War of the Words
Ernie: Its a question of instincts. One thing that I learned during the various times that I had something to do with newspapers is that "controversy sells." The more controversy, the better, it drives up circulation. People want to know more about something controversial, they are curious, and one major purpose of journalism is to make good use of controversy wherever possible. This is -whatever else may be true- a matter of good business. Anyone who is controversy averse cannot make it in the news biz, in other words. Other businesses may be controversy averse by nature. I understand this reasonably well. A retailer wants to sell classy furniture or snazzy appliances or fine linen or God-knows-what, not get into a fight about anything -because that might hurt sales. However, journalism is related to politics and politics is also controversy sensitive and often (not always, but often) politicians make good use of disputes, contentious views, arguments between people, etc, to gain popularity or win elections. And, last time I looked, RC is a species of politics even if it also is closely related to philosophy. But some philosophers have been very controversy sensitive themselves, among them Nietzsche, Hume, Russell, Socrates, Marx, Feuerbach, Spinoza, Kierkegaard, and on and on. As a guess between a third and half of all philosophers have been controversial to some extent and in some cases Very Controversial. This is also about what may be referred to as "banner words." And language -word choice- decidedly is the domain not only of English Lit majors, but journalists. Political figures, or at least a minority of politicians, may also be sensitive to word choice. And there is a lot of that in religion and in advertising. Advertising is especially sensitive to this, in fact. Of special interest to historians is how words were used in the past vs their contemporary meanings. This matters not only for the sake of understanding texts in the here and now, but in terms of comprehending old texts because the same words used in 1900 or, say, 1611, may not mean the same thing in 2019 as they did long ago. Hence the problems with the KJV, or the problems with classic songs. "Both sides now," by Judy Collins, is really special to many people, but, alas, it includes lyrics that say, "isn't is strange, isn't it queer?" But Judy Collins was not -at all- referring to homosexuals in the song, merely making a statement about strange times. Matters are worse in Christmas carols or songs, you know, "don we now our gay apparel," or "may the yuletide be gay." This plays havoc with the Christian message that is intended. However, "word choice wars" never cease. In the process some important words -referred to here as banner words- become strategic territory, to be fought over and the winner gets to define part of culture, hence part of what people think or value or etc. Of course, some people are clueless that there even is a war of the words. Which is unfortunate and entirely avoidable; all it takes is some education to language and its use / misuse. Yes, along the way, I have spent some time in study of how languages change and how words change meaning. What should be noted is that political groups and religions seek to persuade others that their preferred use of a banner word should become the default usage of the population at large. This process starts with the "sin of original word theft." Here's the rub. It now is next to impossible to discuss the philosophy or politics of Teddy Roosevelt without simultaneously explaining that contemporary usage by Leftists is NOT what TR intended when he coined the term "progressive" to indicate a political movement. Part of my across-the-board crusade involves taking back a good number of words that have been stolen so that these words can once again be made use of as they were originally intended, which in most cases was for the good. This goes for Progressive, which I would like to see once again universally understood as characterizing the views and policies of Teddy Roosevelt. Alas, the non-history-sensitive among us, simply don't care - or are oblivious to it all because they are incapable of understanding what is at stake and why it matters. Let me put it this way: Do you like it when the word "gay" in about 15 Christmas carols or Christmas songs, may compromise the way many people think of these compositions? It is not a good explanation to say that "surely everyone understands the difference." Maybe people age 50+ get the distinction with no difficulty but about anyone younger there is good reason to be skeptical that they do. Hence, my strong objection to use of the word "gay" to indicate sodomites. Plus, I have a vested interest in clarity of historical documents and the word "gay" appears in all kinds of literature of the past and the last thing I want as an historian is for readers, who hypothetically could be my students, to misconstrue meanings because of the inroads of the perverted. Same thing Re: "lesbian," a word that is grossly insulting to the Greek Orthodox Christians of the real island of Lesbos ( aka Lesvos), population in excess of 100,000. Use of that term also helps fix in place the forgeries that inserted female homosexual references (this happened in antiquity) into the poems of Sappho, a married woman with at least one daughter. Thus I never refer to female homosexuals as "lesbians." Why should anyone concede even one banner word to homosexuals? Until their appropriation of the term "gay" that word habitually meant female prostitute or a male rake, viz, a horny womanizer. Now, if you read literature of the 1920s or the 1930s, you may wonder about all the homosexual references when, in fact, there are none. So it is with regard to the word fag or faggot, also. BTW, "faggot" could be spelled with either one or two "G"s. Anyway, during the Koran war, if you study that conflict, the US military called the MiG fighter jets of the Communists, "fags" or "faggots." And the term comes up now and then in literature of the past where it meant some type of burning piece of wood. I recall Ben Franklin discussing faggots in something he wrote. News flash, he was not discussing sodomites. There are all kinds of other examples, like the horrible misuse of the name of the Goddess Isis to denote a group of Muslim mass murderers, but let me end by discussing the word "Socialism." This is yet another term that I am willing to fight for. Exactly why should anyone concede this word to Marxists? Marx did not invent the term -it was a neologism of Robert Owen- and Marx's definition muddies the waters greatly when discussing the concept. So, if it is possible, my intention is to reclaim this word also, for the purpose of furthering the reputation and ideas of the first Socialist, Henri Saint-Simon, who did not mean what Marx meant, but something very different, a political system that is based both on social values and reform and upon efficient Capitalism. Socialism is a good word, there were Christian Socialists, there still are some, and there were Jews who espoused a form of ethical Socialism, and this has also been true for Japan among Buddhists. Indeed, the word has been inspirational to a lot of people in history, for instance, Gustav Holst, best known for his symphonic poem with women's chorus, The Planets. Holst got his start in music in a Socialist choir in his native Norway. Words matter and we should never surrender good words to our enemies. If they have stolen some good words, we should fight to get them back. Billy -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
