Making Meaning

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

Humpty Dumpty was busy defining ‘glory’ to mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’. A bit unlikely, but somehow it worked for him.

I think there’s an important life lesson in this vignette from Through The Looking Glass.

You could argue that what works for egg-shaped characters in Victorian children’s story-books won’t necessarily hold true for human beings, who are operating in the real world of riots and downgrades, death, love and sex.

But my observation is that if anything, the Humpty Dumpty principle is even more true for humans than it was for the old crack-head.

Because it’s not just words which can have whatever meaning we choose.

Riots, too, can mean just what we choose them to mean. The meaning you make of the events in London over the past few nights depends almost entirely on your point of view.

There is no single meaning to the events of the last few nights – there are millions of meanings, at least as many meanings as there are participants and observers.

We could spend hours using Clean Language questions to understand the meanings people actually make out of the things that happen around them.

And with all those meanings, the key question can be simply stated. Given what has happened, what would you like to have happen?

• See my YouTube channel for more on the Power Switch question here