Babel-17: Language and Society

Babel-17 goes in depth exploring the effects and power language can have on a individual and society. The author, Samuel R. Delaney as a writer and poet was fascinated in the affect language had and took this book as an opportunity to explore that in depth using an alien language as a prop to do so. Many of his protagonists were writers or poets of some kind and Rydra Wong is no exception. She's a linguist star ship captain, and the most famous poet in five galaxies reaching a stardom not yet seen. She's a vehicle to explore language as she leans to decipher Babel 17, she unwillingly starts to turn traitor and get caught in the groupthink of an invader species. The theory posed is that the shaping of individuals in a society is largely influenced by the language they speak. While I am not bilingual myself I know friends who have expressed frustration at not being fully able to translate an idiom or idea from their language without changing the meaning. Stereotypes of other cultures such as Italians being emotional, germans being strict, or the french being romantic seem to derive more so from how their languages sound to outsiders. 

 While that doesn't mean language is as powerful as Delaney has posed, especially considering alternate theories put out by linguists in recent years there is definitive merit in the idea that the culture, family situation, and societal values we grow up with shape us as individuals. As said in the book by our protagonist Rydra, "I'm part of my times...I'd like to transcend my times, but the times themselves have a good deal to do with who I am." The people of the first featured planet in the book has been cannibalistic killers just twenty years earlier due to the circumstances of the embargos leading to mass starvation. Now  years later with the embargos lifted, those people live in a very structured, and polite society likely in reaction to the chaos that was there just years before. While we like to think that our individuality shines through innately, we can't help but be a victim of circumstance in some way. 

 Looking at the way societal values or morals have changed so rapidly. Seventy years ago being gay was considered so immoral by vast society that it was barely spoken aloud in the mainstream.  Now thanks to the slow normalization that was fought for by vocal activists and the gradual representation in media, it's a lot easier to be openly gay and the right to marry nationwide was passed just a few years ago. Does that mean that people today are inheritely better people than those living seventy years ago? Can you say that most people are just a victim of their times? The answer probably lies somewhere in between. In the book, Rydra is only able to overcome the influence of Babel-17 with the help of her crew and the invention of a new language, Babel-18. She was only able to break free of societal chains once she invented a new path for herself. I think the message of this book is not meant to be that language is the only determining factor in an individual, but rather asking the reader to think critically about the influences of their environment and to take the time to explore your own thoughts and feelings outside of that. 

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