Thursday, June 27, 2013

Changing NewSpeak

A few days ago AVI pointed to an article about Europe and noted that the way people thought even 50 years ago isn't the same as the way we think today, even when the words are the same.

Words are slippery things. I think Confucius was right: you have to get the names of things right if you propose to accomplish anything important. "Freedom from want" is security, which is in tension with liberty, but the phrase has the word "freedom" in there, so it must be about liberty, right? Sort of, in some situations. But not in general.

Artists like to think they set the direction of the culture; that they can change the world. This kind of hubris is irritating, all the more so since it is often true, and still more so when the changes they invoke are for the worse. Barzun's From Dawn to Decadence description of the last century (1890's to 1990's) included familiar and (to me) unfamiliar names who aimed to overthrow Western culture and replace it with solipsism or nihilism. And, as Francis Schaeffer also described, they did. He attributed the initial change to philosophers and Barzun does not, but aside from that the progress of the ideas from the ambitions of a few artists to filling pop culture looks the same in both.

In the process a lot of words changed meaning. The denotation of "respectability" is still mostly there, but the connotation is now one of hypocrisy. We still have the fact: we respect some people because they live out good character and others because they do the fashionably respectable (usually "green") sorts of things--no change there. But we wouldn't call them respectable, because that's rather insulting.

We had one word "respectability" doing duty for several meanings: "worthy of respect" and "appearing worthy of respect". A little concentrated focus on the latter colors the meaning of the first. Combine this with claims that "authenticity" matters more than rules of behavior (Does exercising self control make you a hypocrite?) and efforts to improve yourself start to sound unhealthy.

Picking out imprecise language is an easy game: politics relies on it, so does seduction, and other forms of advertising. It turns up in church too: I hate the loose description of an emotional high as a "spiritual experience", and similar shortcuts.

When the fuzzy terms are magical ("rights", "love", "democracy", "fairness") slight of hand makes it impossible to withhold support or enthusiasm. The "Arab Spring" was democratic, so it had to be good and you were bad if you expressed doubts.

Of course trying to translate your real meaning into the current vocabulary is fraught with problems. You're apt to find that the way the terms of the debate are framed leaves no room for any novelty, and your attempt at precision gets plugged into irrelevant categories. Ruggieri and Ricci had a hard time trying to translate Christian concepts into Chinese, because the philosophical and theological language didn't fit.

Jesus used parables that both illustrated his points and helped define his terms, as in the story of the good Samaritan. It isn't that hard to similarly illustrate and define precise language, but it has to be imbedded in something people will listen to. I wonder if there's a handy set of short illustrations that show the distinctions in the magic words. They probably take too long to use in any debate--I see instantaneous reaction to any questioning of magic words.

5 comments:

Texan99 said...

It was an advantage of Jesus's parables that their concrete terms translated and aged well. Their meaning is fresh and lucid with every new generation. I have the most awful time with St. Paul, I think because his abstract terms resist understanding across barriers of time and culture.

james said...

Paul's letters often read as though he was dictating, and jumping to new topics as they came to mind.

Of course it is unfair to compare Paul's work to Jesus'.

I tried a few times to see if I could summarize something in parable form, and found the result typically too unwieldy.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

I recall reading a Walter Martin book on cults in the 1970's. His first premise was that they all bend the meaning of Christian terms to look orthodox, while preaching a new gospel.

I see this in much of the fundamentalist and black church preaching, using Biblical language and stories to make new ideas seem traditional. CS Lewis wrote on the topic a few times in God In The Dock.

james said...

It isn't hard to understand the intents and assumptions of earlier Christian writers if you're willing to read to learn rather than to critique. Some, like William Law, offer a jarring contrast to most sermons I hear. So does The Imitation of Christ with its assumptions about the relative value of monastic and lay life. (I find it hard to translate that one into principles useful for a parent. It may seem that the child is "talking vainly and to no purpose" but it isn't so.)

Texan99 said...

It's odd about St. Paul, though. I think I would have assumed in advance that it would be easier to understand the ancient teacher who used abstractions, because they might have more staying power, than the one who used concrete parables steeped in an unfamiliar pastoral culture. But for me, at least, it doesn't work out that way.