Gazing upon the ruins of Timgad in North Africa, a city founded as Thamugas by the emperor Trajan in 100 a.d., and destroyed by the Vandals after it had lost its cultural balance, Hilaire Belloc wrote: “We sit by and watch the Barbarian, we tolerate him; in the long stretches of peace we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence, his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creeds refreshes us; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond: and on these faces there is no smile.”
Read the whole thing and think about how the counter culture has "improved" the lives of millions of Americans.
5 comments:
Reactionary clap trap. He objects to same sex marriage and claims it is the phrase "His husband" that is a sign of impending doom. Isn't this marriage legal in MA? So the phrase accurate. How is the counter-culture sole responsible? I think Orwell's essay which he cites is a misreading and the right is even more abusive of using language in a dishonest manner. In Orwell's words "Statements like Marshal Petain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive." Phrases such as Cut and Run, Tax and Spend, Stay the Course, and other blather from right are all semantically null. Read the Orwell and see which side is more responsible for crimes against the language. Lest we forget,Rome fell from within due to corruption and abuse of power from the top. THe Orwell essay is here...
http://www.assumption.edu/dept/history/His130/PoliticsAndLanguage.html
"If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase -- some jackboot, Achilles' heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse -- into the dustbin, where it belongs." - George Orwell
The point Dexter seems to be making is that "marriage" and "husband" are 'some worn-out and useless' terms.
The brilliant Christopher Hitchens has pointed out that folks quote Orwell at their own risk, as he often turns out to be, at best, the enemy of my enemy, a double-edged sword. Neither Rutler or Dexter heed this warning.
Although I know Rutler, and have disagreed with him on minor points through the years, I do not know Dexter, so I am unqualified to comment on their 'authority' vis-a-vis (Orwell would despise that phrase) Orwell the novelist & essayist. But I do know that Rutler is a well-respected author who is noted for his love of things English & literary.
In the end, Dexter, it seems to m to be counter-intuitive to claim that Orwell was against 'basic words meaning precisely what they have always meant' (eg, marriage, husband, wife, son, daughter, murder, theft, etc). Especially in the light of the essay referenced. No matter the amount of judicial, political, and academic wiggling, most basic, English words should remain meaning what they have always meant. This is how I read Orwell.
Am I missing something here? Again, I understand neither Orwell nor Rutler claiming that teh point is anything political per se, but rather they are concerned about silly, arbitrary changes to the basic meaning of English terms and language.
No, because Rutler doesn't like the term husband applied in the case of same sex marriages does not mean that term has lost any meaning was my point.
So silly, arbitrary changes in the meaning of basic words, by judges, politicians, activists, and The Academy overide, by fiat, any reasonable discussion about precisely why such changes are necessary? "Reactionary clap trap?"
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