{"id":583,"date":"2024-08-31T10:52:41","date_gmt":"2024-08-31T10:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2024\/08\/31\/enlisting-william-s-burroughs-in-the-war-against-leftist-language-abusers\/"},"modified":"2024-08-31T10:52:41","modified_gmt":"2024-08-31T10:52:41","slug":"enlisting-william-s-burroughs-in-the-war-against-leftist-language-abusers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2024\/08\/31\/enlisting-william-s-burroughs-in-the-war-against-leftist-language-abusers\/","title":{"rendered":"Enlisting William S. Burroughs in the War Against Leftist Language-Abusers"},"content":{"rendered":"

I've been fulminating for over 20 years online against the language-abuse of  the language-abusing Left, having found it necessary on only a few occasions to take conservatives to task. Although my Beat credentials are impeccable,  I never took William Seward Burroughs seriously enough to suppose he could be enlisted on our side.  And then I stumbled upon this  article<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The modern left is unabashed about wielding language as a virus\u2014or, really, as a form of control. \u201cSupercut\u201d videos by critics of corporate leftist media, like Tom Eliot, reveal the media figures and politicians<\/a> repeating the same words and slogans over and over again: President Joe Biden, despite drooling on himself, is \u201csharp.\u201d Kamala Harris has brought the \u201cJoy, joy, joy\u201d back into politics. Conservatives are \u201cweird.\u201d Abortion is \u201chealthcare.\u201d These word storms rip through the country via television, radio, and social media, infecting hosts from D.C. to California. Millions of people mindlessly repeat them as if they have been infected with some kind of mentally impairing disease. It\u2019s a virus worse than COVID.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I agree with that completely. I am rather less enthusiastic about the following:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

So how to fight the language virus? According to Burroughs, language can also be used to liberate. He believed that if words were cut into pieces and rearranged, you could break free from what he called the Control. Burroughs used rearranged texts, \u201cfound sound,\u201d and tape-splicing\u2014techniques still used by artists today\u2014to defy the establishment. Burroughs used the method of cutting up sentences and rearranging them in famous countercultural books like Naked Lunch<\/em><\/a> and The Soft Machine.<\/em><\/a> <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

My generation took a more direct approach to using language to dismantle Control: punk rock. Not for nothing was Burroughs known as \u201cthe Godfather of Punk.\u201d The writer was lionized by people like Lou Reed, David Bowie, and bands like U2, Nirvana, Joy Division, Led Zeppelin, and Steely Dan. In his book American Scream: Allen Ginsberg\u2019s Howl and the Beat Generation, <\/em><\/a>Jonah Raskin describes meeting Burroughs in San Francisco in the 1970s.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I will leave it for you to decide whether the way to combat the leftist language virus is via Old Bull Lee and punk rock.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of the Beat triumvirate, "sweet gone Jack," alone moves me, supreme screw-up that he was, and surely no role model.  <\/span><\/p>\n

One month to go, and then then it is October, Kerouac month in my literary liturgy. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Kerouac<\/a>
<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I've been fulminating for over 20 years online against the language-abuse of  the language-abusing Left, having found it necessary on only a few occasions to take conservatives to task. Although my Beat credentials are impeccable,  I never took William Seward Burroughs seriously enough to suppose he could be enlisted on our side.  And then I … Continue reading “Enlisting William S. Burroughs in the War Against Leftist Language-Abusers”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,202,6,40,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bohemianism","category-kerouac-and-friends","category-language-matters","category-literary-matters","category-political-language"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}