What is it about the language I speak that prevents me from finding my way out of a paperbag with a flashlight?

Lisa writes: I really liked this article in Thursday's New York Times. "Does Your Language Shape How You Think?" Well written and lots of interesting things to think about. This sentence in particular struck me:

If different languages influence our minds in different ways, this is not because of what our language allows us to think but rather because of what it habitually obliges us to think about.

The article goes on to explain how certain languages that require speakers to give directions in north/south/east/west oblige their speakers to be constantly aware of cardinal directions; and languages that assign gender to inanimate objects subtly influence their speakers' perceptions of those objects (i.e. Spanish speakers generally think of their puentes [bridges] as mas macho than German speakers' Brücken.

All this to say, I had two thoughts:

1. The closest thing I've encountered to those Guugu Yimithirr speakers (one of the groups that uses cardinal directions) is people from Utah. Not kidding. When you live in an area in which all of the streets are, very sensibly, aligned with and named for the points of the compass, you get good at always knowing which way is north. UNLESS you've been cheating for years by just looking at where the mountains are (in Provo, they're to the east) and then you move to, say, Colorado Springs (where they're to the west). And then you'll spend the rest of your days completely turned around.

2. Consider this slight substitution: "The media influences our minds because of what it habitually obliges us to think about." Case in point: I got back from my mission in December 1992 after 18 months of no U.S. news. I was a little shocked when I arrived in the airport because the front page of every newspaper and the constant loop of CNN were all reporting about child abductions. Later, talking to people, I heard over and over about how parents weren't letting their kids walk to school by themselves, ride their bikes, or even play in their own yards without supervision. The reality, as far as we could all determine it, was that we were in the middle of a really horrible spike in kidnappings and no kid was safe anywhere. It was only years later that I read a report that showed the number of kidnappings in 1992 was no higher than average, and was, in fact, a little bit lower. None of us actually knew anyone who had been kidnapped. So why were we all freaking out about it? Because we were obliged to think about it constantly because it was being fed to us constantly ... at least, right up until the media abruptly moved on to the next topic.

What's my point? It's the job of the media to just present the facts and let people come to their own opinions, right? Not possible. Partisan elements aside, even the most neutral media still influence how we think because they choose what we're going to think about. What I mean is, for every story about cats, there's another story about dogs that we're not hearing, and so we're thinking about cats, not dogs. It works the same way in the education: schools claim they're not trying to indoctrinate kids, but the fact is they can't help it. There are only so many hours in a classroom day, so every lesson devoted to one topic takes the place of another potential lesson about another topic. We even do it to ourselves: if I'm reading the comics (which I am), I'm not spending that moment reading Plato (which I'm not).

My point? I just commandeered your brain for the amount of time it took you to read this.