peristaltor (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
peristaltor) wrote2010-01-27 01:12 pm
peristaltor) wrote2010-01-27 01:12 pm
Entry tags:
Present Only By Absence
I'll be the first to confess: I am sometimes a real idiot. For just one example, listening to people yammer on but say nothing drives me completely batty. If you have nothing to add, why not shut up? (Then again, I do the same, so I don't vocalize this thought often.)
Inconsequential talk that really gets me, though, is often couched with real words that, when considered closely, actually mean nothing. It finally hit me this morning why those words mean nothing: because they denote not specific states themselves, but the absence of other states. In other words, by using these key words, one can make a completely accurate statement without being held to any particulars simply because the words they use can refer to as wide a range of situations as the language can describe, some of them even contradictory.
What words are these? Very, very common words, ones we should all try to immediately avoid. While I admit that avoiding these words might be nigh well impossible, we can at least agree that folks using them need to be aware of their emptiness.
The first word I realized thusly empty* was "safe." My quick-access desktop dictionary defines it as: "protected from or not exposed to danger or risk; not likely to be harmed or lost." Think about this. One is only "safe" if one is not exposed to the listed (and other) negative consequences. It doesn't matter how "safely" one acts, therefore; if one is exposed to harm, one is by definition not safe. It's no wonder some people get paralyzed with the fear of not knowing from where the next bit of harm will fall.
Another empty* word, a fave with politicians: "free." Oh, look at the myriad ways one can be free only by not being something else:
not under the control or in the power of another;
subject neither to foreign domination nor to despotic government;
no longer confined or imprisoned;
not a slave;
given or available without charge;
using or expending something without restraint;
frank or unrestrained in speech, expression, or action;
(of a literary style) not observing the strict laws of form;
(of a translation) conveying ony the broad sense; not literal.
There were more, lots more, and this just from the very brief quicky dictionary. What other words came to mind while I realized the breadth of my previous ignorance? How about "clean" (and its siblings "hygienic," "pure," "legal" and "organized"), "tolerant," "clear," "liberal," and the doozy of them all, "peace?"
On that last one, Patrick Cox (in his World in Words Podcast) expressed his bewilderment at the word when being used by someone receiving a Peace Prize from the Nobel Committee while simultaneously serving as the commander-in-chief of a nation executing two wars. After all, once again from the QuickyDict, "peace" is:
freedom from disturbance; quiet and tranquility;
mental calm (implying, of couse, a lack of mental disquiet or disturbance);
freedom from or the cessation of war or violence;
freedom from civil disorder;
freedom from dispute or dissension between individuals or groups . . . .
The listings continue. The fact that most of those peacey defs led with the word "freedom" should make it apparent that this is another of the present-when-absent* terms. Hell, one definition of "free" conspicuously absent from the QuickyDict is "absent." Yes, by that definition, "free" was free free.
So what does any of this -- or all of it -- mean? Good question.
I suppose to get a handle on this, we need to ask ourselves what exactly is absent from the situation being described with any given pos-negs* (words implying a positive state or situation that is actually defined by the negation or absence of another state or situation*)? First, let's all recognize that different people define different negative states as, well, negative. For example, years ago I heard a "debate" on reproductive rights on the local yakky radio. One woman from a "reproductive health" clinic described their operation as "accepting, supportive and non-judgmental." Only the last of her terms sounded honest to me.
For her, those that condemned abortion were not being supportive or accepting, and were instead being judgmental. Therefore, the particular kind acceptance and support the clinic practiced pertained to abortion and reproductive rights, not to all acceptance, support and judgment. Should women want to discuss a healthy pregnancy at this clinic, fine! Should they want to compare notes on raising healthy children, great! And should they decide they wished to end this particular pregnancy, okay! On these notes folks at the clinic were "accepting, supportive and non-judgmental," offering clients (I'm sure) any tea at all, from chamomile to pennyroyal.
Here's the unspoken rub, though: Let's say that night this woman attended a party where another party-goer asked if she would be joining the whole bunch in tomorrow's Operation Rescue picket and pray-in. My bet is this woman would be anything but accepting and supportive. Hell, she might rightfully wonder who invited her to such a gathering of blithering idiots, and make damned sure that inviter got the full brunt of her judgment.
And that's where these empty words hit the skids. It's too easy to pontificate about a "free" society that imprisons the highest proportion of its citizens in the world, that charges usurous rates for simple medical care, that proscribes against behaviors common elsewhere on the globe. It's too glib to note our peace through superior firepower. Damn it, if you want to actually say something, find a word that means something clearly definable.
*Y'know, this usage proves so common in our language that there must be a word to describe words dependent upon absence. I would be happy to wrack my brains for a new one, if necessary, but I'd like to find and resurrect the existing one if at all possible first. Can anyone think of that word, the word I could use instead of all the terms qualified by these asterisks?
Inconsequential talk that really gets me, though, is often couched with real words that, when considered closely, actually mean nothing. It finally hit me this morning why those words mean nothing: because they denote not specific states themselves, but the absence of other states. In other words, by using these key words, one can make a completely accurate statement without being held to any particulars simply because the words they use can refer to as wide a range of situations as the language can describe, some of them even contradictory.
What words are these? Very, very common words, ones we should all try to immediately avoid. While I admit that avoiding these words might be nigh well impossible, we can at least agree that folks using them need to be aware of their emptiness.
The first word I realized thusly empty* was "safe." My quick-access desktop dictionary defines it as: "protected from or not exposed to danger or risk; not likely to be harmed or lost." Think about this. One is only "safe" if one is not exposed to the listed (and other) negative consequences. It doesn't matter how "safely" one acts, therefore; if one is exposed to harm, one is by definition not safe. It's no wonder some people get paralyzed with the fear of not knowing from where the next bit of harm will fall.
Another empty* word, a fave with politicians: "free." Oh, look at the myriad ways one can be free only by not being something else:
There were more, lots more, and this just from the very brief quicky dictionary. What other words came to mind while I realized the breadth of my previous ignorance? How about "clean" (and its siblings "hygienic," "pure," "legal" and "organized"), "tolerant," "clear," "liberal," and the doozy of them all, "peace?"
On that last one, Patrick Cox (in his World in Words Podcast) expressed his bewilderment at the word when being used by someone receiving a Peace Prize from the Nobel Committee while simultaneously serving as the commander-in-chief of a nation executing two wars. After all, once again from the QuickyDict, "peace" is:
The listings continue. The fact that most of those peacey defs led with the word "freedom" should make it apparent that this is another of the present-when-absent* terms. Hell, one definition of "free" conspicuously absent from the QuickyDict is "absent." Yes, by that definition, "free" was free free.
So what does any of this -- or all of it -- mean? Good question.
I suppose to get a handle on this, we need to ask ourselves what exactly is absent from the situation being described with any given pos-negs* (words implying a positive state or situation that is actually defined by the negation or absence of another state or situation*)? First, let's all recognize that different people define different negative states as, well, negative. For example, years ago I heard a "debate" on reproductive rights on the local yakky radio. One woman from a "reproductive health" clinic described their operation as "accepting, supportive and non-judgmental." Only the last of her terms sounded honest to me.
For her, those that condemned abortion were not being supportive or accepting, and were instead being judgmental. Therefore, the particular kind acceptance and support the clinic practiced pertained to abortion and reproductive rights, not to all acceptance, support and judgment. Should women want to discuss a healthy pregnancy at this clinic, fine! Should they want to compare notes on raising healthy children, great! And should they decide they wished to end this particular pregnancy, okay! On these notes folks at the clinic were "accepting, supportive and non-judgmental," offering clients (I'm sure) any tea at all, from chamomile to pennyroyal.
Here's the unspoken rub, though: Let's say that night this woman attended a party where another party-goer asked if she would be joining the whole bunch in tomorrow's Operation Rescue picket and pray-in. My bet is this woman would be anything but accepting and supportive. Hell, she might rightfully wonder who invited her to such a gathering of blithering idiots, and make damned sure that inviter got the full brunt of her judgment.
And that's where these empty words hit the skids. It's too easy to pontificate about a "free" society that imprisons the highest proportion of its citizens in the world, that charges usurous rates for simple medical care, that proscribes against behaviors common elsewhere on the globe. It's too glib to note our peace through superior firepower. Damn it, if you want to actually say something, find a word that means something clearly definable.
*Y'know, this usage proves so common in our language that there must be a word to describe words dependent upon absence. I would be happy to wrack my brains for a new one, if necessary, but I'd like to find and resurrect the existing one if at all possible first. Can anyone think of that word, the word I could use instead of all the terms qualified by these asterisks?