“Our Natural Condition Is to Speak Many Languages”
In Greenberg’s Fifty Year Tribute to Asimov (“Foundation’s Friends”), the author notes that the more allegiance a person has to a community, the more fluent that person will become in that community’s stories & languages — and the more that person will share & speak them.
Small, isolated populations (e.g., academic specialties, professional guilds, etc.) embrace their stories and languages (including math, music notation, etc.) because it is part of who they are — creating a few shibboleths that only insiders will know.
In “Making Sense As an Insider,” Brueggemann describes the literature of storytelling as concentric circles with
1. FOUNDATION primal narratives in the center, __ (e.g., Creation stories. Flood stories. etc.)
2. then expanded narratives, ___ (e.g., Diasporas, etc.)
3. then institutional literature, ___ (e.g., Inspirational calls to community) and
4. finally the literature of mature theological reflection ___ (e.g., Philosophical Treatises) and
5. the literature of instruction and vocation on the outside. ___ (e.g., A call for Toleration & Loyalty during oppression)
We impose the strategic ambiguity of these stories and languages upon our lives so that we can share both the meaning of our lives and the lives of others.
