Politics and the English Language

Friend Xerxes in his latest column argues, quoting another writer, that “violence is what happens when we don’t know what else to do with our suffering.”

This is wrong, in a variety of ways. This condones violence.

If it were true, we would expect the survivors of the Nazi death camps, once released, to have been particularly violent. In fact, we found the opposite: they were notably unlikely to be arrested for any violent crimes. We would expect the depressed to be particularly violent. In fact, they are much less likely to commit violence than the general population. We would obviously never punish a child for misbehaviour: it would make them more violent. And prisons would make crime worse. 

Yet this is apparently the common opinion on the left. This is why they imagine that defunding the police would reduce crime.

The ancient and universal wisdom is that suffering teaches us not to inflict suffering on others. It teaches empathy. In the words of the I Ching, “through suffering we learn to lessen rancor.” This is indeed the reason suffering exists; why a good God would create a world in which suffering is possible.

So, too, coddling or spoiling a child creates a bully.

The claim that violence comes from suffering is well calculated to increase the general level of violence and suffering. It justifies violence, rewards violence, and encourages us to shun the suffering. They are, after all, violent—so we tell ourselves.

Xerxes then points out that “Violence is not limited to inflicting physical harm.”

It is, in fact, physical harm by definition.

Violence (Merriam-Webster): “the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy.”

(American Heritage): “Behavior or treatment in which physical force is exerted for the purpose of causing damage or injury: the violence of the rioters.”

This leads us in very dark directions: to justifying violence in response to speech. To the end of all civil discourse, or democracy, or human rights.

But even more disturbing, when I point out to Xerxes the dictionary definition, his response is “You shouldn’t let yourself be straitjacketed by dictionary definitions.” And he simply reiterates that “verbal abuse is a form of violence, directed against another. … As is emotional blackmail: ‘If you don’t do as I say, I’m going to leave you.’ Shutting down social security networks, so that people starve, is a form of violence.”

This makes a fairly explicit claim to a right to use violence against your political opponents: against those who would “shut down social security networks.”

I also find it sinister that his example of emotional blackmail is “If you don’t do as I say, I’m going to leave you.” This is actually seen from the point of view of the abuser. The abused inevitably wants to get away; the abuser wants the victim to stay. And the abuser will accuse the abused of abuse. Perhaps this says everything.

But neither of these considerations are as central as Xerxes’s, and the left’s, claimed right to overrule the dictionary and take command of language itself. Both language and all human society collapses at the point people demand the right to change the meaning of words: if any word can mean anything, no word means anything. And this is just what the left is doing now, systematically. 

Aside from “violence,” consider how they have subverted the English pronouns; the word “phobia”; “genocide”; “exceptional”; “indigenous”; “aboriginal”; “woke”; “progressive”; “liberal”; “Fascist”; “Nazi”; “racism”; the list grows daily.

George Orwell pointed out that the most pernicious and dangerous form of totalitarianism is an attempt to control the language itself. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

Bravery Is Now Required to Be on the Left

 

Signs of the great turning proliferate. I mean a victory in the “culture wars.” I mean the cultural pendulum swinging right. For example, friend Xerxes, left-wing columnist of my acquaintance, has stopped running political columns. Now he sticks to topics like memories and growing old. He seems no longer to want to be identified as leftist, or to defend leftist beliefs. 

I rarely see leftist screeds on Facebook any longer. They used to be a relentless drumbeat. Of course, this may have to do with leftist friends “unfriending” me on Facebook when they realized I was not on the bandwagon. On the other hand, one of the bitterest of them, I now hear third hand, has been asking whether she should read Ayn Rand. I suspect she requested that the question be forwarded to me.

Another sign of the times is this rare Facebook rant by another leftist friend, who does not know my politics.

What the hell did you expect me to do?

You told me to love my neighbors, to model the life of Jesus. To be kind and considerate, and to stand up for the bullied.

You told me to love people, consider others as more important than myself. "Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight." We sang it together, pressing the volume pedal and leaning our hearts into the chorus.

You told me to love my enemies, to even do good to those who wish for bad things. You told me to never "hate" anyone and to always find ways to encourage people.

You told me it's better to give than receive, to be last instead of first.

You told me that Jesus looks at what I do for the least-of-these as the true depth of my faith. You told me to focus on my own sin and not to judge. You told me to be accepting and forgiving.

I payed attention.

I took every lesson.

And I did what you told me.

But now, you call me a libtard. A queer-lover.

You call me "woke." A backslider.

You call me a heretic. A child of the devil. 

You call me soft. A snowflake. A socialist.

What the hell did you expect me to do?

I thought you were serious, apparently not.

We were once friends. But now, the lines have been drawn. You hate nearly all the people I love. You stand against nearly all the things I stand for. I'm trying to see a way forward, but it's hard when I survey all the hurt, harm, and darkness that comes in the wake of your beliefs and presence.

What the hell did you expect me to do?

I believed it all the way.

I'm still believing it all the way.

Which leaves me wondering, what happened to you?

Grace is brave. Be brave.

-Chris Katzer

This is not another new demand, as we had come to expect, in order to built “hope and change” and a leftist future. Like demands that we use his preferred pronouns, or that some statue be torn down or street renamed, or that someone be silenced. The tone has changed. This sounds defensive.

Whoever the “you” here spoken to is, the opinion of this “you” seems more important to the speaker than the speaker’s own opinion. The speaker insists they have always been obedient and compliant to this “you.” That is a concession that the left has lost the argument. It sounds like a convicted felon pleading for a lighter sentence.

Instead of condemning “conventional morality” and “Christian nationalism,” this most recent effusion tries to claim that the left were the real Christians all along. This is a major concession. After loudly rejecting all moral standards as “social constructs,” they now want to appeal to some common set of values. They want to come to the negotiating table. They know they are losing.

The author (my friend was quoting this) says he learned to sing: "Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight." So far, so good. But he carefully prefaces this with “You told me to consider others as more important than myself.”

This is not what Christianity teaches. Christianity teaches “love thy neighbour as thyself,” not “love thy neighbour more than thyself.” This straw man looks like a tacit admission that the left have been racist; while admitting that Christianity demands human equality.

 “You told me to love my enemies, to even do good to those who wish for bad things. You told me to never ‘hate’ anyone and to always find ways to encourage people.”

That the word “hate” is put in quotation marks seems another backhanded admission of wrongdoing, that the left has altered the meaning of the word “hate.” Christianity does not tell us to “do good to those who wish for bad things,” and certainly not to encourage those who have sinned, but to wish the best for everyone. This looks like a belated admission that the left has been endorsing and encouraging sin. Of course they have: but now they seem to admit that sin is a real thing.

The author interprets “woke” is an insult. That is perhaps the most significant sea change. The term of course comes from the left, as a boast: they were “enlightened.” Now they do not want to be associated with it--that’s conceding the whole game. Only a few years ago, in the days of the Bernie bros, they were proud of being socialists. Now they find the term offensive.

They are unrepentant, yes, but they know they have lost the argument.