Language Games and Serious Matters: Cultural Pluralism, Relativism and Rituals in the Media

Abstract

Wittegenstein’s claims with regard to the variety of “language-games” and the
differences among them are not claims about the plurality of cultures, but rather
about the plurality of “forms of life” within the culture that he shared with his
audience, and the similarity of the latter, in that respect, to other cultures. That
approach is relevant to the criticism of “language games”. An analysis of the
difference that Wittgenstein himself made between “language games”, “grammatical
jokes” and “mythologies” enables a criticism of the current “grammatical grotesques”
in the media, internet and the cultural-relativist rituals that are currently in
vogue.