who loses. When the anti-choice movement coined “pro-life,” it was just a matter of time before they won the debate. “Pro-life” was a brilliant if misleading choice — pun intended. I think it’s entirely possible that we will have to lose choice to get it back again. Nobody can get behind the right to abortion now that the sonogram lets us see all the little fingers and toes. It used to be the moment you first heard the heartbeat that melted your maternal or paternal heart. Now it’s the first sonogram. Young parents-to-be show the first sonogram to their parents and everyone weeps. How can they not? Life is beginning again. How can one be unmoved?
I have spent my life and my lucre supporting Roe v. Wade, yet now I understand the so-called pro-life activists. I hardly agree with them, but I do understand them. Roe, schmo. Privacy is an abstract concept compared to those little fingers and toes. We old lefty liberals didn’t know what hit us when the sonogram was invented. And “pro-life” is so much sexier than “pro-choice.” Never mind that many pro-lifers love the death penalty, they have the better slogan and we are stuck with the vagueness of “choice.”
So language matters. It matters a lot. If it’s not clear, the motivations aren’t either. Murky language means somebody wants to pick your pocket. Phrases like “wellness web site” and “heart-healthy” mean that your credit card will soon be punched. Phrases like “axis of evil” and “9/11 changed everything” mean that your draft card may be the next thing punched. And locutions like “the bravest that fell” and “honor the fallen” mean that you may soon be among them. All these phrases are meant to keep you from thinking. All these slogans are meant to instill those fuzzy feelings of pride and patriotism that prevent clear thinking.
Hell—I have felt these fuzzy, patriotic stirrings myself. After 9/11, I dreamed of joining the CIA! Not that the CIA would have taken a woman with a reputation for writing about the Zipless Fuck! But I was full of fervor to help my country. I wandered around my native city in a daze, trying to think of ways I could protect New York from future terrorist attacks.
I can be moved by fuzzy false patriotism just like anyone else. But sooner or later I try to wake myself up.
Here the cheers from the faculty and students got louder and the boos of the parents increased. They didn’t want me in the CIA (or CIA, as insiders call it). They probably wanted me in Guantánamo or Abu Ghraib.
Why should anyone want to keep you from thinking? There are only a couple of possibilities: to pick your pocket, to cover up something or to put your life at risk while pretending to protect you.
If Newspeak narrows the range of thought, then clear speaking expands it again. If New Age cant obfuscates truth with fancy verbiage, then puncturing it shows us the hollowness at its core. If political speech is meant to lull you into unconsciousness with ready-made slogans, then clear speech wakes you up.
The labels “right” and “left” are inadequate to explain what people care about, I think. They have become new means of censorship and obfuscation. We shut out truth by saying “right” and “left.” Nobody really thinks of herself as right or left. She thinks of herself as a person with complex views.
We face the greatest danger today from orthodoxies with their automatic assumptions. And since the politicians, journalists, advertisers and New Age gurus divide us into right and left, we are lulled into doing it ourselves even though we know our views cannot be neatly bracketed that way. That way leads to foggy thinking and having our pockets picked.
I finished my speech to cheers and “bravas” as well as hisses and boos. Good, I thought to myself, if I’m getting this reaction, I must be doing something right.
I spent the afternoon meeting the English Department and attending their special small ceremony
I have spent my life and my lucre supporting Roe v. Wade, yet now I understand the so-called pro-life activists. I hardly agree with them, but I do understand them. Roe, schmo. Privacy is an abstract concept compared to those little fingers and toes. We old lefty liberals didn’t know what hit us when the sonogram was invented. And “pro-life” is so much sexier than “pro-choice.” Never mind that many pro-lifers love the death penalty, they have the better slogan and we are stuck with the vagueness of “choice.”
So language matters. It matters a lot. If it’s not clear, the motivations aren’t either. Murky language means somebody wants to pick your pocket. Phrases like “wellness web site” and “heart-healthy” mean that your credit card will soon be punched. Phrases like “axis of evil” and “9/11 changed everything” mean that your draft card may be the next thing punched. And locutions like “the bravest that fell” and “honor the fallen” mean that you may soon be among them. All these phrases are meant to keep you from thinking. All these slogans are meant to instill those fuzzy feelings of pride and patriotism that prevent clear thinking.
Hell—I have felt these fuzzy, patriotic stirrings myself. After 9/11, I dreamed of joining the CIA! Not that the CIA would have taken a woman with a reputation for writing about the Zipless Fuck! But I was full of fervor to help my country. I wandered around my native city in a daze, trying to think of ways I could protect New York from future terrorist attacks.
I can be moved by fuzzy false patriotism just like anyone else. But sooner or later I try to wake myself up.
Here the cheers from the faculty and students got louder and the boos of the parents increased. They didn’t want me in the CIA (or CIA, as insiders call it). They probably wanted me in Guantánamo or Abu Ghraib.
Why should anyone want to keep you from thinking? There are only a couple of possibilities: to pick your pocket, to cover up something or to put your life at risk while pretending to protect you.
If Newspeak narrows the range of thought, then clear speaking expands it again. If New Age cant obfuscates truth with fancy verbiage, then puncturing it shows us the hollowness at its core. If political speech is meant to lull you into unconsciousness with ready-made slogans, then clear speech wakes you up.
The labels “right” and “left” are inadequate to explain what people care about, I think. They have become new means of censorship and obfuscation. We shut out truth by saying “right” and “left.” Nobody really thinks of herself as right or left. She thinks of herself as a person with complex views.
We face the greatest danger today from orthodoxies with their automatic assumptions. And since the politicians, journalists, advertisers and New Age gurus divide us into right and left, we are lulled into doing it ourselves even though we know our views cannot be neatly bracketed that way. That way leads to foggy thinking and having our pockets picked.
I finished my speech to cheers and “bravas” as well as hisses and boos. Good, I thought to myself, if I’m getting this reaction, I must be doing something right.
I spent the afternoon meeting the English Department and attending their special small ceremony
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