While it is a use of a common language or some sort of communication that makes interactions productive, that allows individual people to aggregate and form societies, there is also something else that is needed – a shared culture. Even in a very diverse and multicultural society, there must be a common understanding of the nature of everyday reality among its members – a weltanschauung that supports the shared culture and allows the society to function.
It is worth noting the importance of the concept of “everyday reality” – it is a legally, ethically, formally, and informally bound subset of the social, physical, and cultural world that is shared by the individuals living in a given society. Meaning, an atheist, a Muslim, a Christian, a Jew, and a Buddhist may all have their own views on the nature of the “big R” Reality – each one of them would have their own big weltanschauung, which may be quite incompatible or outright irreconcilable with that of their counterparts. However, as long as they share a common little weltanschauung pertaining to everyday reality within a given context, they can co-exist in the same society quite comfortably and to their mutual benefit. Regardless of whether you subscribe to modernist or postmodernist philosophical principles, you still have to pay your taxes, and over-the-board Satanists pay for their groceries just as well-behaving Christians do.
Leaving out the inevitable uniform acceptance of the common physical laws by the members of a society (e.g., if you drop your sandwich it falls due to the force of gravity), the individuals must agree on little weltanschauung, and this agreement means accepting a shared meaning of the words that describe it. This agreement is forged via the process of acculturation – by utilizing its formal and informal components. Formally, the acculturation takes place when an individual participates in formal social transactions vis-a-vis other members of the society. For example, if Mary attended Best University and was taught a definition of “computer network”, which she then used in conversations with her neighbor, then Mary acquired a shared meaning of the term via the process of formal acculturation, and then she re-enforced that meaning via the process of informal acculturation.
On the other hand, if Bob, who knows nothing about different types of computer architecture, brings his laptop to his friend and is told that he cannot print any longer because he needs to update his device driver, then Bob just learned that a device driver is an “important thing that allows a laptop to print”, and he acquired this shared meaning via the process of informal acculturation. If, after this encounter, Bob submits his request to update a device driver to the Help Desk at his work, and his request is understood by the representative, then Bob re-enforced and validated the meaning of “device driver” via the process of formal acculturation.
Those are different venues, and we would like them to work in unison and synergy by providing a congruency between the meanings they supply. Most of the times they do – when a girl starts attending her school, she is taught to value her education by her teacher in a classroom (e.g., formal acculturation), but she is also told to value her education by her parents at home (e.g., informal acculturation). However, sometimes they do not play well together – when a young man is told that alcohol is poison by his doctor (e.g., formal acculturation), but is persuaded by his friends that alcohol is fun (e.g., informal acculturation), then what we have is a conflict to deal with.
As an interlude, let us ask a question: What does “digitalization” mean and what does this term stand for? At this point, there is no shared meaning of digitalization that can be reliably acquired through either formal or informal processes of acculturation. We use the clause “reliably” to indicate not the shortage of the practitioners and academics willing to define the term and explain it to willing bystanders, but a lack of consistency in the assigned meaning to the term.
However, an agreement, we must have…. And once the agreement regarding everyday reality is achieved, then even some big weltanschauung-related concepts could be incorporated successfully into an understanding of little weltanschauung – this allows for such phrases as “Don’t do it – there will be hell to pay!”, “His new business is in limbo”, “This tastes like heaven!” to be understood in the same way by an atheist, a Muslim, a Christian, a Jew, or a Buddhist.
At this point, we can summarize the stated above content as the following assertion (A#):
A1: One of the prerequisites for a functioning society is a common understanding by its members of the meaning of the words that describe:
The society in general, and
The everyday reality of living in that society in particular.
A viable society is a dynamic and open system, and a viable dynamic system transitions through its states – let us say, its past, its present, and its future. This allows us to put forward the second assertion:
A2: A common understanding of the meaning of words allows a functioning society to analyze its past, to assess its present, and to plan for its future.
Just consider a phrase “The day was young and life was beautiful and Bob was gay, but when the clouds rolled in he was no more”. There are ways to understand this sentence…
This implies that the viability of a society is dependent, at least in part, on a common understanding and shared interpretation of the meaning of the words in the vocabulary used by the members of the society. For example, if we are to inquire into changes regarding the state of infrastructure of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the US, and if we are to plan for its future state, then we must, clearly, define what “ICT infrastructure” is and how we are going to represent it and how we are going to measure it.
Taking this into consideration, it is clear, prior to even reading, that a hypothetical article titled “Assessing State of Cybersecurity: Past, Present, and Future” will contain, highly likely, a lot of hype words and not a lot of substance. And this is not a reason for antagonism toward the author who wants to publish his paper or the subject – it is that the breadth of the undertaking makes a meaningful assessment impossible. But, if a reader attends to the content of the article, then it is the fault of the reader because it is he who gives the authority to the writer and the subject.
After all, when one sees a paper titled “Assessing State of Health…” or “Assessing Quality of Movies…”, one does not expect a serious treatment of the topic. However, it is, probably, fair to say that a conference titled “Assessing State of Digitalization: Past, Present, and Future” would attract a large share of participants who are in awe and bewilderment of the topic. The cool factor is hard to beat.
In this work, we are primarily concerned with the issues facing us in assessing its present and planning its future, specifically, in the context that impacts, and is impacted by, digitalization. Thus, we put forward yet another assertion:
A3: A lack of a common understanding of the meaning of words precludes a functioning society from adequately assessing its present state and planning for its future.
On its own, this is not big of a problem, for it is reasonable to suggest that in order to facilitate a common understanding of a word or a phrase, all we need to do is to provide a common definition.
This, a seemingly simple task, is not easy to accomplish – this is why we have so many terms that lack a common definition at the inter- as well as intra-societal level. Furthermore, the same situation with a lack of a common definition is observable even at a more restrictive sub-cultural level characterized by the same field of inquiry or industry – see Table 1.1.
TABLE 1.1 Examples of Imprecise Meanings Specific Field | Term or Statement | Precise Meaning? |
Information Technology | Big Data, Business Intelligence | No |
Business | Status Code, Business Value | No |
Law | Probable Cause, Insanity, Reasonable Person | No |
While there could be many reasons for why certain terms (e.g., happy life, successful career, etc.) and words are not defined or poorly defined or have multiple definitions (see Table 1.2), there is only one consequent – they lead to a lack of a common understanding of the meaning of what is being said. Interestingly, the reasons for the misunderstanding are not due to the inevitable subjectivity of the interpretation by an individual.
TABLE 1.2 Examples of Imprecise Definitions Term or Statement | Definition? |
Fair Business Practices, Social Justice, Green Energy, Good Government | No |
Happy Life, Successful Career, Good Person, Customer, Value | No |
Fresh Produce, Healthy Meal | Ambiguous |
Attack, Authorization | Multiple |
This is because if we are relying on the assumption of the acceptance of little weltanschauung by the members of a society, then we must leave the reason of subjectivity of interpretation outside of our consideration. For example, whatever the subjective takes and interpretations of individual stakeholders could be regarding the term “case dismissed”, at the end ...
