The Problem of Language

Language can be difficult. I remember walking into an area at work that had just been modified. Signs on the wall proclaimed "Wet Paint". My first inclination, of course, was wrong. Remembering the unfortunate "Wet Floor" incident where attempting to follow instructions got me into trouble, I reexamined the possibilities. Maybe, just maybe, this was a warning rather than instructions. Yes, that was it. And I congratulated myself for avoiding another communication mistake. But then I noticed the smaller print under the "Wet Paint" text. It read, "Painted with pride by the Maintenance Department." Interesting. You see, normally we use paint to paint walls, but apparently the maintenance department had used a different product -- pride. I was mulling over the possibilities -- "Maybe 'pride' is a brand name for paint or maybe it was a new product similar to 'whitewash' with which to cover walls" -- when it struck me that these walls ... were white. I was horrified. These walls had been painted with white pride! How evil! And, of course, I had lapsed once again into a communication breakdown.

Despite my amusing (to me) excursions into uses and abuses of the language, we do it all the time and it's generally more serious than that. Take words like "rich" and "poor". Normally those would reference people with a lot of money and people without (respectively), but today if you use the terms they reference "people with more money than I have but wish I had" and "people who make so much more than the average person on the planet but not enough to buy basic subsistence items like a TV for every room and two cars instead of one". (I can't tell you how many "poor" people I've seen with cell phones and cable TV, so apparently those aren't some of the limiting factors of the term.)

If you are in favor of enforcing immigration laws, that translates to "racist". Of course, "racist" carries its own misguided weight. You see, only white people can be racist according to too many people who hate white people. It's like "sexist", the term applied (typically to men only) to those who are often accused of being sexist because they believe there are significant differences between men and women. I am a person who believes in and tries to live my life by biblical principles. That translates to "fundamentalist" which further translates to "dangerous religious nut job". Charity is defined now as "higher taxes". A patriot is someone who cherishes his own vision for America to the exclusion of other competing dreams for America. Or how about the term "morality"? This word has shifted from "what we think is right and wrong" to "a religious construct that has no genuine undergirdings and generally means that all behavior is okay as long as I approve of it". And so it goes.

Other terms take on their own significance. "Diversity" which simply means "variety" now means "variety in cultures, races, and genders" and beyond that has gathered its own value. It is assumed that "diversity" is automatically good and its opposite, uniformity or similarity, is a bad thing. Please, whatever you do, don't think that through.

Other terms have lost their significance. "Marriage" used to be the fundamental structure of society, the relationship in which a man and a woman joined to become a family, to reproduce, to link with other families, to tend to the family, and to shape society around this structure. Now it's "two people -- gender is irrelevant -- who 'love each other', at least for the moment, so they want to make some sort of more outspoken bond together which may or may not last and may or may not produce children." "Sexual relations" used to be the uniting of that man and that woman, a special process reserved for that relationship. People who engaged in sexual relations outside of that relationship were outside of "moral". Sex, you see, had meaning and value. Today it is a recreational event with or without emotional attachment and marriage has nothing to do with it. It's all about doing what feels good to me, you see.

We often think we're being wise by abusing the language. The "racist" who is "racist" only because he thinks that countries have the right and responsibility to control their borders is shut down easily by casting aspersions on his character without evaluating his arguments. The Christian who holds to biblical principles can be ignored as a "fundamentalist" without even thinking about whether or not she is right. We can be judgmental and intolerant of people we deem judgmental and intolerant and feel good about ourselves as being enlightened and inclusive. It all works toward removing clear thinking and toward emotionalism that allows us to live our lives by how we feel rather than thinking things through. And it's not a healthy way to go, either physically, socially, mentally, or spiritually. I would have included "morally", but we've already eliminated that meaning, right?

Postscript: For a fun and enlightening excursion into today's language, you might try visiting Dan's New World Order American Dictionary, a work in progress but a fun read.