So lately I've been trying to catch up on reading other peoples' blogs, and one of the inevitable consequences of that activity is me being irritated by how dumb some people are.
Before I continue, I should explain that I myself am an idiot. A few days ago I tried to zip past a massive truck in my Nissan to get in front of it before the road narrowed. I misjudged how much space I had, and ended up having to make a choice between hitting the truck and hitting the concrete median. I went with the median.
Except it wasn't a regular median. It was a series of five inch tall ribs of concrete, spaced about eight inches apart, oriented perpendicularly to the direction I was moving. I'm not sure why someone would design something like that unless they were doing their best to make the hitting-the-truck option look as attractive as possible.
So I hit these things at about 40 miles an hour -- BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! -- and ended up getting in front of the truck. Which would have felt like a victory if I didn't have two flat tires. I pulled over to the side of the road (with the driver laughing his ass off at me, I have no doubt) and inspected the damage. My tires weren't just flat -- they were destroyed. I had to call a tow truck to get me to a place where I could have the tires replaced, making me roughly 2 hours late for the meeting that I was in a hurry to get to.
This is the sort of stuff that I do, because I'm an idiot. I'm actually a decent driver, because my survival sense generally trumps my spaciness, but I do occasionally get into these situations because my mind is busy solving the world's problems or coming up with items for my sock drawer when I should be paying attention to where I'm going.
On the other hand, while I occasionally do things that are fantastically stupid, my crazy hyper-analytical brain inoculates me against the mundane dumbness that afflicts many people. As I detailed in my last post, I can't watch The News (TM) because the cacophony of Dumbness drowns out anything of value that I might pick up from it. I avoid political discussions for the same reason: the debate is inevitably characterized by the way The News(TM) has framed the issue, so I feel like I've been sucked into a particularly lame episode of Hannity & Colmes.
So how do you, as a person not equipped with the Cerebronix Diesel 1000 Brain, know if you've been afflicted by The Dumbness? Well, my friends, that's where I come in. Since the world was so kind to inform me of my error in judgment the other day by gently correcting me with a series of unforgiving chunks of concrete, I've decided to do the world a service by enlightening it regarding some basic elements of The Dumbness. Some day, if you pay close attention, you might one day recognize The Dumbness for yourselves. Today's lesson:
Words and Phrases that are Symptoms of The Dumbness
Pro-choice
As far as I can tell, "Pro-choice" means "pro-legalized abortion." So why not just say "pro-legalized abortion"? It's a few more syllables, but it has the advantage of communicating what you actually mean, which is always a bonus when using words. "Pro-choice" could mean anything. It could mean that you're in favor of allowing people to choose whether they want to smoke marijuana. Except that those people helpfully just call themselves "pro-legalized-marijuana."
Pro-choice is a euphemism, and people generally employ euphemisms when want to avoid using a word that has bad connotations, like, say, abortion. And you wouldn't want people to think you have a problem with abortion. Of course, pro-legalized-abortion has the disadvantage of not implying that those who disagree with you are somehow "anti-choice," as if people who are against abortion are motivated by their loathing for freedom.
Here's a helpful tip: If the word or phrase you use to describe your own political position implies that anyone who disagrees with you is an idiot or fascist, you may not have picked the most objective term. If you really think you have the stronger argument, then start trying to convince people with that argument rather than trying to win by misusing language.
Pro-life
This one is slightly less egregious than pro-choice, because it is often used as an umbrella term to indicate that one is against abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and anything else that is deemed as "unnecessary" killing. Still, it has the same problem as "pro-choice." If you're "pro-life," does that mean that your opponents are "anti-life" or even "pro-death"? And are you "pro-life" in all cases, or is that "pro-life" with an asterisk for enemy combatants and murderers?
My church celebrates something called "Sanctity of Human Life Sunday." I like that. It doesn't mean that killing is never necessary; it means (among other things) that the loss of any life -- whether or not that life is a fully developed, cognizant or morally admirable person -- is a tragedy.
Anti-war
Just to be clear, Mr. Anti-War Activist, you're against this particular war -- the war in Iraq -- because you don't like the idea of "war for oil," or because it's going badly, right? You're ok with invading Afghanistan, stopping the Axis in World War II, and freeing the slaves in the Civil War? And you're going to keep driving your gasoline-powered vehicle to work and whining about gas prices?
By the way, not sure if you noticed, but the war in Iraq is essentially over. What we're doing over there now is keeping order as best we can and rooting out insurgents. If you want to see a real war, though, we could always pull out. So really you're not anti-war so much as you are pro-washing-your-hands-of-war. It's not terribly catchy, but I think it would fit on a bumper sticker.
(Apologies to any actual solar-powered car-driving pacifists out there amongst the legions of self-righteous "anti-war" pricks.)
Homophobic
Man, how I hate this one. According to Wikipedia, Homo is the genus that includes modern humans and their close relatives. According to the Random House dictionary, Homo- is a prefix meaning "same." A phobia, is of course, a fear of something.
So homophobic literally means "afraid of humans (and their close relatives)" or "afraid of sameness." Under either definition, I qualify as homophobic. I'm scared of people and monotony, and especially monotonous people.
But language evolves, you say. Homo- in this context is short for "homosexual."
Right. I'll try that argument the next time I'm talking to one of my gay friends. "So," I'll say, "how's the whole homo thing working out for you? What are you and your homo pals doing tonight?"
I'm guessing most gay people don't want to be called "homos." They might even be afraid of people calling them "homos." Which would make them homophobic, right? Whee, language is fun!
Why aren't people who hate Jews called Semitophobic? Well, because it implies that antisemites are afraid of Jews, which may very well be the case, but is an additional conclusion that isn't supported by the observation of antisemitic behavior. Was Hitler afraid of Jews? That's a question for somebody's PhD dissertation, not something that should be assumed by calling anyone who is anti-Jew a semitophobe. Foisting a nonsense-word like homophobic on the culture may make you feel good if you've been the victim of anti-homosexual bias, but all you're doing is painting a diverse group of people with an overly broad brush, much as they do when they refer to you with anti-gay epithets.
Family values
Thankfully, this one seems to have run its course, as it's usually only used ironically these days. Family values is so vague that I've never even fully understood what it is supposed to mean. Presumably family values are diametrically opposed to single person values. And we all know what single people love: Promiscuous (preferably gay) sex, strip clubs and pornography.
The invocation of family values seems like a way to smuggle Christianity into politics. The problem is that the key doctrines of Christianity (something about Jesus Christ being God incarnate and dying for humanity's sins) are really hard to camouflage, so the Christians end up leaving that crap behind and foisting a bunch of Old Testament-style morality on people with a load of mumbo-jumbo about the Founding Fathers and Judeo-Christian tradition. And then they are surprised when it doesn't take. "I just don't get these heathens," the Christian Right says. "Why don't they respond correctly to being pummeled with arbitrary moral laws like the Israelites did back in Leviticus?"
Judeo-Christian
I've met Jews, and I've met Christians, but I've never met a single Judeo-Christian. Judaism and Christianity are two separate, and very different religions, folks. There aren't any "Judeo-Christian" churches or annual conventions of Judeo-Christians. Not even ethnically Jewish Christians refer to themselves as "Judeo-Christians." Once again, this is just the Christian Right trying to increase their political influence by implying that there is some kind of united Jewish/Christian political front.
It's true that Christianity grew out of Judaism, but so did Islam. And as far as I can tell, Islam and Judaism have more in common than Christianity has with either of them. Where are the Judeo-Islamic values?
War on Terror
You can't fight a war against a state of mind ("terror") or a military tactic ("terrorism"). You can only fight wars against groups of people. Yet somehow "war on terrorists" sounds too narrow, like the war consists of going from cave to cave, rooting out a bunch of misfits hoarding explosives. Which, come to think of it, is basically what it is.
Sure, there's more to it, but can taking your shoes off at the airport really be considered part of the "war effort"? This seems more like one of those metaphorical wars, like the war against poverty or the war against drugs (both of which should be wrapping up pretty quickly, I think). It worries me when we combine a literal war with a metaphorical war, because it starts to get really easy to employ very real, literal military tactics against very fuzzy, metaphorical threats.
Ok, that's it for now. Hopefully you've learned something, and I've offended you all more or less equally. Oh, and if you want to leave a comment letting me know how offended you are, that would be great, because offensive is currently my least favorite word in the English language. Go ahead, give me an excuse to tell you why.
Before I continue, I should explain that I myself am an idiot. A few days ago I tried to zip past a massive truck in my Nissan to get in front of it before the road narrowed. I misjudged how much space I had, and ended up having to make a choice between hitting the truck and hitting the concrete median. I went with the median.
Except it wasn't a regular median. It was a series of five inch tall ribs of concrete, spaced about eight inches apart, oriented perpendicularly to the direction I was moving. I'm not sure why someone would design something like that unless they were doing their best to make the hitting-the-truck option look as attractive as possible.
So I hit these things at about 40 miles an hour -- BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! -- and ended up getting in front of the truck. Which would have felt like a victory if I didn't have two flat tires. I pulled over to the side of the road (with the driver laughing his ass off at me, I have no doubt) and inspected the damage. My tires weren't just flat -- they were destroyed. I had to call a tow truck to get me to a place where I could have the tires replaced, making me roughly 2 hours late for the meeting that I was in a hurry to get to.
This is the sort of stuff that I do, because I'm an idiot. I'm actually a decent driver, because my survival sense generally trumps my spaciness, but I do occasionally get into these situations because my mind is busy solving the world's problems or coming up with items for my sock drawer when I should be paying attention to where I'm going.
On the other hand, while I occasionally do things that are fantastically stupid, my crazy hyper-analytical brain inoculates me against the mundane dumbness that afflicts many people. As I detailed in my last post, I can't watch The News (TM) because the cacophony of Dumbness drowns out anything of value that I might pick up from it. I avoid political discussions for the same reason: the debate is inevitably characterized by the way The News(TM) has framed the issue, so I feel like I've been sucked into a particularly lame episode of Hannity & Colmes.
So how do you, as a person not equipped with the Cerebronix Diesel 1000 Brain, know if you've been afflicted by The Dumbness? Well, my friends, that's where I come in. Since the world was so kind to inform me of my error in judgment the other day by gently correcting me with a series of unforgiving chunks of concrete, I've decided to do the world a service by enlightening it regarding some basic elements of The Dumbness. Some day, if you pay close attention, you might one day recognize The Dumbness for yourselves. Today's lesson:
Words and Phrases that are Symptoms of The Dumbness
Pro-choice
As far as I can tell, "Pro-choice" means "pro-legalized abortion." So why not just say "pro-legalized abortion"? It's a few more syllables, but it has the advantage of communicating what you actually mean, which is always a bonus when using words. "Pro-choice" could mean anything. It could mean that you're in favor of allowing people to choose whether they want to smoke marijuana. Except that those people helpfully just call themselves "pro-legalized-marijuana."
Pro-choice is a euphemism, and people generally employ euphemisms when want to avoid using a word that has bad connotations, like, say, abortion. And you wouldn't want people to think you have a problem with abortion. Of course, pro-legalized-abortion has the disadvantage of not implying that those who disagree with you are somehow "anti-choice," as if people who are against abortion are motivated by their loathing for freedom.
Here's a helpful tip: If the word or phrase you use to describe your own political position implies that anyone who disagrees with you is an idiot or fascist, you may not have picked the most objective term. If you really think you have the stronger argument, then start trying to convince people with that argument rather than trying to win by misusing language.
Pro-life
This one is slightly less egregious than pro-choice, because it is often used as an umbrella term to indicate that one is against abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and anything else that is deemed as "unnecessary" killing. Still, it has the same problem as "pro-choice." If you're "pro-life," does that mean that your opponents are "anti-life" or even "pro-death"? And are you "pro-life" in all cases, or is that "pro-life" with an asterisk for enemy combatants and murderers?
My church celebrates something called "Sanctity of Human Life Sunday." I like that. It doesn't mean that killing is never necessary; it means (among other things) that the loss of any life -- whether or not that life is a fully developed, cognizant or morally admirable person -- is a tragedy.
Anti-war
Just to be clear, Mr. Anti-War Activist, you're against this particular war -- the war in Iraq -- because you don't like the idea of "war for oil," or because it's going badly, right? You're ok with invading Afghanistan, stopping the Axis in World War II, and freeing the slaves in the Civil War? And you're going to keep driving your gasoline-powered vehicle to work and whining about gas prices?
By the way, not sure if you noticed, but the war in Iraq is essentially over. What we're doing over there now is keeping order as best we can and rooting out insurgents. If you want to see a real war, though, we could always pull out. So really you're not anti-war so much as you are pro-washing-your-hands-of-war. It's not terribly catchy, but I think it would fit on a bumper sticker.
(Apologies to any actual solar-powered car-driving pacifists out there amongst the legions of self-righteous "anti-war" pricks.)
Homophobic
Man, how I hate this one. According to Wikipedia, Homo is the genus that includes modern humans and their close relatives. According to the Random House dictionary, Homo- is a prefix meaning "same." A phobia, is of course, a fear of something.
So homophobic literally means "afraid of humans (and their close relatives)" or "afraid of sameness." Under either definition, I qualify as homophobic. I'm scared of people and monotony, and especially monotonous people.
But language evolves, you say. Homo- in this context is short for "homosexual."
Right. I'll try that argument the next time I'm talking to one of my gay friends. "So," I'll say, "how's the whole homo thing working out for you? What are you and your homo pals doing tonight?"
I'm guessing most gay people don't want to be called "homos." They might even be afraid of people calling them "homos." Which would make them homophobic, right? Whee, language is fun!
Why aren't people who hate Jews called Semitophobic? Well, because it implies that antisemites are afraid of Jews, which may very well be the case, but is an additional conclusion that isn't supported by the observation of antisemitic behavior. Was Hitler afraid of Jews? That's a question for somebody's PhD dissertation, not something that should be assumed by calling anyone who is anti-Jew a semitophobe. Foisting a nonsense-word like homophobic on the culture may make you feel good if you've been the victim of anti-homosexual bias, but all you're doing is painting a diverse group of people with an overly broad brush, much as they do when they refer to you with anti-gay epithets.
Family values
Thankfully, this one seems to have run its course, as it's usually only used ironically these days. Family values is so vague that I've never even fully understood what it is supposed to mean. Presumably family values are diametrically opposed to single person values. And we all know what single people love: Promiscuous (preferably gay) sex, strip clubs and pornography.
The invocation of family values seems like a way to smuggle Christianity into politics. The problem is that the key doctrines of Christianity (something about Jesus Christ being God incarnate and dying for humanity's sins) are really hard to camouflage, so the Christians end up leaving that crap behind and foisting a bunch of Old Testament-style morality on people with a load of mumbo-jumbo about the Founding Fathers and Judeo-Christian tradition. And then they are surprised when it doesn't take. "I just don't get these heathens," the Christian Right says. "Why don't they respond correctly to being pummeled with arbitrary moral laws like the Israelites did back in Leviticus?"
Judeo-Christian
I've met Jews, and I've met Christians, but I've never met a single Judeo-Christian. Judaism and Christianity are two separate, and very different religions, folks. There aren't any "Judeo-Christian" churches or annual conventions of Judeo-Christians. Not even ethnically Jewish Christians refer to themselves as "Judeo-Christians." Once again, this is just the Christian Right trying to increase their political influence by implying that there is some kind of united Jewish/Christian political front.
It's true that Christianity grew out of Judaism, but so did Islam. And as far as I can tell, Islam and Judaism have more in common than Christianity has with either of them. Where are the Judeo-Islamic values?
War on Terror
You can't fight a war against a state of mind ("terror") or a military tactic ("terrorism"). You can only fight wars against groups of people. Yet somehow "war on terrorists" sounds too narrow, like the war consists of going from cave to cave, rooting out a bunch of misfits hoarding explosives. Which, come to think of it, is basically what it is.
Sure, there's more to it, but can taking your shoes off at the airport really be considered part of the "war effort"? This seems more like one of those metaphorical wars, like the war against poverty or the war against drugs (both of which should be wrapping up pretty quickly, I think). It worries me when we combine a literal war with a metaphorical war, because it starts to get really easy to employ very real, literal military tactics against very fuzzy, metaphorical threats.
Ok, that's it for now. Hopefully you've learned something, and I've offended you all more or less equally. Oh, and if you want to leave a comment letting me know how offended you are, that would be great, because offensive is currently my least favorite word in the English language. Go ahead, give me an excuse to tell you why.
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| posted by Diesel at Wednesday, September 10, 2008 |
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