Language

Does language limit our understanding of the world?

I think it does, but I also think that other factors like context and knowledge limit our understanding of the world. 

If we read a story about a man who belongs to the guerrilla, but we're not specified which guerrilla, and we are not from the country the author is writing about, or we know nothing of the history of that country, our understanding of the story will probably be limited. In this case our language is not the limitation because the language is one we understand and it enables us to understand the anecdote of the story, but the limitation of our context and knowledge is what hinders us from understanding a deeper meaning or an occult message in the story. 

An example of how language might limit our understanding of the world is a scientific journal. Our year 12 education does not enable us to have an advanced and complex scientific vocabulary, which makes reading a science journal a difficult task. If the language in the journal goes beyond our mastery of scientific terms then we will never fully comprehend the text we are reading, which is an example of how language limits our understanding of the world. 

Kony 2012

30 minutes. 5 days. 7,000,000,000 people.

Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Ifunny, pinterest, and many other social networking sites have been invaded by the video above. Kony 2012 is a campaign by the Invisible Children Organization that aims to capture Joseph Kony and put his reign of terror in Africa to an end. This video has become a massive awareness campaign, with amazing results. In just 5 days the video received over seven thousand million views.

In my opinion, what the Kony 2012 campaign has accomplished, and  is aiming to accomplish is beyond words. I take my hat off for these people, because they have managed to take something that very few people knew about and make it into something impossible to ignore. I have read the articles criticizing the campaign and, although some raise valid points worth considering, I am still a firm believer in Kony 2012. I don't give a flying fizzle (pardon my French) what people like Jorge, Sergio, Santiago, and others who always want to criticize everything and always go against the "mainstream" thing, think or say. I honestly don't think that this campaign will do more hurt than good. I don't think that we should be dissecting this campaign and trying to find its problems in TOK class because I honestly believe our opinion on this subject is none of our teacher's bussinnes (she types while waiving goodbye to a good grade this term).

I, of course, am aware that there are several issues with this campaign, like the prominence of the producer's son that has almost no relevance to the message of the video, or the fact that this didn't attract the attention of the USA government until now (shortly after oil was found in the African region were Kony operates), or also the fact that the orders are to kill or capture Kony knowing that his assassination could lead to more problems than solutions. I am aware of all these problems, but I firmly believe that this issues should not stop people, if they truly believe in the cause, from making donations or pledging their support. The Kony 2012 campaign is striving for good, not evil, so I would like to keep that in mind when discussing the potential issues of the campaign or the video.