Mystics and Hubristics
Continuing from: the Stupidest Idea Certain people believe (or purport to believe) that all thought is in language, that being itself is in language, that "language is the house of being," that nothing escapes language, that "there is nothing outside the text," that, in principle at least, everything is expressible, or at least that everything that is important is expressible and that if anything else remains, we may discard it as irrelevant. We can call these people "Hubristics." Then, certain other people make language into a kind of villain, and believe not only that the most important truths are ultimately inexpressible, but that one shouldn't try - that attempting to express the inexpressible can only have a corrupting influence, that all representation is corruption, that we should "embrace the silence," that only a pure, unmediated experience is genuinely authentic. Some go so far as to take a vow of silence. We can call these pe