Locating Our Language - Economics (Part One)

Earlier the question was whether the faithful have lost our language. I'm not sure I am at the point of being able to suggest an answer, because a preliminary question to be asked is what language do we speak.  If we listen, I think we will hear a lot of economic speak. That is economic metaphors are sprinkled throughout our daily use of language.  So the questions I was asking: do we really speak that way? Why do we speak that way?  And of course, so what if we do speak that way.

I was reading a great little book by Donald Miller called Blue Like Jazz.  He recalls attending a social at Westmont College in Santa Barbara CA (by the way, this is a great college from which my oldest daughter will graduate this Spring).  Miller recounts the lecture, Greatest Hits volume at 224, "Mr. Spencer (the professor giving the lecture) asked us to consider relationships. What metaphors do we use when we think of relationships?  We value people, I shouted out.  Yes, he said and wrote it on his little white board.  We invest in people, another person added.  And soon enough we had listed an entire white board of economic metaphor.  Relationships could be bankrupt, we said. People are priceless, we said.  All economic metaphor."

Okay I thought maybe that was Don Miller being a little quirky and subversive - two descriptions I'm sure he readily accept.  Then I was listening to a local Christian radio station and heard an interview of an author named David Nour, who had just published his book called Relationship Economics. Wow, the echo with Don Miller was now deafening.  In his preface, a IX, Nour claims "the practical notion of relationship economics isn't about networking. It's about learning how to invest in people for an extraordinary return.  It's about exchanging relationship currency, accumulating reputation capital, and building professional net worth.  It's about learning the art and science of transforming your most valuable relationships into execution, performance and results."

Nour comes right out and uses what I presume he believes underlies this theory - that economic metaphors are embedded in our everyday speak so thoroughly that he can develop an entire system for manipulation of a very non-economic aspect of our lives, our relationships, using economic language and it would be readily understood by readers.  What I found shocking was that Nour argues his system applies across the board - both our personal and our professionahip relationships, in the preface at X.

So I guess Don Miller wasn't being all that quirky and subversive but rather pretty observant. So the question now turns to why we speak in economic metaphors.  That's next.