229. Gloss Essay

Gloss: (Definition) the “social fabric” of a people—what they conceive of as “reality”.

For the members of a society, which can be as small as a tribe of a few dozen people to a civilization of millions, the gloss is a complete system of philosophy, usually including acceptable patterns of behavior, a language (or dialect), a religion and a history.

A gloss must be self-consistent and cohesive, with rules for every contingency, policy for all social intercourse and answers for all philosophical speculation.

Once a “hole” is punched in a gloss; once a question arises which cannot be answered satisfactorily in terms of the gloss’s closed system, the fabric is weakened and if another gloss is handy which more reasonably or forcefully answers the question, plugging the hole, (and introducing an element of an extraneous gloss into the previously self-sufficient system), it will serve as a “patch”.

For reasons of security, all members of a gloss system strive to keep their philosophical parameters inviolate. Aided by the basic conservatism of the human organism, this trends to system stasis.

But it is our duty, of course, as creatures worthy of “The Experiment” to poke holes in each other’s glosses; to encourage drafts of cross-cultural knowledge to circulate through the openings and to expect the discomfort and unbalance thus caused will eventually lead to a more successful, perhaps truer conception of reality.

…