Because words matter.
Words matter. Words matter, because words create consequences.
In our culture there are some words people use to scare each other. There are some words people use to disrupt the flow of a conversation in progress. There are some words people use to inhibit thoughtful exploration and to inhibit mature, engaged dialog.
In our culture, many of those scare words end with -ism.
Occasionally I encounter people who dismiss my interest in frame language by saying something like, “Oh, that’s just rhetoric. The Greeks and Romans invented that stuff centuries ago.”
To me that seems accurate, but also incomplete and insufficient to dismiss current work in the fields of rhetoric, frames, and persuasive language. I find it much easier to persuade people to read new books and to visit web sites operated by people who are alive and talking.
The Word Nerds, for example, record their conversations about language and offer podcasts every couple of weeks. In this recent conversation they examine modern political rhetoric.
So when people tell me that Cicero was the man for political rhetoric, I say, “Yeah, but as far as I know, Cicero ain’t got no podcast.”
Debate is bad.
Debate is often bad.
Debate is often counterproductive.
Many debates are counterproductive.
Many debates seem counterproductive to me.
It seems to me that debate often brings out the worst in people.
I find this consequence of debate frustrating, sad, distracting, and counterproductive.
If you go to the online contact form for U.S. Congressman Mike Pence, the representative from the 6th District of Indiana, you’ll notice the list of prefixes that are available to you as you enter your contact information:
Apparently, Congressman Pence does not believe in the following career/family orientation possibilities:
Continue reading: Mike Pence and limited career opportunities for women
“In order to understand what another person is saying, you must assume that it is true and try to imagine what it could be true of.”
- George Miller
“The misuse of language induces evil in the soul.”
- Socrates
Words matter. Words have consequences. Words create outcomes.
Demi Moore, on having children:
Once you hit three, when you’re outnumbered, it’s really, like, what’s the difference between (three or) four or five?
Well, I guess if you’ve already got a vehicle that holds “3 to 5 children,” the exact numbers aren’t too significant. But maybe when couched in terms of ecological footprint, it matters a little more, even when you’re a Hollywood star and may be more disconnected from the resources required to have and raise each child.
Many people give thoughtful consideration to whether or not to have kids at all. I hope that we are also giving thoughtful consideration to how many kids to have.
The Georgia Dept. of Transportation removed 488 small towns from its 2006 state highway map. In its attempt to explain this deletion the Georgia DOT’s statement to CNN describes many of those towns as “placeholders“. CNN notes the towns generally comprise “fewer than 2,500 people”.
Attention, you 2500 persons: You may have thought you lived in a town, but it’s really a placeholder.
Ouch!
But wait, there’s more. CNN’s web site teaser describes the towns as “microscopic“.
So, how many people can dance on the head of a microscopic placeholder?
Apparently, as many as 2,500.
Author and playwright Robert Anton Wilson writes about Understanding E-Prime, the notion of abolishing all forms of the verb “to be”. It has some interesting thoughts on how “semantic hygiene” can lead to a better life:
To understand E-Prime, consider the human brain as a computer…The wrong software guarantees wrong answers. Conversely, finding the right software can “miraculously” solve problems that previously appeared intractable. It seems likely that the principal software used in the human brain consists of words, metaphors, disguised metaphors, and linguistic structures in general. The Sapir-Whorf-Korzybski Hypothesis, in anthropology, holds that a change in language can alter our perception of the cosmos. A revision of language structure, in particular, can alter the brain as dramatically as a psychedelic. In our metaphor, if we change the software, the computer operates in a new way.
Thanks to Mark Stosberg for the link.
You read it here first. (Well, unless you read it at Slowly She Turned, but I wrote it there first.)
The phrase “conspicuous consumption” has been around for some time. It describes a cultural value that leads to deforestation, pollution, habitat loss, endangered species… in general, it leads to damage of our only home planet.
Conspicuous reduction seems like a positive frame, a helpful meme. I haven’t seen the words used elsewhere in this context, so perhaps it’s a new meme starting right here.
So, in the spirit of conspicuous reduction, I’ll keep this post brief, and end it here.
