# Why We Don't Trust Each Other Anymore

Source: https://kyla.substack.com/p/why-we-dont-trust-each-other-anymore

## Summary

Anna Deavere Smith argues in her book *Talk to Me* that language is abstract and does not mean what we want it to mean, and that this creates a fraying of community fabric. The piece opens with a question attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche, "Is language the adequate expression of all realities?", and says the writer has spent several months focused on language and reality, especially in how people talk about the economy. The excerpt cuts off mid-question, before it reaches a fuller conclusion about why trust has declined.

## Article

This was a long time coming. Thank you to everyone who listened to me chatter on about the limits of language and allowed me to draw diagrams on restaurant napkins to try and get just a bit closer to whatever the ending of this was - if there is even an ending at all. With that being said, this piece will likely be cut off in your inbox

“Is language the adequate expression of all realities?” the (oft-quoted) Friedrich Nietzsche asked when discussing what truth and knowledge really mean - and how language limits us in the quest for both. I have been obsessed with both language and reality for the past several months, especially in the context of how we talk about the economy.

Anna Deavere Smith wrote about this concept (in a more tangible, not so Nietzsche way) in her book Talk to Me - the idea that language is abstract, it doesn’t mean what we want it to mean, and that creates this fraying of the community fabric.

Who’s listening anymore? What does…