Juno News - May 16, 2020


How to analyze text on a deeper level


Episode Stats

Length

12 minutes

Words per Minute

191.90895

Word Count

2,462

Sentence Count

110

Hate Speech Sentences

5


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 You know how to read, but today I want to share with you a little trick that I use to
00:00:09.780 help analyze text on a bit of a deeper level.
00:00:12.520 In order to do that, you're going to have to ask yourself two questions.
00:00:15.520 First, what else is the author trying to tell me?
00:00:18.620 And second, why would the author pick these particular words?
00:00:22.320 In English, the average word has between two or three different synonyms, and many words
00:00:26.260 have a double meaning.
00:00:27.260 So for example, the word ear could mean my ear, or it could mean an ear of corn.
00:00:32.440 Now I learned this trick from reading the Bible.
00:00:34.620 You see, if you're a believer and you're reading holy text, then you're often faced
00:00:38.520 with the question, why are these particular words here?
00:00:41.220 Why is this sentence here?
00:00:42.720 And so you have to read in a different way because you're basically trying to justify
00:00:45.760 why these particular words were chosen.
00:00:48.840 Now you can use the same method when you're reading almost any text, and today I want to
00:00:52.420 talk a little bit about the charter, sort of continuing from where we left off in the previous
00:00:56.260 two videos, and hopefully address some of the questions that you guys have below.
00:01:00.700 So first, I want to start off right here.
00:01:02.880 This is the word Lech Lecha.
00:01:05.100 This is from when God tells Abraham to leave his home, leave his family, and go to a land
00:01:10.400 that he will show him.
00:01:11.720 The words that he particularly chooses are Lech Lecha, which is basically a repeat of the
00:01:16.400 same word.
00:01:17.400 It's go, go for yourself.
00:01:20.020 And the question really is, why does God need to say go for yourself?
00:01:24.160 Why couldn't he just say go?
00:01:25.820 So this is one example, and I don't really want to turn this into a Bible class, but
00:01:30.160 this is one example of why you have to analyze the particular words, and there's a lot of
00:01:35.460 meaning in the go for yourself as opposed to just go.
00:01:39.340 The second example that I want to pull up is one that you're probably familiar with, and
00:01:42.540 it's the parable of the mustard seed.
00:01:44.780 So if you have no idea about anything to do with mustard seeds, then the entire parable
00:01:49.000 makes no sense, really the whole story hinges on understanding mustard seed because it's
00:01:54.040 a very small seed, but it grows into a much, much larger plant, probably a two to three
00:01:57.780 meter plant.
00:01:58.900 And so you're reading this text in a different way because you're looking at the particular
00:02:04.060 words because the words are often very loaded and the choice was often deliberate.
00:02:08.980 And that's really something you have to keep in mind.
00:02:10.480 A lot of times people write and they don't necessarily feel it's deliberate, but even if it's not intentionally
00:02:16.600 or consciously deliberate, there may be some sort of a hidden message or underlying bias
00:02:20.840 that you can pick up from why they made these particular word choices.
00:02:25.060 So what does this have to do with the Charter, the Constitution Act?
00:02:28.500 So pulling this back up, I want to point you to section 4.2.
00:02:33.240 This is again, this is the Constitution Act 1982.
00:02:36.020 This is the Charter.
00:02:37.600 And so here, number four, for example, and it talks about the demand to hold elections every
00:02:43.100 five years so that no legislature can sit for more than five years in the House of Commons.
00:02:47.500 And here we have number two.
00:02:49.020 In time of real or apprehended war, invasion or insurrection, the House may be continued
00:02:54.540 by Parliament and basically they can sit for longer than five because of these things.
00:02:58.320 And so here you have two words that you really need to look at.
00:03:01.740 There's the question, in a time of real or apprehended war.
00:03:05.420 So you should stop and say, wait, why did they not just say war?
00:03:10.060 And so we look at the two words, real is, I guess you can imagine a real war, a hot war
00:03:15.080 as they would call it.
00:03:17.000 But apprehended, well, the meaning apprehend right down here, to become aware of, to perceive
00:03:23.780 or to understand.
00:03:24.780 So you say, well, how do you not understand that you're in a war?
00:03:28.040 And the answer again, if real is a hot war, then perhaps apprehended could be used to say
00:03:32.820 a cold war.
00:03:34.380 Now I don't really know if you could justify not having elections because of a cold war,
00:03:39.680 or if there's some other sort of apprehended understanding of war that you could pull
00:03:43.700 out.
00:03:44.700 But there are definitely reasons why you may want to say, okay, there is, it's not necessarily
00:03:49.240 a real war yet because we haven't entered into a hot war phase.
00:03:52.200 You know, perhaps this is Germany, 1939, 1940.
00:03:56.700 You know, the British call it the Boer War, B-O-R, like the boring war.
00:04:03.180 And the Germans called it the Sitzkrieg because no one was doing anything for the first part
00:04:06.840 of the war.
00:04:08.380 And so, you know, there may be some sort of perceived war where you don't understand and
00:04:12.140 there's definitely wiggle room, but it's important to note the words.
00:04:15.400 So again, a real or apprehended war, you should really ask the question, why does it not just
00:04:19.440 say war?
00:04:21.440 Another place that you can look at is the LGBTQ rights that were read into the charter.
00:04:26.600 And so what do I mean read into the charter?
00:04:28.840 Now if you go to section 15, it does not say anything about sexual orientation.
00:04:35.180 So it talks about how everyone is equal before the law and it does list sex as one of the
00:04:40.040 ways that you cannot be discriminated against, but it doesn't say explicitly sexual orientation.
00:04:46.220 Now the courts decided in the Supreme Court case here, Egan versus Canada, they decided that
00:04:53.040 section 15 should also include this because that's really what it meant.
00:04:58.600 And so it's, um, the Supreme Court held that although sexual orientation is not listed as
00:05:03.840 a ground for discrimination in section 15 of the charter, it constitutes an equivalent
00:05:07.140 ground.
00:05:08.140 So it's basically, it's equivalent to all these other ones in there that a person shouldn't
00:05:11.280 be discriminated because of their sexual orientation.
00:05:14.280 And that is really a consequence of the fact that it was written in 1982.
00:05:18.100 And so obviously you have maybe some other grounds on a text, especially as you're talking
00:05:22.820 about a text that is much, much, much older.
00:05:25.000 So you could talk about the Bible or you could talk about the declaration of independence in
00:05:28.400 the United States, the constitution.
00:05:30.000 Um, you can talk about the charter again, even because it was the 80, it was 1982.
00:05:34.460 And although it's not that long ago, it is, it was a very different world in 82.
00:05:38.320 And so you have, um, sort of different words, different word choices, maybe words left out because
00:05:44.740 the way that the thing is written and looking at the particular words are very, very important.
00:05:50.480 Now there's two things that, two sort of competing ideas that people have when you're talking
00:05:55.520 about, um, legalistic texts and specifically with the constitution, you guys may have heard
00:05:59.900 this before, but I want to go over them again.
00:06:02.000 So the first one is what is called the living tree doctrine.
00:06:05.700 And this is what we in Canada have as a charter.
00:06:09.000 And so the doctrine basically states that the charter is like a living tree and it is constantly
00:06:14.380 open to interpretation.
00:06:16.540 And because it's organic, it must be read in a progressive manner and adapted to changing
00:06:20.800 times.
00:06:21.800 So just like the LGBTQ rights that were read in, if you will, they weren't added into the
00:06:26.460 charter.
00:06:27.460 So they didn't go in, add, um, sexual orientation as a protected, protected status or anything
00:06:31.540 that you, you can't be discriminated against, but they basically read it in.
00:06:34.960 And so they're understanding that section 15, again, if it were, you know, if it were written
00:06:39.480 today, it would include such things as, um, sexual orientation.
00:06:43.620 And so LGBTQ rights are obviously protected and defended.
00:06:47.000 And that was really what the intent of the thing was to, to not allow discrimination.
00:06:51.160 So that's one, that's the living tree document and the LGBT rights, uh, LGBTQ rights is just,
00:06:57.240 I think the, the most, um, the most obvious example of where something is read in, where
00:07:02.320 it was rightfully, you know, people, people were rightfully protected from being discriminated
00:07:06.100 against by the sexual orientation.
00:07:07.880 Um, but it simply wasn't in there because of the times, then you have the originalism.
00:07:12.880 And this is often what you hear, um, people discussing the second amendment in the United
00:07:17.560 States talking about the right to bear arms, the militia, the right to protect you from
00:07:22.320 tyranny.
00:07:23.320 And this basically says that the, um, statements in the constitution or the document should be
00:07:28.260 interpreted based on the original understanding of the authors, um, or the people present at
00:07:32.860 the time.
00:07:33.860 At the time, maybe kind of like Shakespeare would use a particular sentence structure or
00:07:38.180 particular form, then we should try and understand what did Shakespeare mean?
00:07:42.260 What did the people writing the constitution mean?
00:07:43.960 What did the people writing the charter mean?
00:07:45.780 What did they mean?
00:07:47.260 And that's what we need to understand because it's not just what we understand the words
00:07:51.840 today.
00:07:52.460 It's also what they meant.
00:07:54.320 So we need to keep that in mind.
00:07:56.680 And really, although one is called originalism and one is the living tree, they're both basically
00:08:01.680 sets of interpretation or a lens with which you interpret a document.
00:08:06.500 Now, again, this is really important when you're talking about legal cases, because oftentimes
00:08:10.420 it is the meaning of a word that really makes or breaks a case.
00:08:14.260 And it's also important when you're reading a text.
00:08:16.700 So I do want to look at perhaps on another video, some media stories, and we'll try and
00:08:21.740 go through them together.
00:08:22.760 See if we can't pick up some of the biases or understand why a particular word was chosen.
00:08:26.860 There's definitely a lot regarding the assault-style rifle ban.
00:08:32.740 I mean, I'm sure just saying that is super loaded.
00:08:35.180 I'm sure many of you are just as angry by that word choice as I am.
00:08:39.020 But that's really important to analyze the legal text.
00:08:42.300 And especially, again, now with COVID, there's many articles about COVID that have sort of
00:08:47.640 a bias.
00:08:48.380 They're trying to push one way or another, push a particular opinion one way or another.
00:08:52.060 And so these tools don't necessarily just provide a useful analysis on legal text, but
00:09:00.120 for any sort of media or really any document they're trying to read, because ultimately
00:09:05.900 the author is choosing particular words for a particular reason.
00:09:10.380 It may be subconscious.
00:09:11.700 They may not be in trying to intentionally push anything, but this is what it is.
00:09:15.980 Now, back to the Charter, the issue when you're talking about rights or when you're talking
00:09:23.200 about a legalistic document between the two is that there has to be some sort of balance
00:09:28.440 between the Living Tree Doctrine and the Originalism Doctrine.
00:09:34.440 Now, if you go and look at the Charter, there might be something that you can change or that
00:09:39.660 will get changed that will eventually cause the document to not stand for its original intent.
00:09:45.320 So, for example, the Equality Rights, you can start picking apart different words, and
00:09:49.780 you might say that some of these words actually don't mean this, and so suddenly, you know,
00:09:55.960 equal protection, well, what does that mean?
00:09:57.680 They, you know, they're getting similar protection.
00:09:59.180 It's not exactly the same, but it's but of equal benefit.
00:10:01.900 And so therefore, because the equal protection and it's not really the exact same, but the
00:10:07.240 benefit is the same, it's, you know, it's really actually the same.
00:10:11.400 And so therefore, we can change anything we want.
00:10:12.940 Whereas, again, the originalist point of view would say, no, you have to understand it as
00:10:18.200 how they meant it.
00:10:19.300 And so that's important, again, because these documents provide a shared frame of reference
00:10:24.880 for us all to understand how these rights work or how these laws are supposed to work.
00:10:29.060 And so you do have to have this sort of balance.
00:10:31.300 And it's really the same with the Bible.
00:10:32.900 Going back to the Bible, you have to understand what the original intent was.
00:10:37.560 But because we're not riding donkeys, we're not all having fields in the way that maybe
00:10:42.340 everyone did back at the time that the Bible was written, then you have to understand what
00:10:47.100 is the intent.
00:10:48.140 So when it talks about, you know, people having to repay a neighbor, or when it talks about,
00:10:53.000 you know, what to do if you injure someone else's donkey or someone's animal, things like
00:10:56.680 this.
00:10:57.600 You know, there's a particular line I'm thinking of, that if you see your enemy's donkey overburden,
00:11:03.700 you still have to help them.
00:11:04.580 Now, the intent is that you should prevent animal cruelty, but it's not a suicidal document
00:11:09.540 that you should then go and help your enemies in the middle of wartime, simply because of,
00:11:14.660 you know, some desire to have friendship.
00:11:17.300 Now, again, that's something that is up for debate.
00:11:19.600 It's something that you need to read, something you need to understand the different points
00:11:22.060 of view.
00:11:22.680 But the point is, look at the words.
00:11:24.720 We really have to analyze the different word choices and think, why did the authors pick
00:11:28.920 these type of words?
00:11:29.980 And that will really give us a way to understand the documents and the text that we're reading.
00:11:33.800 So I do want to tackle some of the questions.
00:11:35.840 I know some of you had a lot of thoughts about rights.
00:11:40.660 I'm talking about the rights as they are both de facto and du jour, because they are both
00:11:44.560 in reality and other countries perceive us and the charter to be the law of the land.
00:11:49.360 So if you have any questions about the sort of extraneous stuff, if any of you have been
00:11:53.820 reading the comments, then just please let me know and we can tackle that at another time.
00:11:57.940 But other than that, let's think if we can find some texts, pull them apart, and see
00:12:03.360 if we can reveal some biases maybe that's a little bit more hidden than average.
00:12:06.840 So for True North, I'm Sam Ashkenazi.
00:12:09.040 Don't forget to subscribe.
00:12:10.140 There's a lot of great work being done by a lot of my fellow contributors.
00:12:13.320 So definitely check them out.
00:12:14.540 Subscribe and continue watching this channel for more great information.
00:12:18.060 Thanks a lot and have yourself a great day.
00:12:19.760 Thank you.