Oldspeak

Some words are fading out of the English language that really ought to be kept. A lot of the new words we are used to using, or the new meanings of old words, have nothing to do with The Real and one of the charming aspects of pre-20th century English is that it usually insists that words, the phonemes we make with our various pieces of equippment, actually correspond to something real.

Here is one I like:

League.

Tolkien uses it all through his big book, usually describing the distance the Nine Walkers walked through Middle Earth on their quest with that term. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas, ran the tremendous distance from the Falls of Rauros to Fanghorn forest in pursuit of Merry and Pippin, and he measured it in leagues.

A league is a deeply Real, and very practical, unit of measurement that was originally Celtic, and was the distance a person could walk in one hour. It was about three miles.

Words should always mean real things. Whenever you read something, an article about politics, a book of literary criticism, philosophy, a speech, anything at all, ask the question, what Real Thing does this pertain to?

Only Real Things count.

Uncrime

So, a word without a definition leads us to crimes without definitions.

In Britain,

Race-hate crime is a serious business. The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry defined a racist incident as 'any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person'. This definition has now been adopted by all police forces.

This is good because, while we police officers love to do the extra paperwork brought on by a racist incident, we are not always very good at identifying them, and we have to be helped out.

For example, the control-room operator. It may appear he is just a civilian sitting in a room 48 miles from where an incident took place, but in fact he is capable of sensing racism through the phone line.

Today I'm visiting Indira Patel, who was racially abused a week ago. 'To be honest, I'm surprised you came,' she says as I arrive. It seems some youths damaged a glass panel on her door.

She says it happens to all the flats on the end of rows in her block because that is where kids hang around smoking cannabis.

I shuffle some papers. 'It says something about racist abuse here.' She looks amazed. 'Goodness, no. I must say, the call-taker did keep asking me if it was a racist incident. I thought it was odd.'

[...]

I email the Scrutineer, requesting a reclassification to criminal damage, and a removal of the reference to racism. The Scrutineer rings me. 'About this racist incident. We can't just reclassify it. How do you know it wasn't racist?'

'The victim doesn't think it was.'

'Well, how does she know it wasn't?'

'Um . . . well, how do you know it was?'

There's a silence then she replies: 'I will change it to a criminal damage, but unless you can provide verifiable evidence it was not racist, the classification has to stand.'

I begin to doubt my sanity. 'How did it become a racist incident in the first place? The victim doesn't think it is, for goodness' sake.'

'If someone perceives it to be racist, it is.'

'It looks like the only person who perceives it to be racist is the Crime Centre.'

'Well, that is "someone".'

"The race card is a Joker"

I'm with Kathy. There is something terribly thrilling about being called names by people on the left.

Especially the ones who are busy pretending not to be on the left, particularly in the British "pro-life" "movement". The trouble with this country is that its people have become so thoroughly brainwashed that they don't have any idea what their own political positions are. Since being here, I've seen that they are almost completely insulated from other points of view and explaining political ideas to them is like trying to describe water to a fish.

In this space, we've discussed the erosion of meaning of what I've called the Claxon Words. "Racist", "homophobe", "anti-choice extremist", and the now almost completely devalued "fascist", that are among the milder things I've been called over the years as a pro-life activist. But it is as a student of language and culture that the use of these terms by the left as claxons becomes interesting. They are words that have ceased to have any meaning of their own (and in many cases, never had any to start with), and now function entirely as alarms to make sure no one is talking about what we're talking about; reasoned discussion of the points at hand must immediately stop while we clear the room and call in the Haz-Mat team.

Screaming "racist" is the ultimate distraction technique, like yelling "fire" in a theatre when you're having an argument you suddenly realise you can't win.

Kathy writes:

Calling someone a "racist" no longer means a thing, precisely because terrorist sympathizers like El-Mo and his leftwing enablers have overused the word.

A racist is a conservative who's winning an argument with a liberal (or a "progressive" or a Muslim).

That's why I love being called a "racist." It says more about the person accusing me than it does about me.

That is, it indicates that they are brainwashed, lazy idiots who know I'm right, but can't bear the awful truth. And they sense -- correctly -- that most people feel the same way I do, and are just too intimidated to speak up.

Like me, the average person is tired of illiterate losers bitching about "racist words" like "niggardly" and "devil's food cake" or "black holes". And we're really tired of elites trying to get us to feel guilty about making commonsense observations about other people.

The race card is a Joker.

I'm with Kathy. When people call me a "racist" for daring to have an occasional independent political thought, I usually mark my calendar and give myself a point.

Giddy with delight

I've been called a "fascist" on Damien Thompson's Telegraph blog

Father Tim Finigan's blog

JustineF 29 Jan 2008 17:43

links to a semi-fascist blog [that's ME!! woo hoo!...oh, I see she only said "semi-fascist" Poop.] which in turn links to the BNP [ooooo!].
Father Tim Finigan can't be unaware of the blog's politics since [he talks to me all the time and knows everything I think, cause, you know, I like to keep my opinions to myself and am all secretive and stuff...] he posted a comment on a post (which I presume he read) which favourably mentioned and linked to the BNP in the post's text (as well as including a link to the BNP on its blogroll) [wickedness! The sheer wickedness!]. He conspicuously failed to mention, let alone condemn, or even so much as raise his eyebrows at the BNP link.

Gosh!

thanks Justine.

I couldn't have made up a better parody of what I've been writing about on the subject of the suppression of independent thought in British political life.

You get my coveted Making My Point prize of the week.

Could you define that please?

I do love my dictionary, but in this case, it is not much help.
Fascist.
Oxford Shorter, Vol.1, 1972 ed.)

[It. fascista, f. fascio bundle .] 1 One of a body of Italian nationalists organized in 1919 under Benito M. to oppose Bolshevism. Hence Fascism, their principle and organization.

But perhaps it is a hint that Oxford treats the word so literally. The word as it is commonly used at protests and as it is commonly flung at pro-lifers, and its actual definition seem to bear little relation to each other. Oxford's blandness actually supports my theory that the vocalization of the word is not actually the same thing as speaking a word at all; it is not a vocal representation of a real thing, but an incantation.

Let us suss it out a bit.

It comes, of course, from the Latin fasces for a ceremonial "bundle of rods with axe in the middle carried by lictor before high magistrate; ensigns of authority." (Oxford Concise) Carrying much the same symbolic meaning as the Mace in Parliament.

Wiki gives us:

The traditional Roman fasces consisted of a bundle of birch rods tied together with a red ribbon as a cylinder to include an axe amongst the rods. Symbolic interpretation of the fasces suggests that the rods represent the authority to punish citizens whereas the axe represents the authority to execute them...

So, it is much like the mace, that was there to remind of the authority of the state to whack you on the head if you misbehaved in the House.

Oxford Concise (1938...therefore and just as the word is gaining public currency and the world is starting to think that war with fascism is inevitable) gives us: "Principles and organization of the patriotic and anti-communist movement in Italy started during the great war, culminating in the virtual dictatorship of Signor Mussolini, and imitated by fascist or black shirt assocations in other countries."

Now Wiki, (bless em) gives us a more modern sense:

Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers individual and social interests subordinate to the interests of the state or party. Fascists seek to forge a type of national unity, usually based on (but not limited to) ethnic, cultural, racial, religious attributes. The key attribute is intolerance of others: other religions, languages, political views, economic systems, cultural practices, etc. Various scholars attribute different characteristics to fascism, but the following elements are usually seen as its integral parts: nationalism, statism, militarism, totalitarianism, anti-communism, corporatism, populism, collectivism, and opposition to political and economic liberalism.

But the word "authoritarian" is relative (and let's not get started on "liberalism"). A lot depends upon whom one stands next to. To an anarchist (if there is such a thing) any state with a police force is a police state. Are pro-lifers fascists because we want abortion to be made illegal? Perhaps, but only if we are being called so by people who believe that totally unbridled anarchy is the same thing as freedom. Freedom to kill the innocent is not what I would call one of those best construed to create a just society.

But there's a little hint too. I am a fascist, but only when the word is being used by someone who thinks I am. It certainly is looking like the word as it is usually used, does not represent any real thing.

But that list of characteristics is interesting isn't it? Because of course, we usually think in rather simplistic left/right terms and fascism is Right with communism being Left. When we write about politics, we usually ascribe things like collectivism exclusively to the Left. But as we have been seeing more and more, those divisions, which are after all 200 years old, are becoming less helpful. The Left, as we used to identify it, is now getting itself bound more closely with big business (which should probably, in this age of multinational and transnational corporatism, be re-named something like "huge business" or "gargantuan business"). But business interests used to be associated mostly with the Right.

Well, we're getting into areas now that I don't know enough about to write anything very intelligent. But the word, or perhaps we should call it an 'unword', fascist seems to be going, along with everything else, in some interesting and unexpected directions.