145. Openness To Change

We first learn how to use language through trial and error. By using words and watching the reactions of others, we discover a set of general rules about how and when words should be used. If we vary from these rules, we are quickly corrected by others. In this way, we become competent language users — insiders to the set of agreements that make language possible and practical.

Soon afterwards, we begin to encounter people using words in unfamiliar ways. The same rules we were taught to follow carefully are now being bent or even broken entirely. When we hear this new language, we feel an impulse to correct it or replace it with language that conforms to our rules. We might even complain to others about the new usage and seek confirmation that it is wrong.

But changes to the rules of language are always happening. The language we use today differs from that of our grandparents, just as the language of future generations will differ from ours. To absorb these normative changes, we must be flexible. The rules we first learned are not set in stone, and to use language well, we must accept that they can and will change.

To accept new usages, words, and grammatical structures is to see our own rules as mutable and to be open to their possible revision. Such a perspective is helpful because normative change is not limited to language. The very same process of change happens in every part of our normative world, including our ethical norms, aesthetic tastes, and social standards.

The more adaptable we become, the more capable we will be of accepting changes to the normative order we have learned to follow. When we are dynamic and flexible, we also become more open to the world around us, more imaginative in our vision of the future, and more creative in solving the problems we face.