One thing I’ve discovered about bloggers is that many if not most of them have a fondness for language. Some of the most inventive invective and ribald retorts can be found on blogs of both sides of the political spectrum. This is why we read them. Blogs are entertainment for the mind as well as nourishment for the soul and to deny that the interesting turn of a phrase or juxtaposition of metaphors doesn’t gladden the heart and cause the spirit to soar is to deny the reason most of us read in the first place.
But that same talent and inspiration can also be used in ways that degrade and debilitate the meaning of words themselves while at the same time, revealing the scribbler to be ignorant of the facility of language and oblivious to specific definitions that have come about as a result of more than 300 years of modern English language usage.
It is said that language can be an inexact medium of communication. This is true insofar as many people misuse words both deliberately and in ignorance. As for the former, there has been a movement afoot for more than 30 years that sees definitional language as a form of tyranny, that words themselves are binders that tie the user to an archaic pre-modern set of concepts wedded to the idea of white, Anglo-Saxon, male dominance. These post-modernists decided to pull the rug out from underneath the New Critics by claiming that instead of concentrating on text (or the language itself) to glean meaning from the written word, one should instead throw context to the four winds and substitute referential formulations that are anti-subjective hence, free of the biases inherent in a language created and maintained by white males.
As for the latter reason – ignorance – I quote that great American philosopher Forrest Gump who wisely said “Stupid is as stupid does.”
This tug of war over language and its meanings is not some exercise in academic obscurantism. It is of vital necessity because those who seek to free language from some imagined tyranny have instead made it infinitely more difficult to communicate. They having succeeded in grafting some of their ideas about meanings onto the tree of general usage. The damage this has done to political discourse in this country has been superficial so far but threatens to make debate on any number of issues impossible because important concepts are being defined in entirely different ways by people of different ideological stripes.
To wit: Recently several writers have accused me of being a “racist.” The context is unimportant except to note that they are accusing me with this nauseating epithet not because of any comments about someone from a different race. Indeed, this is the crux of my argument because I am being accused of being a racist against a group from my own race – the Arabs.
The online American Heritage Dictionary defines “racism” and “racist” thusly:
rac·ism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (rszm)
n.
1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.
racist adj. & n.
The races of man are in a constant state of flux but even today, we see three highly delineated groupings of human beings based largely on color but also on other factors. For instance:
Caucasoids. 1,000 million people with variable skin colour; white-dark brown. Hair variable, never woolly, body hair often thick. Lips tend to be thin. Three subdivisions exist, the Nordic, the Mediterranean and the Alpine.The Nordic group are often tall, blonde and narrow headed – Scandinavia, Baltic, Germany, France, Britain The Mediterranean group (Southern France, Spain, Italy and oddly, Wales Egyptians, Semites, Persians, Afghans and some Indians. Lighter in body build, dark and narrow headed. The Alpine group extends from the Mediterranean to Asia. Broad headed, square jaws, olive skin, brown hair.
In other words, Arabs (belonging mostly to the “Semite” subgroup but also could be “Egyptian” and a small group of Indo-European peoples who reside in areas of Afghanistan) are more closely related to the French than they are any of the Negroid populations further south in Africa or Mongoloids to the east. To say that I am a racist because I hate the Arabs is like saying I’m a racist because I hate Italians.
But don’t try and tell this to the purveyors of political double-talk – not when there are points to be made by using the term “racist” in order to delegitimize your opponent’s arguments. It has now become second nature to the racialists (people who traffic in the use of race and issues of race to illegitimately take a superior moral position in argument) to bandy about the epithet in public discourse doing damage to both discursive conversation and the general sensibilities of the public with regard to the use of language.
This usage does not impress me nor does it faze me – no more than any other imbecilic argument made by people who are generally uninformed about other things. It does however gall me that the English language is being hijacked by a bunch of what R. Emmett Tyrell referred to as “dirty necked galoots.” And that is where my name calling critics have gotten my goat.
So to all who wish to call me a racist, I would consider it a favor if instead you substituted the more accurate pejorative “bigot.”
At least then, I’ll understand what you’re talking about.
UPDATE
Kender has similar thoughts and complaints.
7:23 pm
“one should instead throw context to the four winds and substitute referential formulations that are anti-subjective”
case in point: http://www.nobeliefs.com/eprime.htm
8:20 pm
Welcome to the club, meetings are on tuesday nights at hooters.
http://kendersmusings.blogspot.com/2006/01/who-are-you-with-as-for-me-im-with.html
8:29 pm
Dan T., in my present state of education that I adhere to, in which my metaphysical system teaches me there is a right and a wrong, the link you provided appears to lead to a website that would seem to cause great anger in me brought on by the apparent stupidity of people that would adhere to a system of grayscaled worldviews that eschew good vs. evil and wrong vs. right.
The electron is a particle that moves in a wave form, at times.
9:01 pm
While I appreciate the necessity of the limited scope of each blog installment, I initially hoped for reference in your blog to the hatchet jobs performed on the English language in practically all reporting avenues. It is a sad commentary on the state of our national dialogue that for example (1) subject and predicate too often disagree, (2) the gerund is never, as it should be, modified by the adjective form of the possessive pronoun, and (3) topics of national and international importance are regularly mispronounced—consider the President of the United States’ pronouncing “nuclear” as if it were spelled “nuculer.” These three examples may be dismissed as insignificant by some, especially those who make a living from their butchery of the greatest language on Earth. But, the point is that these examples describe the symptoms of the disease. The illness is the lazy mind. In the rush to inject my idea into the marketplace, I could simply dismiss the rules of grammar. After all, isn’t it more important to beat the next person to the punch with a poorly articulated idea than to apply a disciplined mind to the idea before it is subjected to the harsh light of public scrutiny? At another time (e.g. 1776) in our nation’s development, public scrutiny would be expected and serve as a deterrent to sloppy composition. Unfortunately, there are few in our country today with the ability to recognize or the courage to state that “the king is wearing no clothes.â€
9:58 pm
Wow..I loved yer analysis of why we blog addicts..ok..
I’ll speak for mahself..heh..write and thrive so much
on reading others’ alliterative posts.
As far as the race card being drawn..to me- it’s all
getting old…If pple were less apologetic and self-
hating, they could silence the haters who love to
accuse any broad minded conservative of racism any
day of the week!
11:10 pm
Imagine, for a moment, that this is 1939 and we are arguing whether or not the Germans represent a danger to the health and well-being of Americans. Would we be called “racists”? No. Would we be called “bigots”? No. This is testimony to the truth that the people calling “racist” are the actual racists. They don’t believe the Arabs and Persians are dangerous because they think these peoples are incompetents.
The end of PC is almost here. It’s the “denialists” (my new term) who have to explain to us rational people why we shouldn’t be afraid of raging seething Arab Muslim terrorists and murderous Mad Mullahs building nukes.
9:50 am
Kender – I’ve always gone directly back to the definition of “racist” as you have in your link when I hear the term – the “superiority” aspect that almost never actually applies to its context, much like homophobes are not fearful. These are mere button-pushing words. Okay, these would “appear” to be button-pushing words.
Ask an e-primer to write a paragraph without “appear”, by the way. (And “would appear” takes me off on an OT tangent, reminding me of William Safire’s “craven conditional” structure – it would appear, I would hope, etc. – suitable language for a liberal’s fear of commitment.)