I just got off a language rant and now I'm warmed up. Here's another. Snowflakes turn back now.
The name of the game is bocce, not 'bocce ball.'
Do you call tennis 'tennis ball'? Soccer 'soccer ball'? Golf 'golf ball'? Get on the ball.
And there are still idiots who refer to a blog post or a blog entry as a 'blog.' Can't you think at all? Do you call an item on a list a list? A paragraph of an essay an essay? A sentence in a paragraph a paragraph? A word in a sentence a sentence? A letter in a word a word?
Language rant up ahead! All language lemmings to their safe spaces.
Last Fall I made an appointment to speak with an auto salesperson. I arrived at the dealership on time, but she didn't. After waiting five minutes, I consulted the general manager. His response was that if she didn't arrive soon, he would "reach out to her." About the same time I received an e-mail message from the Internet Chess Club hawking some product or other. "We are reaching out to inform you . . . ."
Examples are easily multiplied. What explains the prevalence of this ridiculously inflated use of an otherwise unobjectionable expression?
If your spouse dies, I may reach out to you to offer my condolence and help. But if I notice a rattlesnake near your back door, I won't 'reach out' to you about it, but simply inform you of the fact.
And if I inform you of some paltry fact, I haven't 'educated' you about it, but merely provided you with a scrap of information.
An educated person is not the one whose head is stuffed with information, but the one whose experientially-honed judgment is capable of making sense of information. To become well-informed is not difficult; to become well-educated is a task of self-development for a lifetime.
Can we blame the decline of language and good sense on liberals? I'll leave you with that (rhetorical) question.
By the way, it is important not to forget that the rights enshrined, not conferred, by the First Amendment find their concrete, real-world, back-up in the rights, not conferred, but enshrined in the Second Amendment. This is why it is so important who sits on SCOTUS. Donald Trump and his team have accomplished a lot in their first 100 days, with the appointment and confirmation of the 49-year-old Neil Gorsuch being the premier achievement.
In case it is not clear what the image depicts, it shows a leftist thug trying to blow out the light shed by free speech, a value held aloft by Lady Liberty.
Conservatism is not really an ideology because it is neither a belief system per se nor a comprehensive social system. It is not a belief system because it does not take its foundational standards from belief but by reference to more basic truths that can be demonstrated or are self-evident. In contrast, progressivism for example is rooted in beliefs that could not be established firmly even in principle.
It follows from what Mr M. is saying that if a proposition p is demonstrable or self-evident, then there is no subject S such that S believes that p. In plain English: no one believes demonstrable or self-evident truths. But 'surely' (i) it is self-evident that nothing is both F and not F at the same time and in the same respect and in the same sense of 'F'; and (ii) I along with Mr. M. believe that! So some of us believe the self-evident.
Could M. have blundered so badly? But let's be charitable. Is there a way to read what M. writes in such a way that it has a chance of being true?
Most philosophers maintain that knowledge entails belief: Necessarily, if I know that p, then I believe that p. (At issue is propositional knowledge, not know-how, or carnal knowledge, or knowledge by acquaintance.) To put it another way, believing that p is a necessary but not sufficient condition of knowing that p. We could call this the orthodox line and trace it all the way back to the Theaetetus of Plato. But it doesn't seem quite obvious.
One heterodox position is that knowledge logically excludes belief: Necessarily, if I know that p, then it is not the case that I believe that p. Ordinary language lends some support to this. "I don't believe that the sun is shining; I know that it is!" Suppose I am asked by a phone pollster whether I am male or female. It would be very strange were I to reply, "I believe I'm male." Accordingly, what one believes one doesn't know, and what one knows one doesn't believe. I'm told John Cook Wilson held this view. Dallas Willard reports that Roy Wood Sellars held it, and Willard himself held it.
I have puzzled over this heterodox view without coming to a clear decision. But if knowledge excludes belief, and if the basic truths of conservatism are either demonstrable or self-evident, then it makes sense for M. to claim that conservatism is not a belief system.
In philosophy it is very important that we be as civil and charitable as possible. There is no place for polemics in philosophy. In politics it is quite otherwise. Please do not confuse political philosophy with politics.
Every word they write is a lie, and every syllable they speak. Their mendacity extends even unto the syntax of their sentences. Their periods prevaricate and their dashes dissemble.
Glenn Reynolds talks sense against such liberal knuckleheads as Howard Dean:
The other hallmark of constitutional illiteracy is the claim that the First Amendment doesn’t protect “hate speech.” And by making that claim last week, Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont and Democratic presidential candidate, revealed himself to be a constitutional illiterate. Then, predictably, he doubled down on his ignorance.
In First Amendment law, the term “hate speech” is meaningless. All speech is equally protected whether it’s hateful or cheerful. It doesn’t matter if it’s racist, sexist or in poor taste, unless speech falls into a few very narrow categories — like “true threats,” which have to address a specific individual, or “incitement,” which must constitute an immediate and intentional encouragement to imminent lawless action — it’s protected.
The term “hate speech” was invented by people who don’t like that freedom, and who want to give the — completely false — impression that there’s a kind of speech that the First Amendment doesn’t protect because it’s hateful. What they mean by “hateful,” it seems, is really just that it’s speech they don’t agree with. Some even try to argue that since hearing disagreeable ideas is unpleasant, expressing those ideas is somehow an act of “violence.”
I would add that 'liberals' have a strange tendency to conflate dissent with hate. Obviously, if I dissent from what you maintain, it does not follow that I hate you. And if I express my dissent in speech, it does not follow that my speech is 'hate speech.'
I suspect most 'liberals' have the intellectual equipment to grasp these simple distinctions. So what ought we conclude? That they are hate-filled individuals?
And another thing. If a liberal claims that the Great Wall of Trump is 'hateful,' then I will put to him the question: Is it 'hateful' when you lock your doors at night? No? But doesn't anyone have the right to 'migrate' anywhere he pleases? You just hate people that are different from you, you xenophobe!
Another example. (HT: Karl White) My correspondent, an Irishman living in London, really ought to change his 'racist' surname. And while he's at it, he should ditch his 'Nazi' Christian name or have the decency to change the spelling to 'Carl.' His very name is a two-termed 'micro-aggression'!
Yet another example, one so egregious that I pinch myself to see if I am awake:
Stéphane Mercier, a lecturer in philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven (UCL) in Belgium initially was suspended from teaching, pending the outcome of disciplinary proceedings, because there was opposition in a class from a feminist group to his philosophical argument to the effect that abortion is the killing of an innocent unborn human life, which is an “intrinsically evil,” always unacceptable, regardless of the circumstances. The response from both the UCL administration and the Belgium Bishops Conference to his philosophical argument, which was put forth in a document entitled “The Philosophy Supporting Life: Against a so-called Right to Choose an Abortion", has been confusing.
UPDATE 2/24:
A reader sends this:
A student at the institution informs me this is the passage that led to the lecturer's sacking. It was a First Year Philosophy course:
"[…] reminds me of Newspeak, the official language of Oceania in George Orwell's 1984. Voluntary interruption of pregnancy is a euphemism that hides a message, namely the truth, which is that abortion is the murder of an innocent person. It is a murder particularly abject, because the victim has no defense against it. if murdering an innocent person capable of self-defense weren't repulsive enough, taking the life of someone who doesn't have the power to defend himself is even more vile. Today, we hear people who believe abortion is immoral, but don't think about making it illegal, a disturbingly absurd way of reasoning. […] Imagine that the same person declares rape immoral, but thinks it shouldn't be made illegal in order to protect the freedoms of an individual (except for the victim…). that's absurd, right? So, if abortion is murder, as it is said to be by some, doesn't that make it worse than rape? Rape is immoral, and fortunately illegal as well. Shouldn't abortion, which is even more immoral, be illegal too?"
BV's comment: Imagine getting sacked at any university, let alone a supposedly Catholic university with the word 'Catholic' in its name, for giving this argument!
Leftist termites are undermining the great institutions of the West, and the authorities in charge of these institutions have either abdicated, or are termites themselves. The edifices of higher culture are in dire need of fumigation. Figuratively speaking, of course . . . .
If I am wearing a shirt with pockets, I almost always carry a 3 X 5 notebook and a pen in my top left pocket. People sometimes ask why I carry it. I have a prepared response:
It's in case I get a good idea. Haven't had one yet, but you never know.
And if I am out walking around, another element of my schtick is my stick which is distinctive and also elicits questions. Ask me why I carry it and I have a line at the ready:
Time was when I needed it to beat off women; but now I just need it to keep from toppling over.
I have found that the second line doesn't go over as well. While both involve self-deprecation, which will often endear you to people, or at least blunt the blade of their hidden hostility, the self-deprecation in the second line comes too late for some.
So I cannot recommend the second line in all circumstances. The perceived machismo of the first clause of the second line will sometimes stick in the craw of a humorless feminist.
Perhaps the best advice I could give is to paraphrase a line attributed to the cowboy wit, Will Rogers:
Never miss an opportunity to keep your mouth shut.
That of course is an exaggeration. But exaggerations are rhetorically useful if they are in the direction of truths. The truth here is that the damage caused by idle talk is rarely offset by its paltry benefits.
My mind drifts back to the fourth or fifth grade and the time a nun planted an image in my mind that remains. She likened the tongue to a sword capable of great damage, positioned behind two 'gates,' the teeth and the lips. Those gates are there for a reason, she explained, and the sword should come out only when it can be well deployed.
Lynn Anderson, Red River Valley. A very satisfying version. Stevie Nicks' effort is a bit overdone. A spare Woody Guthrie version. Classic Americana. No Woody, no Ramblin' Jack Elliot, no Dylan.
Krystal was a protégé of Jacques Barzun, editing the late polymath’s The Culture We Deserve. Like Barzun, Krystal has resisted specialization. His approach to books is not academic: “There’s nothing wrong with admiring Elmore Leonard without likening him to Proust or Henry James.” To this he adds: “One can be a fan of Agatha Christie, but one can’t really be a fan of George Eliot.” Tell that to the Janeites and Trollopians, and to the devotees of Lee Child and Dean Koontz. Strictly speaking, Krystal isn’t a critic at all, and he certainly has no theories to peddle. We might think of him as an enthusiastic reader who happens to write. He reminds us of the respect once shown to Dr. Johnson’s notion of the common reader, “uncorrupted with literary prejudices.”
Just cut their federal funding. With Trump in the saddle this is a real possibility. Why should taxpayers be forced to support leftist seminaries? Separation of church and state doesn't go far enough. We need separation of Left and state. Just as the state has no right to impose religion on the populace, it has no right to impose that destructive ersatz religion, leftism.
A rollback in funding is probably the only way to get the attention of the corrupt administrators of once great universities and force them to cease their abdication of authority and defend the classical values of the university.
Make no mistake: if He rose at all it was as His body; if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules reknit, the amino acids rekindle, the Church will fall.
It was not as the flowers, each soft Spring recurrent; it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the eleven apostles; it was as His flesh: ours.
The same hinged thumbs and toes, the same valved heart that–pierced–died, withered, paused, and then regathered out of enduring Might new strength to enclose.
Let us not mock God with metaphor, analogy, sidestepping, transcendence; making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded credulity of earlier ages: let us walk through the door.
The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché, not a stone in a story, but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of time will eclipse for each of us the wide light of day.
And if we will have an angel at the tomb, make it a real angel, weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen spun on a definite loom.
Let us not seek to make it less monstrous, for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty, lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed by the miracle, and crushed by remonstrance.
Given what we know from yesterday's Updike entry, the suspicion obtrudes that, while Updike clearly understands the Resurrection as orthodoxy understands it, his interest in it is merely aesthetic in Kierkegaard's sense, and not ethical in the Dane's sense, which suspicion comports well with the charge that Updike radically divorced Christian theology from Christian ethics.
Or perhaps, as a Protestant, Updike thinks that since God in Christ did all the work of atonement, he needn't do anything such as reform his life and struggle and strive for metanoia but can freely enjoy himself in the arms and partake of the charms of other men's wives. Am I being fair?
