"F**k (you/off/my life/that/this)!", is America's favorite curse. Nevertheless, the use of the words "perpetrator", "delinquent", and other titles given to the "client" and "victim" seemed even more disrespectful in the way they were used. While we were discussing the use of language in our agencies in class, I realized that there are so many phrases and titles that are probably more disrespectful than the F-word. Intensity and tones also play into how disrespectful a word can be, but generally we seem to take more offense to labels that others put on us than curse words. On the other hand, even some titles that we use can seem overused and in some cases turned into words that don't seem to hold any disrespect anymore when used by specific people (e.g., N-word, ho, queer). In class, the word c*nt came up as another bad word, but as Americans, we may be more desensitized to the word. If you ever hear a British person call somebody else a c*nt, they definitely mean to disrespect more than if an American were to say it. The modern parent shouldn't discipline their children about which curse words count as "no-no" words but also some bad labels that shouldn't be used.
On the subject of labels that our agency workers use to distinguish others behind their backs and in their faces, it seems like there is a conscious effort to get away from what we have been desensitized to. Instead of giving somebody the label of victim, we use survivor. Instead of perpetrator or delinquent, we use client. When we are in public, we make an effort to get away from what we have learned to call others our whole life, but it's so easy to fall back into the same mindset when we're not in proximity of those who might take offense. Does that mean we should always be thinking about how to change ourselves to only speak in a respectful tone? No, we should often try to speak in a respectful manner, but the slangs and slurs of everyday language is also useful to know. It's easier on the brain to release the constricting rules of respect and just let loose when you need to relieve stress. Maybe that's what the people in the group sessions were doing at Timothy's agency, so it's okay for them to use the N-word. However, once the other employees are in the office, it's time for them to go back to work, so they should be thinking about how to speak without offending anybody. Then again, this way of thinking is only my own opinion.
Aside from desensitizing ourselves to bad words and labels, it seems like people are becoming more accustomed to bad language in the manner that Mr. George Orwell does not want society to fall into. We keep using phrases and language that sound good, but the meaning itself doesn't matter as long as it sounds similar to what we want to express. I notice that the words we use in everyday language are fads. As new phrases and words become popular, they become overused until the meaning is lost and changed in some cases. I am sorry Mr. Orwell, but I will be ending this post with a word that I believe is an example of my last statement and also breaks your fifth rule (never use a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent), swag!
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Desensitization of Language
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Writing just over a decade before World War II, German political theorist, and eventual member of the Nazi party, Carl Schmitt attempted to distill "the concept of the political" down to its essence. He was interested in capturing what it was in just a few words--a project that in another type of "language," namely math, might be called coming up with an elegant equation. What Schmitt came up with is indeed simple and to-the-point. It is also profoundly unnerving, particularly considering the atrocities committed during the war. For him, the "concept of the political" was about the distinction between "friend" and "enemy" (Carl Schmitt, 1926, The Concept of the Political). That is, "the political" in its purest sense, according to Schmitt, is that arena of human thought, action, and behavior in which the distinction between friend and enemy gets made. In light of our class discussion last week and Simon’s post, it occurs to me that before any action or behavior and perhaps even before any solidified thought based on that crucial distinction can occur, we must first construct “the friend” and “the enemy” within language. As Professor Reitz pointed out in class, Orwell’s concern about language was forged not in a vacuum but rather in a historical moment in which language had been used to demonize an entire category of people.
Trying to think through why I think what I’ve written above matters in the context of our recent discussions, I’m realizing that I’ve stepped into a morass. I was going to say something like: So much of what bothers me about the terms we use to discuss people we place in certain categories—juvenile delinquent, “perps,” clients, patients, fags, n-words—is the implicit exclusion contained within the terms. Following this line of thought for a moment, it’s worth considering what exclusion means. I’ve talked about how I feel that such terms are “othering” and “dehumanizing,” but how? Maybe listing another set of words and thinking about them in relation to the above list will be illustrative: student, citizen, social worker, doctor, father, American. All of the people in this list seem like friends. If all of the ones in the other list don’t exactly seem like enemies, they at least don’t quite seem like friends. Clients and patients are perhaps closest to friends, but they’re broken. They’re missing something or have too much of something, and they need things that those who aren’t clients and patients don’t need. The people in that first list, well, they just aren’t “us.” (I can’t help thinking of how many of “us” in the class identified as subalterns in last weeks post.) The terms represent a linguistic exclusion, but linguistic exclusion is the first step on the path toward excluding “them” from our universe of moral obligation. It’s worth remembering that the Final Solution was, especially in the beginning, conceived of as a campaign to rid the German Volk of “diseased” elements, the mentally ill and the handicapped, as well as Jewish people, who got constructed as “infectious” and “parasitical” in language (Proctor, Robert N. 1995. “The Destruction of Lives Not Worth Living” in Deviant Bodies).
Now, the morass: Of course, we come up with terms DESIGNED to exclude people from our moral circle because we want to be clear that certain behaviors aren’t acceptable. Here’s a list: terrorists, murderers, sex offenders. Like everything else, the issue of language and labels is complicated. I’m pretty much going to cop out and leave it there because, well, it’s a morass, and this post is getting long.
To sum up, Simon reminds us that “[w]hen we are in public, we make an effort to get away from what we have learned to call others our whole life, but it's so easy to fall back into the same mindset when we're not in proximity of those who might take offense.” Poppy’s discomfort about the double terminology used by workers at her agency according to whether “those who might take offense” were present comes to mind here. Offense is bad enough, but exclusion from the moral circle is worse. Perhaps people within the purview of our agencies at Vera might deserve to be let back in. That happens first in language, too.
I agree with Robert that the society makes labels and categories as a means to exclude. In On Being a Cripple by Nancy Mairs, she noted that she purposefully called herself a cripple because she liked the “shock value” and how people cringe at the word. This kind of reaction is perhaps the desired effect of those individuals who choose to use words prohibited by the society. My argument on language is two-folds, how much does language limit our thoughts and the justifications behind censorship.
How much is lost in translation? So much of language and speech comes from culture. If a language is indeed based on culture and life-styles then we can assume that it shapes our morals and way of thinking. Parmenides of Elea, a presocratic philosopher from 510BC, suggests that one cannot conceive an idea without the language to do so. This has many implications. This could have both a positive and a negative connotation. In the context of the criminal justice system, negative would be when people use this as a reason for “criminal acts” and the discussion of the “criminal class” or the “biological criminal”. Positive, as I see it, is to use this as a basis for understanding, in that we recognize that we do not know everything, people of other languages have knowledge to provide, and there are limits to our own knowledge. The western ontology is one of xenophobia and anthropocentrism, the idea that humans are superior to everything on Earth. If one could simply recognize, in Socrates’ own words, “I only know that I know nothing,” then we could have a better understanding of differences and thus not act in exclusion.
Who has the right to categorize? This discussion often leads to the conclusion that one can only discuss words only if it applies to them in the first place. I will leave the argument to Ward Churchill, a Native American scholar. This is from Semantic Masturbation on the Left by Ward Churchill, it can be found on pages 455-460 (http://books.google.com/books?id=nrCWZZJD48MC&pg=PA455&dq=semantic+masterbation+on+the+left&hl=en&ei=h-d_TtDPKIjg0QHkycSJDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false).
“And,” I continued, “I think’ there’s a larger point to be made here. The people we’ve been discussing tonight were always very clear that what they were about was Black. Along with Black Power and Black Liberation came something called Black pride. They didn’t consider the term demeaning. To the contrary, they were harshly critical of those of us who—following the words of Malcom X—clung to the term ‘Afroamerican,’ the very handle you insist upon. They corrected our language, much the way you’re trying to, but in the opposite direction. And they fought, died, and went to prison for long periods because of the overtly Black consciousness they achieved. That was their evolution. I’m still in contact with a number of them, both in and out of prison. And none of them has ever said to me they’ve changed their minds, that ‘Afroamerican’ is more correct than ‘Black.’ Viewed from this perspective, I suggest your own position may represent not so much a further evolution, but a regression to something which came before. I’m not saying it’s so, but it’s definitely something you should think about. And, in any event, it’s my opinion that your whole attitude on this shows a marked disrespect, not so much for me as for the people we’ve been talking about.”
Churchill concludes:
“Nonetheless, such “issues” of word choice have come to dominate dialogue in a significant and apparently growing segment of the Left. Speakers, writers, and organizers of all persuasions are drawn, with increasing vociferousness and persistence, into heated confrontations, not about what they’ve said, but about how they’ve said it. Decisions on whether to enter into alliances, or even to work with other parties, seem more and more contingent not upon the prospect of a common agenda, but upon mutual adherence to certain elements of a prescribed vernacular. Mounting quantities of progressive time, energy, and attention are squandered in perversions of Mao’s principle of criticism/self-criticism—now variously called “process,” “line sharpening,” or even struggle”—in which there occurs a virtually endless stream of talk about how to talk about “the issues.” All of this happens at the direct expense of actually understanding the issues themselves, much less doing something about them.
It is impossible to escape the conclusion that the dynamic at hand adds up to a pronounced avoidance syndrome, a masturbatory ritual through which an opposition nearly paralyzed by its own deeply felt sense of impotence pretends to be engaged in something “meaningful.” In the end, it reduces to tragic delusion at best, cynical game playing or intentional disruption at worst. With this said, it is only fair to observe that it’s high time to get off this nonsense, and on with the real work of effecting positive social change.”
Churchill discusses the over censoring of words and how in today’s society this over-censorship fails to allow growth. People become so caught up in words and the definition of words and its meanings that nothing can be done on a policy level.
In Excitable Speech by Judith Butler, she also criticizes censorship. She discusses the use of words and how words shift and change. Butler states that society becomes so afraid to use words; we eventually eliminate and stop using words.
“To question a term, a term like “the subject” or “universality,” is to ask how it plays, what investments it bears, what aims it achieves, what alterations it undergoes. The changeable life of that term does not preclude the possibility of its use. If a term becomes questionable, does that mean it cannot be used any longer, and that we can only use terms that we already know how to master? Why is it that posing a question about a term is considered the same as effecting a prohibition against its use? Why is it that we sometimes do feel that if a term is dislodged from its prior and known contexts, that we will not be able to live, to survive, to use language, to speak for ourselves? What kinds of guarantee does this effort to refer the speech act back to its originating text exercise, and what sort of terror does it forestall? Is it that in the ordinary mode, terms are assumed, terms like “the subject” and “universality,” and the sense in which they must be assumed is a moral one, taking the form of an imperative, and like some moral interdictions, a defense against what terrifies us most? Are we not paralyzed by a fear of the unknown future of words that keeps us from interrogating the terms that we need to live, and of taking the risk of living the terms that we keep in question? (pg 13).”
While reading a novel in my philosophy class, Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl, I was very shocked at the way he used the word "freedom". This man is a survivor from the Holocaust and he argued that human beings always hold some freedom, even in camps. I wrote a paper on how I disagreed with his argument because he had failed to define what freedom meant universally.
I think that if we are constraint to limitations we don't have control over, then the words and language we use can evolve to be what we end up thinking without noticing it subconciously.Frankl, thus, implemented that since he had some freedom then he was going to survive no matter what. The arguement that he took was in order to motivate himself to become a survivor from the most horrible form of extermination towards this groups of people. A friend of his had said that they had lost their humanity, nontheless Frankl argued that it was only when you take the freedom to think this that you truly fall within the mindset of what the Nazis had purposed the camps for. I would tell Frankl that his argument is an epiphenomenon to his circumstance. Language can be the secondary phenomenon of what our thoughts and opinions towards anything is.
"To characterize another racial group is, by opposition, to define one's own group." Herbert Blumer said this in an essay on Race Prejudice as a Sense of Group Position.
This quote jumped out on me on a book I'm reading and it really explains how language can sometimes be seen as a definition of certain groups. I'd love to do a study and blindfold different people and have them listen to people in the subway and listen to who is talking around them, the person who keeps saying "Nigga,' you'd assume they're black versus if someone was saying the N-word, you'd assume they were white. I'd want to see what eithnic groups guessed among each other. So has language become racist? When they're saying "Nigga," are they doing it on purpose as a recognition to their ethnic group or are they doing it to stick in with their group?
George Orwell was stating that if language is we did not have proper communication, it would create chaos. It has gotten to the point that they are so many ways of talking and different slangs in one english language that it can either sound completely dirty or even totally uptight. In my agency, we call everyone 'clients.' To me, it just doesn't seem appropriate and in truth it sounds snotty and wrong. Why does there always have to be some other category of labels then just calling them their actual names....
Language is not written in stone. Although we must maintain one concrete form of language to properly get our thoughts across but it can certainly change. Language is this beautiful thing which in my mind can take different shapes and forms for many different reasons. As Christine pointed out so much of language and speech “comes from culture”. If all cultures are different in how they come about then we can fairly assume that the language there will be subject to adapt to its surroundings. There may be a difference in how people pronounce certain words or how certain words are used. At the same time as Orwell points out that there must be one consistent form of the English language to promote a single and concise thought. Both of these thoughts are very real to me and have affected me greatly throughout my life. As a youth growing up Crown Heights and Bedstuy I was assimilated into the language spoken by my peers but only spoke it to my peers. Whenever I was in classroom setting my friends always would make jokes about how I would “speak different” then one day a friend of my finally referred to me as an “Oreo” he went further to refer to me as Wayne Brady. The term is branded OREO which meant I was somehow supposed to be black on the outside and somehow white on the inside and being called Wayne Brady was supposed to the perfect example of an Oreo. So as a young African-American youth at 14 I was made fun of for simply trying to formally use English (without ever reading Orwells book) to properly communicate with Professors on a language which is accepted in an academic formal setting. People speak differently because the speaker must be aware of their audience, to better convey the message.
Although different ways language takes birth and develops in the system of social justice language is certainly used to only create an idea which is supposed to combat the idea of many different ideas in the criminal justice system which too often doesn’t repair anything. For example the labeling theory which simply states as Emile Durkeim puts it as “crime is not so much a violation of a penal code as it is an act that outrages society”. He was also the first to suggest that deviant labeling satisfies that function and satisfies society's need to control the behavior in the long wrong affecting the person’s self-image. Programs of social justice shouldn’t inflict more pain unto the person with certain language like “victim” which may ultimately leave someone feeling victimized or sorry for themselves but instead use a more realistic term which can help a person avoid the horrors the victimization hence the term survivor. If the labeling theory is true this could in fact help a client feel like since they have survived they can endure the pain and probably hopefully overcome it all.
WHO could of thought that perhaps one word, depending on the context it is used, can empower and befriend an individual while dehumanizing another? Hence, "my nigga!" as opposed to "you nigger!" Whether spelled with an "a" or an "er", This term is currently used as a racial slur as well as a term of endearment.
WHAT a person says can take on different meanings depending on HOW it is said. As Cynthia mentioned in the seminar, and Simon's post as well, we are able to change the meaning of our words simply through "intensity and tones". The term "excuse me" can be used as a sincere pardon or as a display of annoyance, depending on the tone we use. Orwell stresses the importance of clarity in written language so that the intended message is not lost or misinterpreted. Maybe we should be just as aware during verbal communication, which is also a form of language.
WHEN Roberto is around his friends he mentioned that he feels obligated to use the common language of his inner circle. Many times our audience determines the language we will use to communicate. Raised in a community where it was more celebrated to return home from prison than it was to return home from completing college, I can overstand how one can feel the need to somewhat fit in with his/her peers at the cost of engaging in language that he/she may not otherwise use within a different environment.
WHERE does desensitization and misinterpretation meet? I accidently bumped into a woman at the grocery story. I said, "pardon me maddam". She replied, "Don't call me maddam, I am not that old!". Although I used the term Maddam as a form of high respect and reverence, the woman interpreted the term as disrepect, which was definitely not my intention.
Timothy you are right on with the last part of the 'madam' issue. I've seen older women also scold men who call them Madam. When did "Madam" lose the concept of being respectful versus it now being a concept of being an 'old lady.' How can we teach our kids to be respectful if they get snapped at because of someone's own insecurity? Personally, I think this is where 'language' can get dangerous. What happens when society creates a generation who loses the 'Respect aspect' of their language...
I agree Dani that language can get dangerous. I also look at language like technology, in a sense that it constantly changes. We continuously have to remain aware and updated on the evolvement of language along with the various forms and meanings that our words are used. Even sixty-five years ago I am sure Orwell could have expected this to happen. Words like "crazy", "mad" and "stupid" have evolved into additional meanings in some cultures. Writing sentences which include terms such as: a "crazy party" (meaning a "fantastic party") or "mad happy" (meaning "extremely happy") probably would have driven Orwell nuts! But it is safe to say that I will not refer to a woman as "mam" or "madam" (which is also used to describe a woman who employs prostitutes, which even Orwell would agree I did'nt mean the term as such) unless she is at least the age of 80!
After reading everybody's common, I feel like language in a way puts us into certain categories. If you see a person talking loud, using ghetto slang, and a lot of hand movements, you automatically start thinking that they are uneducated and not well-mannered. On the other hand, if you see a person talking so professionally, the use of proper English, and well-spoken, you think that that person is knowledgeable and someone with a career. It is funny to know that just by the way you speak or express yourself people can say a million things about you.
At my agency, one of the staff members told me that they refer to the defendants as "perps". At first I was like, what does that mean. She replied that it was a short abbreviation for perpetrators. The word to me sounds so degrading and inhumane. Society, meaning us, label defendants as if they were creatures from Mars. Language is a great form of communication, but it also has it's disadvantages.
Suffocating in the LSAT preparations has consumed my mind, body and soul completely. I have been on edge, distant, and to say the least, not the best company. On Monday I made a comment like ”I can’t wait till this exam is over.” In a soft low tone but still audible, my significant other said “Me either.” I responded “After this Saturday, I will be a better person to be around”. Did I need to say to my son”Give me space .” or to my significant other “Just leave me alone”. No but it was understood. This made me both sad but easy because without using words , my message of having no time was received but at what cost.
Nonverbal communication is the the spoken language without speech. The raised brow with a question in a mild tone asking you how your lunch meeting went can be internalized in a condescending way as oppose to simply being inquisitive. Is one really ‘TOO’ defensive or just reading the non verbal. As Timothy and Dani pointed out earlier, the accents on tones that are put on certain words really do affect the message that is being sent. I wonder if depending on the moment and challenge, discussion, etc., if what we say really is being ‘misunderstood’ or are we just playing dumb. Whose to say that what we say and how we say it [although we may think that it wasn’t the way we meant to say it] isn’t a subliminal representation of a more complex underlying reality: that we say what we mean in the moment separate from what we know we SHOULD say.
In the end I think we are all [to some degree] a little too sensitive which ends up in a result of walking on eggshells and I for one am learning that not everything on my mind has to be said or accepted for that matter. My perception, experiences, bias, and opinions are mine and mine alone.
Professor Stein's point is a good one: "It is difficult to draw a line between language that liberates or enlightens and language that allows us to forget what we are really talking about." If Orwell was most concerned about anything, it was likely the euphemism, not only in the essay we read but also in his novel 1984. In it, a torture chamber is named The Ministry of Love by the totalitarian government in power. This touches exactly on Professor Stein's point about how the term "work selection" was used by the Nazi's to refer to what was really "death selection." Orwell called this practice "doublespeak." I would agree completely that it is politically dangerous. How many people in the United States, for example, actually believed that a law to tax inheritors of large estates in order to equalize opportunity somewhat was really a "death tax"? Similarly, what role did calling a law that rolled back years of hard-won gains by environmentalists The Clean Air Initiative have on that laws ultimate passage? Euphemistic language does indeed potentially enable "us to move a psychological step further away from the reality of our moral obligation to remedy inequity," and it can have undeniable political consequences.
Somehow, when identity is involved, however, the landscape changes for me. Obviously, political correctness can go too far, in language and in other arenas. (In fact, I'm a huge fan of Bill Mahr.) A term like "a person deprived of liberty" does indeed seem a bit extravagant as a replacement for the direct term "prisoner." (I say this with perfect recognition of my own hypocrisy, suggesting the use of "a person seeking assistance" instead of "client.") But I do think "person" is important to get in there when we're talking about others (prisoner-person? client-person? Oh, god, now I'm resorting to creative use of punctuation). It's easy to forget that we're talking about people who're a lot like us when we use terms designed to separate. Oftentimes, these separating terms contain "the emotional punch that drives political action," but we have to be careful about the direction in which it drives the action. Too often, terms that clearly demarcate a line between an Us and a Them enable political action that veers off into dangerous directions. The construction of Us and Them happens at the macro-level with national, racial, or religious identities (Hutu and Tutsi, Jews and Palestinians), but it might also happen at the micro-level of the office (client and counselor).
Okay so this is off subject but I had an incident happen yesterday and it's bothering me because I don't know what happened:
So I was on the subway yesterday heading up to Columbia University on the 1 train. I'm sitting down and about six teenage boys come onto the subway and are standing around me talking super loud and enjoying each others company. At the next stop, all of a sudden, a plain clothes man blocks the doors and flashes his nypd badge and points at us to get off the train. Of course, I freak out because I don't normally get pulled over by officers but I realize before I move that he's not even talking to me, he's talking to the kids. He's stopped the subway now and is demanding all of their ages and where they were going past 11am. All of the boys automatically yell that they're 17 to him and the police officer leaves. I don't get it, Is there a law here about age restrictions on traveling during the week alone?? Anyone know what happened because I'm beyond confused...ha
Truancy laws maybe?
Great point Robert. But at times isn't some sort of separation need to create a growth and development process. Your absolutely right terms that "demarcate a line between an Us and a Them" tends to create "political action that veers off into dangerous directions" but I feel like that comes from a lack of understanding or lack of effort to find the truth of meanings from different people for different reasons.
For example in politics the best way to rally many people against a complicated 1500 page 20 pound document that could possibly even help the same people against it is to tell the protestors something that sounds good but is a complete lie. For example some people believed in the death panel scare in the not to long ago health care battle. With powerful politicians saying that this bill could ultimately cause hospitals to choose who is worthy of saving medically or letting them simply die. This caused many fanatics to fight an issue which they don't even try to gain an understanding of. People often get lost in translation and when those people feel like they get a "worthy" or acceptable translation from a trustworthy reporter they will not seek the truth behind the extreme political language.
On the more macro level people were fed lies and propaganda. If on a micro level in our agencies the understanding of the use language was established there would definitely be higher success rates. In other words if the understanding of the use of language could be maintained and believed by the people offering the service but the benefactors of the service. They must know.
I agree with Christine, people definitely choose the wording of their statements to gain a desired reaction from the audience that they are addressing. It is really interesting how that whole concept works. As Simon mentioned in his post, as well as, Cynthia in class, tones, body language, and choice of wording really makes a difference in how your message is relayed. I also agree with Christine’s stance in how meaning is lost in translation. Language, or yet, various jargon is derived from cultures and sub-cultures and that in many ways shapes our morality. This links back to our discussion on the use of the “N” word, while some will use it to address a friend or “homie”, others will refrain from using it for the sake of not offending or disrespecting a person. As Timothy mentioned, the “N” word can be used as a term of endearment or a racial slur. If this term isn’t used correctly or in the right context, it may cause commotion, as George Orwell mentions in his work. Language is indeed very dangerous.
Roberto brings up a very interesting point on how one should apply language according to their setting to convey the message a bit clearly. This idea, in general, is very important because if the use of language does not correspond to your audience’s level of cognition, the message, will be lost in translation, and maybe not understood as you aimed for. Roberto also brings up the idea of adaption. When he is around his friends, he uses language that might be understood best by his circle of friends. If he tries to use language that his friends may not familiar with, then Roberto might be labeled condescending because his friends might think he is implicitly telling them that he is better.
Going back to Timothy’s post, how does one differentiate between misinterpretation and desensitization? I encountered a similar situation as Timothy at my weekend job. I work at a pharmacy on the weekend, and I asked a woman who was asking for a refill on her medication for her RX number. I said, “Mam, can I please have your RX number?” And she immediately replied in anger, “Don’t ever call me mam, I am not old enough to be your mother!” Although, she was old enough to be my mother, I only used the term as a sign of respect. But to my surprise, I offended the woman by referring to her as “mam.” As Dani mentioned, should I be scolded for the woman’s insecurities? I guess next time, I’ll refer to her as “shawty”, maybe then I will get a more friendly response.
I also think it’s interesting how my peers and Gary mention the idea of how people are categorized based of how they utilize language. I believe that the language used to relay a message is a part of your identity. It tells your audience implicitly your level of education, your consciousness of your surroundings, as well as your characteristics as a person.
Aside from the use of language to create the difference between "us" and "them", I hope everybody already saw the youtube video that was sent to us about Vera alumni's fight alongside many others at Occupy Wall Street. Here's the link in case you see this post while the John Jay server with the e-mail is down, http://youtu.be/M2WJvZ1hAno . After watching many other videos, I found that many protesters also yelling to the police that they are protesting to also protect the NYPD's pensions. Some of the cops had the look of wanting to join the protestors too. Of course the desired reaction is to get the police to join the cause, but that is improbable due to various reasons. It's interesting to see the people on the street use their words to try to bring the police into the "us", while the police will keep on doing their job and make the protestors the "others".
I am surprised that Occupy Wall Street doesn't have more media coverage (or maybe it's just me and my ignorance in real world issues). If I just type the words into Google, I can see a lot of news about the situation online, but not from the traditional media outlets (I still get most of my information about real world issues through traditional media). If journalism is supposed to be the profession of spreading news to the masses through language, then the traditional media is not doing their job well.
Another interesting thing that I notice in the videos was the people who were dragged away by the police would make sure their names were given out to the other protestors. I'm not too sure how much personal names can be related to language in our discussion, but in many cultures, names are very important due to the definitions and hopes given to the name by the parents (my Chinese name means "to be number 1"). In the videos, we see the names of people being used for political and legal purposes. They're shouting out their names for their own safety and so that people they know will know what happened to them. I guess my point is that aside from titles and labels, names are also a big part of language.
I think the Occupy Wall St movement shows great courage to fight for the greater good for the majority. It is an honor to know people who is close to someone who is doing so much for what we talk about in class everyday.
ALthough very few networks are covering the Occupy Wall St. movement MSNBC is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgr3DiqWYCI
Lawrence O'donnell makes some interesting points. While watching the video I was consumed with anger, but then remembered sometimes that I witness this kind of abuse of force in my community. But it was shocking how some of these officers were willing to put down a peaceful protest which would in the long run assist them.
I'm having that weird experience of being The Last to Blog, where I'm tempted to respond to everyone individually and yet overwhelmed by the many threads woven into the discussion. The great thing about doing the Orwell early in the semester is that we can keep reflecting on it throughout our many, varied topics so I'm relieving myself of the responsibility to sum it all up.
One of the reasons I have not responded is I've been stewing over what it is that is so crucial about the Orwell. You all make good points (language categorizes, can be dangerous, can mean different things to speaker/listener, etc.) -- and yet, none of these is exactly what I find to be so powerful about Orwell's message. To me, it all comes down to clarity. The clarity of one's writing is what we experience, but that is the tip of the iceberg. The 9/10ths of what is hidden beneath what we read/hear is clear thinking and, indeed, being able to perceive what is going on clearly, which comes before thought. So on some level, his point about language is really a point about being a true citizen, engaged in the task of apprehending clearly (not being deceived or deceiving oneself) what is going on (this of course has parallels with what you have all mentioned about Occupy Wall Street).
That this was such an important aspect of Orwell's argument came to me while reading probably my second favorite writing in the English language, John Ruskin. He was an art critic, educator, nut-case and all sorts of glorious things that one could be in the Victorian era and he writes in his MODERN PAINTERS that "The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw plainly. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion, -- all in one." One only needs to turn into the 24-hour news cycle programming to see that, indeed, there are hundreds of thousands of talkers for that rare see-er.
http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2011/09/30/cracking-the-code-for-teaching-and-learning/
This brief article talks about "code-switching" and how young people change the way they talk according to who they are speaking to. I found this article interesting because it came from the view of a principal and how he felt the need to understand where the young students of today were coming from, culturally. This links into our conversation on how it is "cool" to not be smart in some communities. More people are becoming aware of the cultural background behind language and speech. I just wonder what they would do with this information. How will we make being smart "cool" again?
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