Separated by a common language

Over the past few months, Kerala has seen more than its share of public protests: from outright violence to peaceful expressions of solidarity. The religiously inspired protesters make appeals to aacharam, aitihyam, pavitratha, samrakshnam, and parampara — words which describe a world ordered by concepts whose legitimacy comes from them being transmitted from one generation to another. George Bernard Shaw famously described America and Britain as two nations separated by a common language — on account of frequent misunderstandings and power politics playing between the two. Even the same word used in a different socio-historical context — particularly, when translated from one culture to another — reveals how wobbly any language-contingent ethical framework can be. In the great moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre’s classic, A Short History of Ethics, he talks about a word like ‘ agathos ’ which, in a Homeric world, referred to qualities one must possess to perform one’s role in a hierarchical society.