Words Matter

Peter Klopfer - Research Professor
Department of Biology

In the days I still taught introductory biology, nothing annoyed me more than textbooks which asserted that metabolism was the process by which protoplasm was energized.

The analogy was that of a combustion chamber (the protoplasm) within which a fuel was ignited.

It took the work of a remarkable linguist, B.L.Whorf, before we came to realize how our perceptions of biological processes were influenced by the dichotomous form of the language we used: all of our statements had to be couched in sentences containing nouns and verbs, subjects and actions. Only in the past decade or so have introductory texts finally begun to reflect the more accurate, if more complex, view that organisms are not like static engines in which combustion occurs, but are themslves in dynamic equilibrium with their environment.

As the biologist Garrett Hardin once put it, we are points in space at which reactions are occurring, some at such relatively slow rates as to make it appear that we are made of permanent structures. Our careless use of language long obscured this important observation. "War," like "protoplasm," is also tied to particular verbs (wage, fight, make) and generates specific perceptions and expectations. As in biology, their casual acceptance can obscure important truths.

The attack in New York on 11 September was an ugly, orchestrated act, evidently executed and supported by at most a few hundreds or thousands of individuals, part of a well organized and dispersed network. There has, thus far, been no evidence that it was an act of war, an attack of one state upon another, as was, for example, Pearl Harbor. It was a criminal act, inconceivably evil, and its perpetrators deserve little sympathy or support. But if their act was not war, why shoud we declare war? Terrorism, whether here, in Northern Ireland, Israel, Gaza or Columbia needs be countered. This may even entail the use of military forces where civilian authorities can not engage. The goal, however, unlike the goals of war, are not the destruction of the locales and populations amidst which the criminals are hidden, but their capture and presentation to the appropriate courts of justice.

Use of the term "war," and its accompanying rhetoric, will lead us to delude ourselves as to what we must do, create unease among our allies, and generate anti-democratic impulses ("watch what you say...."); in short, further the aims of the terrorists themselves. War and justice are distinct concepts and ought not be conflated.