The Language of Politics

I like the things we talked about today (almost yesterday??) in class.

This is what a wonderful man, and friend of mine from Evergreen, Allan Hill said in respnse to a TESC email posting by some guy named Tom Foote with regards to the Virginia killings:

'Yes Tom, I whole-heartedly agree with you, as I linger on every strenuous word
you speak. I also think that in order to speak of this current horror in our
academic community, we would have to re-define our language, except for the fact
that as a country, ˜we ran the store dry" on 9/11. All our metaphors to
describe the spectrum of human emotions and conditions like emotional
separation, physical shock, deep psychic scars, loss of community and the list
continues, were all taken, on September 11th, and continue to be taken, as we
speak, at VTI and in Iraq. I think that as a nation, even though there was an
ocean of immediate support from all areas of life during 9/11 and right after,
that spiritual and physical support only cauterized our language. I continue to
believe that ˜with time," we will once again own our words, but only in
constant fear of having to lose them again.'

With respect for his intentions, I think what Allan means in this paragraph is that we have literally run out of proper language to describe the state and spectrum of experience right now. The memes just won't proliferate fast enough to keep up with the technological reproduction of lies and the manufacture of violence. I think that what he means by the significance of "owning our words" is very important. But I also think that the public, exaggerated grief and prostration of our leaders should be coupled with at least some quantity of relatively sane, nondeterministic thought.

To say that we are, as Bush put it, "shocked and horrified," neither does the subjective ontological experience justice, nor is it an effective, result-producing, counteraction. It is not reflective and it is not productive. To talk about results in the wake of this tragedy seems shrewd, insensitive, and altogether disenchanted. But is it really wrong? If we have really come to a point of thorough disenchantment with our surroundings and with ourselves, what deeper ideology prevents us from admitting it? On the other hand, as Richard Dawkins seems to suggest, it is only by undergoing this massive paradigm shift- to one, from our more primitive perspective, characterized as "disenchantment"- that we can really deal with the social problem.

That's all I have to say, I mean I could write much more, but I'm pretty sure no one is going to read it. It only seems to me that further studies of abnormal psychology and effective councilling stategies, increased gun legislation, and a re-evaluation of certain sources of dubious influence on our culture (such as violent video games) will lead to possible solutions to the problems we so bemoan but which, when they actually arise, we seem so unwilling to do anything about.