other|matters

Waterboarding Language 23 April 2008

Caring about language is not an egghead sport. Nothing exists outside of its reach. Why would “revelation” itself be entrusted to words if there wasn’t something special or supernal about them? Like air and water, language can be corrupted, though it’s hard to notice the toxins. Apparently, the struggle for the meaning of words (especially common words) seems to precede the struggle for control, be it political, social, or even religious. The quote below is from a highly recommended book called Death Sentences (by Don Watson), a serious critique of how political- and business-speak are damaging language and its use in public dialogue. I like it for its content, but also because it is the kind of work that helps us decipher meaning from background noise.

“All totalitarian regimes, regardless of their ideological origin, pervert language to delude, intimidate, and mystify their subjects. They also take the humor out of it, even when the circumstances are laughable. Stalin sent his erstwhile comrades to their deaths confessing ludicrously concocted crimes, and countless intelligent people were persuaded to believe them. What is it that torture and brainwashing try to extract? Words. They need the word as the corpse. If words define reality, you cannot control the one without controlling the other.”

And while I’m at it, read this too, please.

“[A] cathedral is the property of the church, whereas a language belongs to civilization, and if [language] is dragged down it takes civilization with it. Language is not just a preserver or bearer of tradition. Words do more than the elemental thing of linking one generation to another. The great works of public language like the Book of Common Prayer are poetic works. In the poetry is the mystery with which religion is concerned and on which it depends. . . . Many churchpeople will tell you that when it adopted everyday modern prose, the church cut off an artery to its soul.”