The way we speak shapes what we’re allowed to see, build, and believe

Your profession has a language.
So does your upbringing.
Your culture. Your algorithms. Your myths.

We tend to forget this. We assume we all mean roughly the same thing when we say value, leadership, efficiency, or progress, yet we don’t. What you call innovation, someone else might call extraction. What you see as loyalty, another may call silence. Every word arrives with freight: past meanings, tribal assumptions, tone, class, pace, posture.

This matters in business. It matters in families. It matters when AI starts echoing our words back to us and we don't recognise ourselves.

We imagine language as neutral. A tool, a bridge. Yet often it’s more like a filter. And the danger is not that we speak wrongly. The danger is that we don’t realise the cage we’re speaking from.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What’s the link between class, culture, and language?
Language habits encode race, class, and educational background. Even within English, a working-class Glaswegian and an Ivy League consultant may inhabit different cognitive worlds. Both speak fluently, but they are not saying the same things even when using the same words.

Q: Can professions trap us in echo chambers?
Yes. Every sector has its jargon, its unspoken scripts, its performance cues. Law, business, academia, tech. They each create ‘language bubbles’ that reward conformity and discourage original insight.

Q: Isn’t mathematics a universal language?
Not quite. Our base-10 system likely stems from our anatomy: ten fingers. Yet cultures have counted in twelves, sixties, twenties. Computers now "speak" in binary. Even numbers carry cultural assumptions.

Q: What does Terrence McKenna have to do with this?
McKenna challenged the capitalist/communist binary. He saw language as a tool not just for trade, but for transformation. His vision of communication leaned less on control, more on consciousness. He asked: What if the future isn’t out there in space, but inside our perception?

Q: How does this relate to AI?
As AI models learn from our language, they inherit our biases, metaphors, and blind spots. If our professional or cultural dialects already misalign, AI may deepen the gap. It repeats our patterns. Fast, wide, and loud.

Ready to Speak Differently?

🔍 Explore how your words shape your world.
Take one meeting this week and notice the language being used. What’s implied? What’s left unsaid? Who benefits from that way of speaking?

🧭 Shift your language, shift your outcomes.
Start by swapping jargon for clarity. Replace abstraction with image. Speak from presence, not performance.

📄Read the full academic paper here.