Re: Kind words noted and appreciated.
Your command of language ... It is certainly "more than adequate", evidencing that your hours spent in the halls of Academe were not wasted. All-in-all, an appreciation? Love for Language - I deem more admirable than most other qualities - as all possibilities for communication derive from That. Those perpetually sloppy with language and content to remain there - are not merely cuthless (uncouth, then) but will find that, at every turn: various doors will close to their aspirations.
Well, you are right there, I do have a love for language, communication, and writing. I wanted to be a writer once, but I have put that on the back burner at this time because... well, I'm not really sure, but I somewhere down the road decided not to pursue it.
To be unaware of being manipulated in a Pavlovian sense (look up Ivan Pavlov sometime, for a quick idea) by popular doggerel-phrases of the day: is to be forever a victim and never an actor in the great play of words and ideas -- which govern all the outer-Rulez of your habitation in these parts.
I know who Pavlov is, he is the guy who did the salivating dog/ringing bell experiment. I do do my best not to be blindly manipulated. :) Well, at least NOW I do.
There is a book I've found both illuminating and fun re the mentioned 'vagaries' of politico-babble. Was actually written for children to read (with help from a handy young relative). Its basics, as came to be called semantics - were stolen by a Microsoft-kinda entrepreneur named S.I. Hayakawa. He essentially rephrased a few paragraphs and called it IIRC (if I remember correctly) "Language in Thought and Action". Then got himself elected to an academic sinecure.. (At SF State, actually)
Written by one Stuart Chase in ~1935, The Tyranny of Words. It saves lots of theoretical 'language' mumbo-jumbo as it is written in Plainest English. Available in most libraries - maybe even reprints by now (?) In that, Mr. Chase introduces the idea of substituting the word blab within every speech - for Those Words which, for being Universal Symbols - have become unuseable for communicating anything of what the wielder might imagine that another 'hears'.. Words, phrases like:
I'm a little confused here, is the book called "Language in Thought and Action", or "The Tyranny Of Words?" I was gonna look up the simple one you mentioned, but I got a little confused because I couldn't tell which one was it. Are they two different books?
Left! Right! Commie Librul! 'Compassionate' Conservative! (forcing one to look up, say - what then is a 'Reactionary'? and also - how does the phrase liberal education square with the usage of 'liberal' as an epithet [nasty word] ??) And what does the word illiberal connote? Finally - what is the root of the word 'Radical'? [yes, this is indeed a pun - but a most Useful one to realize]
I remembered somewhere in one of the other posts, someone told me to look up liberal and illiberal, (Was that you?) I haven't hunted up that post yet, but I did it anyway. I consider a reactionary to be one who reacts, and the dictionary is close, it says a person who is inclined to react, or one who favors reaction such as in politics. But see, reaction is not a solely political word, and therein lies most of my confusion with political terms. When I think of liberal, I think first of liberally, as in giving much. In the political sense however, it means advocating progress or reform. (i.e. not strictly set in your beliefs, I would guess).
When I looked up illiberal though, instead of simply saying, against progress and reform, it says, narrow-minded or bigoted, which is much much stronger than against progress or reform. But essentially, I guess both mean the same, just one is stronger than the other. But then, the liberal education term, is the study of the liberal arts, i.e. art, science, natural science, social science and humanities. What does that have to do with being for progress and reform? Is art a form of progress? The deeper you go, the more twisted it seems to get.
(You might substitute almost anything Kurt Vonnegut ever wrote: for that "Star Trek" book you mentioned was weighing down your reading list - a mere suggestion. We'll get to, Small Gods by Terry Pratchett - a little later.)
Hehee, it was Star Wars, and it's the NJO Series. If I come up with one of the books you mentioned above, I'll read that at night instead of the SW book, because it's kinda creepy to read at night anyway.
As for Kurt Vonnegut, I've read Slaughterhouse Five, and I believe another one, but I can't remember much about them because it was some time ago in a Literary Class in college.
So then.. you see, you cannot actually escape the politics thing except by choosing naivete as a cop-out to all the hard work of de-babelizing such crap as FOX-'News' and, most every political speech ever uttered.
Sorry, but them's the breaks; homo-sap has been described as the lying animal.
Well, this homo-sapien does their best to defy the norm! ;)
Nightowl >8#
