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It's only semi autobiographical
Friday, March 05, 2004
Are two people "going out" simply because they spend a good deal of time alone together? Should people who call themselves "best friends" be allowed to kiss? What if a couple who are "seeing each other" do not spend time together out of work or study?
Our lives are dominated by our language, our own words our prison. How ironic that the very tool that helped give us dominance over the globe and the other animals, is the same one that now restricts our thinking. I know people that flinch at hearing certain words, single words can carry charges of emotion, so much stronger than the laws of physics would seem to allow. They are one of our strongest assets, and yet some of our greatest weaknesses.
People attempt to change our culture through language, political correctness is an example of this. These people believe that by changing what we say when refering to the sexes for example, we will eliminate prejudice. Chair-person, refuse collection officer, fire prevention operatives (Yeah, I made the last one up, but probably). They might even be right, to an extent, because of the way that we think, but they should not.
I have been told off for refering to my friends as "The guys" Since I was including some girls in the group. Apparently this was sexist. I returned fire, claiming that it was sexist to say what I has said was sexist. My argument was that my term covered both males and females, and therefore I was not distinguishing between them, since I was not even acnowledging a difference between them as friends, I could not be implying that one was better than another, therefore I was not being sexist. The retort was that 'guy' was a word used to refer to males, and by using it I was suggesting that either all my friends were male or the girls were somehow inferior.
At this point I took a deep breath, and attempted to explain myself one more time without exploding.
The point is, society assigns meanings to words, and if my part of society wants to use 'the guys' to refer to a group of good friends, then we should be able to. We control our language, or should do. Just because a word has been used differently does not mean it has to stay that way. But instead, we let the words control us, can not even understand how it could be otherwise. Pathetic attempts to control them have been made with laws, political correctness gone mad, what we need is the realisation that regardless of what words are used, it is the meaning that is important.
Why do we consider "Fuck" to be worse than "have sex" or "make love"? People say it is the connotations of the first word, but why do we find them so bad? We have a set of words we use when things go wrong, some of which are considered 'rude' but to be frank, they are just collections of words or phrases, often having meanings which are not inherantly bad. I recall someone being punished in school for using the word "Rowlocks" when he made a mistake, because it sounded like bollocks.
Every attempt we make to regulate things through language increases the power that it has over us.
I see now I have perhaps got carried away, and the point I was building to has eluded me. Which is a shame, because I did feel quite strongly about it. Never mind I guess.
Now I'm tired, and I'm going home.
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