Socrates was Right

 Socrates said "The misuse of language induces evil in the soul.   

As an author, I take great pains in trying to choose the right words, not just in the since of grammar or finding words that are technically correct.  As author Ursula K. Le Guin described it, "A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it.  Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight."

This blog is not about an author's responsibility with words, however.  Rather, it is about the importance of the right of free speech and the abuse of that right.  On March 18, 2022, the New York Times published an editorial titled "America Has a Free Speech Problem."  The link to the full article can be found at the bottom of this blog.  The opening paragraph stated, "Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country:  the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned."  

I have blogged about this subject previously, but the editorial offers some important insight.  For example, "If people feel free to express their views in their communities, the democratic process can respond to and resolve competing ideas.  Ideas that go unchallenged by opposing views risk becoming weak and brittle rather than being strengthened by tough scrutiny.  When speech is stifled or when dissenters are shut out of public discourse, a society also loses its ability to resolve conflict..."  

Included in the editorial are results of a survey in which the Times joined with Siena College to gain data about, among other things, whether people feel less free to talk about politics than they had a decade ago.  Forty-six percent said they did.  It seemed that the old saying "Think before you speak" has become, "Speak at your peril."

The five freedoms that make the United States of America what has been called the freest people in the world are freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly, and the right to petition the government.  Termination of those rights, whether by changes in laws or by individuals self-limiting their willingness to exercise those rights, diminishes our freedoms.

It has been said that those freedoms are the lifeblood of democracy, and the words of Benjamin Franklin validate the importance felt by the founding fathers at that time.  "In those wretched countries where a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarce call anything his own," and furthermore, "Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a Nation must begin by limiting the freedom of speech."

When it becomes difficult, or even dangerous, to speak with those having different opinions, we weaken the evolving wisdom of the nation.  The founding fathers knew the importance of sharing opinions as a way to keep up with our ever-changing world, both the exchange of ideas in communities and in state and national political chambers.  The warning of Socrates remains:  "The misuse of language induces evil in the soul."  

America has a Free Speach Problem. https://wwwnytimes.com/2022/03/18/opinion/cancel-culture-free-speach-poil.html  

Being Mindful

 Have you ever noticed how words that you have never noticed sometimes suddenly seen to appear everywhere?  Recently, in a zoom group I attended, one of the other attendees said at the close of our meeting, "I guess we all need to be more mindful about that."  Suddenly, I realized just how frequently mindfulness had appeared in conversations and interviews on programs I was watching.  'Is that a new term?' I wondered.  I reached for my trusty "Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary" that resides on a shelf arms length away from my desk, with its publication date of 1965.  

There it was!  " 1.  Mindful, bearing in mind; AWARE  2. inclined to be aware--mindfully / adverb --mindfulness / noun. "  What a great word; yet, it had not been part of my vocabulary.  Its meaning is clear enough, but I simply had not integrated it into my own use.

I consulted the internet dictionaries and found 'aware' as the predominate synonym, but 'attentive' joined the definition, as well as an examination of its current importance.  The idea of mindfulness has roots in Buddhist and Hindu thought, and includes 'acceptance' as well as 'awareness' in its meaning.

I learned that mindful and mindfulness were not new words, but the social movement of being more mindful, combined with the idea of gaining understanding, and through understanding, acceptance, is a current cultural phenomenon. 

On the other hand, new words are blossoming all around us!  Since I had used my old Webster's Dictionary to check the meaning of mindful, I chose to check the current Merriam-Webster Dictionary,  not for the meaning of existing words but rather for the addition of new words to the dictionary.  I discovered that for April 2020, 535 new words were added.  Not surprisingly, Covid related words topped the list.  These words included:  Self-isolation, Physical distancing, Contactless, WFH (working from home), PPE (personal protective equipment), Forehead thermometer, and Intensivist (physician who specializes in intensive care treatment).

Obviously, I am not going to include all of the 535 words added to the dictionary, but a few words did attract my attention.  Among them:  Deepfake:  an image or recording that has been convincingly altered and manipulated to misrepresent someone as doing or saying something that was not actually done or said; Slow-walk:  to delay or prevent the progress of (something) by acting in a deliberately slow manner; and Stovepipe:  to transmit information to a higher level in an organization through an isolated and narrow channel of communication.

I noticed the number of new words that were somehow related to trickery or intentionally misleading your listener.  The word "Truthiness" was introduced by Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report  as satire, but it was quickly adopted as a way to describe how the very idea of "truth" is under attack.  The English language needed a word to describe the intentional manipulation of truth--a word for the kind of unprovable discourse that "doesn't measure up to the standards of evidence and research that are required for consensus and understanding."  In other words, intentionally misleading others has become so common that we need a word for the false truth being used.

On the May 2nd  CBS "Good Morning America" show a segment introduced a brother and sister who grew up with a father who taught them the joy of words, in one case having invented a word to describe the experience of getting squirted in the eye with juice while eating grapefruit.  His word is "orbisculate," incorporating the orb of the eye in his imaginary word.  They added his word to their vocabularies and discovered  that the word doesn't exist only when, as young adults, they could not find orbisculate in the dictionary.  To honor their father, and his gift of passing to them a love for words, they are trying to get the word into a dictionary.   

I had already written this blog, but since it had not yet been published, I decided to join their effort by using orbisculate in my blog.  Here it is.  Try not to orbisculate when eating grapefruit because the juice can sting.      

In conclusion, if you are eating breakfast as you read this blog, be careful not to orbisculate, and remember, we all need to be more mindful that "truthiness" is intended to deceive us, and truth is essential to everyone if reason and good judgment are to prevail.  Words matter!

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