- making them more pertinent. As a matter of fact, dealing with inequality increases the sensitivity to it. As the sensitivity increases, the scope and forms of the inequality increase and spread out, and in this manner become infinite -- or at least as common as the number of differences between each individual. Equality is therefore always on the horizon, but just like the horizon it will never get closer. There is no question that it is dangerous to carelessly use words without judgment -- that goes without saying. But beyond a certain elusive point, using words too carefully can also be destructive, like taking too much medication. The attempt to defuse all the bombs, no matter how insignificant, generates a double-edged sword when it comes to words: It gives the words an almost magical power, while simultaneously producing weak, overly coddled people. Take a current Israeli issue, for example: Does the increased removal of women from the ultra-Orthodox public sphere not increasingly weaken haredi men faced with "temptations"? Does the ultra-Orthodox leadership not treat men more and more like children- The desire to find a neutral language is not only damaging, it is ultimately pointless, because these identities can be divided almost indefinitely, requiring thoughtfulness for every new sensitivity. Language, on the other hand, cannot be divided indefinitely; it cannot change into a private language. Language -- to be a language in the first place -- is shared property, and as such, the price is that there will always be something missing and someone will get offended. And as the possibility that we will be unable to communicate because of prudence flashes on the horizon, we had best take care to not be overly considerate. And what can the precise map from Borges' story tell us? After it was made, no one needed it ... "they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters."
Take care not to care
מערכת ישראל היום
מערכת "ישראל היום“ מפיקה ומעדכנת תכנים חדשותיים, מבזקים ופרשנויות לאורך כל שעות היממה. התוכן נערך בקפדנות, נבדק עובדתית ומוגש לציבור מתוך האמונה שהקוראים ראויים לעיתונות טובה יותר - אמינה, אובייקטיבית ועניינית.
