Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Cheapening the Holocaust - Words Matter

The Holocaust.  Those two words still currently have meaning.  The words bring to mind, for most individuals anyway, a horror so grotesque as to defy adequate words.  A picture is worth a thousand words, they say, what about a short video (04:44)?

Marvin Hier, writing in the Los Angeles Times considers the subject of The Holocaust, and thinks that is being cheapened by its utilization in political discourse.  I think he is on the mark.

...There are many injustices and manifestations of evil in our world, even in our own country, the greatest of democracies. Standing up to them is not only our right but our obligation. But that obligation does not include distorting and demeaning the word that has come to stand for the great evil that was the Holocaust.

The Holocaust was a total eclipse of humanity. It was not about going to the back of the line or eating in a different part of the restaurant or being escorted to the border without recourse. The Holocaust had one purpose: the total annihilation and extinction of a race.

Hier’s piece is titled Holocaust: a huge word made small.

Via Peg, at what if?, who notes the following.

The enormity of the crimes of the Holocaust was such that if you were to try to call out 2,000 of the names every day of the 6 million who perished, it would take more than eight years to complete the task. That’s what a holocaust is.

Posted by John Venlet on 06/30 at 10:17 AM
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Facebook Civil Disobedience Discussion

In a post titled “You’d Better Not,”, Billy Beck loops the civil disobedience discussion into Facebook.  I am not a Facebook member, so I am not privy to the discussion taking place, there, but I’ve recently posted on the idea of civil disobedience here, which Billy contributed to here.

Billy’s most recent contribution, “You’d Better Not,” notes the importance of language, words, and ideas.

“If we’re going to talk about it, then let’s get it out straight. I don’t like to fool around with the language.

We’re talking about actual combat. Shooting & shit: people dying badly, wrongly, and early, and their stuff getting blown up.

Now… of course, that’s already happening right now. Just for one example: I don’t know what people under Nixon thought they were paying for when it came to a ‘War on Drugs’, but that’s exactly what it is, and people should be goddamned careful about their metaphors, because they have a special sort of blinding way about them. When the language does not refer directly to extant referents (the objects and concepts in reality around us) then what happens is that thinking is deprived of its necessary and elementary cognitive material. The function of language is to raise concepts to the perceptual level—through words (they are the percepts) and for the purpose of concept transmission—and this means that when the language does not refer to reality, then no concepts are being transmitted, and then all bets are off…

Here is my largest point at the moment, Randell: I see very few people in in this country who know what to fight for, or why. Nevermind how.”

Posted by John Venlet on 06/30 at 07:36 AM
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Elena Kagan - How Low Can She Go?

Malone Vandam on how low Elena Kagan can go.

But looking at and listening to her, I wonder how much worse it could get. Assuming that the Senate would not confirm many of the Leftist lunatics available from various quarters (a risky assumption), I would argue that this woman, pretending to be “in the mainstream,” would go as low as her character would let her and her character suggests a bottomless pit with an awning over it. We’re apparently supposed to be paying attention only to the awning.

She’s mundane enough to pass through her own confirmation process relatively unnoticed, but it’s the element of banality in her that catches my eye and ear. Like the freak who nominated her, I’d bet she’s capable of anything, and I don’t mean on the good side.

Parable any one?

Posted by John Venlet on 06/30 at 06:59 AM
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