Bias 2: Low-Context Bias Associated with Western Science

Anti-Developmental Biases in Thesaurus Design (Part #3)

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Given the striking contribution of the Western world to the ordering of knowledge in recent centuries, it is easy to forget that there are other approaches to ordering reality which have been favoured in the past, continue to have their advocates, and which may be significant for the future. The scientific method has even been considered a by-product of the indo-European language group. But there are other language groups, especially in the highly populated developing countries. it is too easily assumed that a thesaurus, meaningfully structured to the Western mind, in an adequate vehicle for knowledge for users in non-Western cultures for whom other dimensions may be of greater significance.

David Bohm clarifies the subtle anti-developmental consequences of this bias an follows:

"As indicated earlier, one of the major defects of the ordinary mode of using language is just its general implication that it is not restricting the world view in any way at all, and that in any case questions of world view have to do only with one's own particular philosophy, rather than with the content and function of our language, or with the way in which we tend to experience the overall reality in which we live. By thus making us believe that our world view is only a relatively unimportant matter, perhaps involving mainly one's personal taste or choice, the ordinary mode of language leads us to fall to give attention to the actual function of the divisive world view that pervades this mode. so that the automatic and habitual operation of our thought and language is then able to project these divisions (in the manner discussed earlier) as if they were actual fragmentary breaks in the nature of  "what is". It is thus essential to be aware of the world view implied in each form of language, and to be watchful and alert, to be ready to see when this world view ceases to fit actual observation and experience. as these are extended beyond certain limits." (7, pp. 46-7)

Whorf and others stress the manner in which languages pre-order reality in unexpected ways. Anthropologist Edward T Hall notes that:

Also a review of the historical development of taxonomy of living things reveals that, paradoxically, the more Western man classifies, the less useful are his classificatory systems. Folk taxonomies and scientific taxonomies are examples of high-and low-context systems respectively ... modern classification methods provide man with a lot of information that is difficult to integrate into a usable, intelligible pattern. This is a classic example of low-context information. ... The classification system cannot handle the vast numbers now involved. A new paradigm is clearly needed. ... Whichever way we Westerners turn, we find ourselves deeply preoccupied with specifics, to the exclusion of everything else. ... The questions that must be answered are: Where do we go for the overview? Who is putting things together? Who are the experts in high context Integrative systems? Who knows how to make the type of observations necessary to build integrative systems of thought that will tell us where we stand" (8, pp. 122- 123).

Elsewhere Hall notes: "Therefore, as things become more complex, as they inevitably must with fast-evolving, low-context systems, it eventually becomes necessary to turn life and institutions around and move toward the greater stability of the high-context part of the scale as a way of dealing with information overload" (8, p.103).

The effective imposition of indo-European classification schemes on other cultures may therefore not only do violence to their cultural perspectives but may also obstruct both communication to those cultures (knowledge transfer) and communication from them (of the high-context variety rare in Western knowledge systems).

How can high and low-context dimensions be blended together in a development-oriented thesaurus?

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