Freedom Opportunity Liberty
Radical Progressive Communist Liberal
Ordinary Unprepared
Maverick Erratic
Please contribute suggestions for my list!
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Limericks
There is a real place called Limerick
Which I heard of only by accident
Frank McCourt grew up there
Transmitted its cultural air
And now I know both facts are in it.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Lies and Saying "Lies" in Political Discourse
In following recent political news, I am perplexed by the constellation of a number of facts: that many lies are being produced and spoken and repeated by the political campaigns, that many listeners/readers know that they are lies, and that the producers know that the listeners/readers know that they are lies. For some reason there is a silent compact that nobody will actually use the words "lies" or "lying" because that would be too....frank? How have euphemisms such as "exaggerated" or "misstated" or "glossed over" replaced the clear-cut but very heavily morally laden term, "lied"?
The notion of "truthiness" proposed by Stephen Colbert in 2005 does not even apply here, because there is nothing "truthy" about these lies.
Americans value "truth" both as actual correspondence with reality and as a symbol of moral rectitude. It is one of our most sacred public values. Almost no charge can be as powerful as one of "lying," and yet such an accusation presupposes an absolute value that makes many people uncomfortable (especially people on the left). In many political ads and partisan news, associations that are false--that Obama is a Muslim, that he should be connected with sex or white women or OJ Simpson--have become so routine that there is almost no mechanism to begin to challenge it. As of this week, 19% of rural voters believe that Obama is Muslim, and 12% of Americans in general do. So effective is constant repetition that the Palin speech always includes the claim that she stopped the "bridge to nowhere"--despite many media investigations showing that she supported it fully until it became politically expedient to repudiate it, by which time her rejection was entirely symbolic.
These claims are now expected, like favorite lines in the chorus of a song, that the audience can sing along to. They attend for the pleasure of hearing the familiar lines. No amount of dull prosaic fact-checking can compete with the enjoyment produced by chanting along with the favorite hits of the political songchart.
In the last several days some writers have quietly said that a number of the political claims are "lies," such as commentator Paul Krugman in the New York Times or Jonathan Weisman in the Washington Post, but these are read by only a certain portion of the American populace. For most people the refrains on cable news resonates much more loudly in their heads.
Of course we know that language is about much more than conveying information. Truth claims are only one aspect of the nature of language. People like to hear the words that confirm their identity, as speakers of a social register. Attacking speeches for their lies can succeed on only one level. Perhaps there is unconscious recognition of the multifaceted nature of language, so the collective wisdom accepts the need to attack more on the expressive than on the informational consequences of a given speech act.
Have we collectively, then, become sophisticated analysts of language? No kidding!
The notion of "truthiness" proposed by Stephen Colbert in 2005 does not even apply here, because there is nothing "truthy" about these lies.
Americans value "truth" both as actual correspondence with reality and as a symbol of moral rectitude. It is one of our most sacred public values. Almost no charge can be as powerful as one of "lying," and yet such an accusation presupposes an absolute value that makes many people uncomfortable (especially people on the left). In many political ads and partisan news, associations that are false--that Obama is a Muslim, that he should be connected with sex or white women or OJ Simpson--have become so routine that there is almost no mechanism to begin to challenge it. As of this week, 19% of rural voters believe that Obama is Muslim, and 12% of Americans in general do. So effective is constant repetition that the Palin speech always includes the claim that she stopped the "bridge to nowhere"--despite many media investigations showing that she supported it fully until it became politically expedient to repudiate it, by which time her rejection was entirely symbolic.
These claims are now expected, like favorite lines in the chorus of a song, that the audience can sing along to. They attend for the pleasure of hearing the familiar lines. No amount of dull prosaic fact-checking can compete with the enjoyment produced by chanting along with the favorite hits of the political songchart.
In the last several days some writers have quietly said that a number of the political claims are "lies," such as commentator Paul Krugman in the New York Times or Jonathan Weisman in the Washington Post, but these are read by only a certain portion of the American populace. For most people the refrains on cable news resonates much more loudly in their heads.
Of course we know that language is about much more than conveying information. Truth claims are only one aspect of the nature of language. People like to hear the words that confirm their identity, as speakers of a social register. Attacking speeches for their lies can succeed on only one level. Perhaps there is unconscious recognition of the multifaceted nature of language, so the collective wisdom accepts the need to attack more on the expressive than on the informational consequences of a given speech act.
Have we collectively, then, become sophisticated analysts of language? No kidding!
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Links to Websites on Language
There are many wonderful websites connected to aspects of language. You will see some of them listed to the left. Please feel free to suggest more.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Welcome to Doing Things With Words
Welcome to a semester of thinking about how humans do things with words. There is never a shortage of material. Just pay attention and listen! There is fodder everywhere for our analytic enterprise: the election, the university, our friends, (hypothetically) our enemies, our families; advertising; entertainment. As anthropologists, we turn our eye to the world around us, paying attention very carefully to the surface (what words were used, what technology was employed), to the underlying meanings (why did this person say this on this occasion?), and to the connections with forces and institutions outside this particular moment (how does power swirl through the identities and goals each person demonstrates?). Connect to all potential contexts but also give a close look.
Many great thinkers have weighed in on these matters, and we'll see where we stand on their positions and how we can advance our own understanding.
I look forward to learning with you for these four months.
Many great thinkers have weighed in on these matters, and we'll see where we stand on their positions and how we can advance our own understanding.
I look forward to learning with you for these four months.
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