Q: Are some languages better than others for the developmental of wisdom? Let me address that interesting question indirectly via a quick exploration of the ways in which our words are dumb and racist. Dumb and racist??? Yeah. Sort of. Obviously (probably) I find something perversely cheerful in the sheer silliness of saying “words are dumb and racist,” but it is nonetheless true, I think, that common contemporary attitudes about language perpetuate certain types of inter-group bias while also habituating us to a clumsier, less powerful relationship with our words.