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Podcast

the earth or Earth?

On Friday a group asked me about the difference between ''the earth'' and ''Earth''. They have inspired me to make this podcast and this podcast is dedicated to them.

For several dacades, linguists, psychologists and anthropologists as well as cultural historians have been studying and observing the reality structure of language. Our experience of the world is shaped by the language we use. What I mean to say is that there is more to language than just language. For example, ''man'' is ''man'' but it is also our ''humanity'', because ''man'' is strength, man is courageous, man is heroic, man is keen, man is powerful, that's why we refer to ''humanity'' as ''man''. There are many examples of this precipitation. ''Snow'' is another example, to us it is just snow, but to the Eskimos of Alaska it is everything, therefore ''snow'' is treated by the Eskimos differently.

Language structures reality, and because language structures reality, it is very important how we perceive such things as our planet and the experience we have on certain matters. For example, we do not refer to the other planets using the definite article ''the''. Because we have no experience with these planets, we do not live on these planets, we have never been to these planets, they are simply Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

Now, the question referring to whether we should use ''the earth'' or ''Earth'' is simply the respect and gratitude we have towards our planet. If we see our planet as a resource for human consumption, then we say ''the earth''. On the other hand, by using our planet's proper name, ''Earth'', we honor its beauty and creativeness as a self-organizing system.

Some scientists and others refer to the planet as "Gaia," the name of the ancient Greek goddess who symbolized Mother Earth, for the same reason. It is important to note here that this is far more than a question of semantics; it is a question of honor — which may be one of the most important questions before us as we move into the next millennium.







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