There is a steep penalty to pay for our steeply declining level of discourse. As a culture we have grown radically more emotive and radically less thoughtful. We communicate in 280 characters, through memes, with the broad brushed strokes of the hurried and the harried. Nobody has time to listen. Check that, nobody takes the time to listen. We disparage nuance and then wonder why everything feels as well formed as a boulder.
Here are just a few examples I’ve had to live through in the past few weeks. I wrote, “It’s possible that X.” I got angry pushback saying, “How dare you say X.” I didn’t dare. I didn’t say X. I said X was possible. If, when I say “It’s possible that X” I should expect people to hear me say “X” then communication is virtually impossible. I know it’s possible for me to miss-speak, miss-write, miscommunicate. But I also know it’s possible for me to miss-listen, miss-read, miscommunicate.
Second, I wrote, “X is like Y in that both demonstrate Z.” I got angry pushback saying, “How dare you say X and Y are the same.” I didn’t dare. I didn’t say X and Y are the same. I said that have this in common, they both demonstrate Z. To draw a parallel is not to equate two differing things. I’m sorry I have to say that. That is, it saddens me that people don’t know this. That, however, is where we are. We think words, if they have any shape at all, are hopelessly muddy and amorphous, that they can be shaped into anything at all.
I’m perfectly willing to concede that words are not as laser focused and precise as numbers. But they do have meaning. Think I’m wrong? If they don’t, a. you can’t even know what it is you’re disagreeing with and b. you can’t even communicate your disagreement. We’ve all heard the old saw, when appealing to the Bible in an argument, “Well, you can make the Bible say anything you want it to.” No, you can’t. You can misunderstand the Bible in an infinite number of ways. You can only understand it rightly in one.
There are rules for how we understand words. These rules involve definitions and grammar. That schools no longer teach these things, either because they’re too boring and difficult or because such is too western and “white” doesn’t make it not so. Grammar doesn’t go away when you ignore it. Instead it turns conversation into the wild, wild west.
Postmodernism holds that all language is about wielding power. There is, however, no greater power than imposing what we want to hear over what was actually said. If I can make you mean whatever I wish I can make you say whatever I wish, and in turn, blame you for what I wished you to mean. And there’s not a thing you can do, or say about it.
In our day we must not only guard our tongues but our ears.
