Powers of language in shadowy times

St. Elijah's Monastery near Mosul, Iraq, constructed in the late 6th century,
obliterated in the 21st century

Each of us is in contact with so many people via Facebook, twitter, the comments under online articles, and and so on, and I've felt burdened of late by certain dominant, humorless tendencies online. What if we tried to take a world that is slantdicular and often evil--something we simply cannot deny after Auschwitz, the Holodomor, the Gulag, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Rwandan genocide, Syrian gas attacks on children and families, and much more--and tried to make it stand up straight by each of us being examples of clear-speaking truth (with good humor and without obfuscation or jargon) with no residue at all of contempt and hatred? What if we made ourselves stand up a little straighter in the process? Maybe even we could even be examples of out-of-fashion plain old goodness, as best we could achieve it.

Could we each make a tiny but transformative difference in the world with words? Could we make the world a little better, small as we are? We are tiny compared to the mass of human beings, yet we contact so many others via online sites and social media, and they contact others in turn... Our word-reach is, in fact, enormous, and we have no idea how far the words go. Are we in fact making the world for ourselves and others a worse place by wielding so much scorn as a word-weapon (rather than generosity and humor and clear back-and-forth discussion where people learn from one another)? 

What if we kept to clarity of thought, practiced fair back-and-forth discussion, and sent out light-drenched word-bouquets of truth and beauty and even love instead of weeds dripping with scorn and contempt? Could we affirm by such acts that each human person is of some mysterious, precious value? Could that help to transform the nature of the world for the better? Could that make the situation of all of us a better one? Could we live into the ideal (despite the existence of error and evil and despite those who refuse the good) even through the debased modes of social media and online comments?

You see what I am: change me, change me! --Randall Jarrell

Fallen powers: on journalism

Vignette by Clive Hicks-Jenkins for Thaliad

The great powers and we the people

One temptation for great powers like the media is that they become fawning and cease to see what is before their eyes in an accurate way, fail to name what issues are important, and then obfuscate reality for the rest of us. One of the jobs of great powers like media and government is to be vigilant in fighting against a fallen, devilish tendency to align themselves against ordinary people. If journalism ceases to ask penetrating, needful questions and use precise, unbiased language, then it is a fallen power that can do nothing but harm people by throwing veils over our sight. Journalism is then against us and not for us, and that occurs no matter what our politics and opinions are. 

A reality-based fantasy

Picture a country. Beloved Leader goes away to have a vacation with a Renown Instructor in a popular sport and a Famous Celebrity of that sport. The press is disappointed that they are not invited, but they gather for his return. Many matters ought to be addressed--wars and rumors of war, economic crises, and so on--but the press corps shows nothing to the outer world but celebrity-style fan-boy, fan-girl affection for Beloved Leader. In planned and synchronized unison, they chorus, "Who won?"

To the journalists

Take up your homely, needful mantle. Respect language. You are a people anointed to be the arrangers of words and the clarifiers of the Babel-language that comes burbling from congressional offices and ivory towers.

You see, my journalists (you are supposed to be mine, you know, and to belong to us all--this is a glory and burden of your vocation), I am discouraged about the inaccuracy of words and the devaluing of language in our era. In fact, I am back to considering that marvelous William Stringfellow quote about the Powers and their manipulation of language, ending with "diversion and demoralization, and the violence of babel (including verbal inflation, libel, rhetorical wantonness, sophistry, jargon, incoherence, falsehood, and blasphemy.)" The media is, indeed, a "great power," one that appears to have wandered into strange paths of late.

Journalists, help us be a "more perfect union." Give us the gift of clarity. Don't base the news or the choice of what's news on your personal opinions. Avoid the trivial and the trifling. Ask the questions that burn to be asked. Never fawn.

Finally, an explanation for what's wrong with government, academia, and The DaVinci Code

A re-post from 9/28/05: I stumbled on this one while hunting through the past and was surprised to realize how much this strange book influenced my writing at the time. I wonder if it's common for a nonfiction book to take such hold of a writer's imagination... And I can't say that it has happened since.

Like everybody else, I've wondered why the world sometimes appears such a miscreant place, full of lies and badly written books and mean-spirited nonsense.

So I am glad to find the answer.

In a footnote to Powers, Weakness, and the Tabernacling of God, Marva Dawn cites one William Stringfellow's description of the tactics used by fallen powers and principalities: "denial of truth, doublespeak and overtalk, secrecy and boasts of expertise, surveillance and harassment, exaggeration and deception, cursing and conjuring, usurpation and absorption, diversion and demoralization, and the violence of babel (including verbal inflation, libel, rhetorical wantonness, sophistry, jargon, incoherence, falsehood, and blasphemy.)"

Think about it. Government and politico-speak. Academia and the glorification of the impenetrable. Bad but bestselling books.

All, all explained!

*******
Mysteries of life settled, I wonder if that Stringfellow was a relation of my beloved Mrs. Stringfellow, who taught me in first and second grades at University Terrace in Baton Rouge?

******
I should add that the Dawn book is a very curious one, suggesting that some of the ways we human beings see the world have changed far more radically that we commonly understand. "The Powers" have crept into my imagination and forced me to write several stories and poems, including "The Nesting Doll." 

Addendum: See Philippa Robbins' Red Riding Hood, Wolf, and Granny nesting dolls: here. They cover several posts... Thanks, Clive!