From Jorge Luis Borges

Wordly Inspiration from the brilliant and irreverent Jorge Luis Borges:

"It is often forgotten that [dictionaries] are artificial repositories, put together well after the languages they define. The roots of language are irrational and of a magical nature."

 

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Quiet - lauding the disengaged

Dismissing those who complain seems to be an Australian pastime. 

We sure have a lot of words for it: whinging poms, elitist ingrates, dole-bludgers, anti-jobs activists, professional troublemakers, idiot protestors who block the streets and make life difficult for everyone else. 

In contrast, the fabled Australian character is stoic, no-nonsense, easy going, just get it done, uncomplaining. Don't make a fuss, don't whinge, and don't - whatever you do - get involved in protests.

This fabled character recently resurfaced in Australian politics. In May 2019, Scott Morrison attributed his unexpected election victory to 'the Quiet Australians who have won a great victory tonight'. 

I wondered who these quiet Australians were and if I knew any of them; they're the majority judging by the political outcome.

If we go by the dictionary, a quiet Australian would be:

♦️ marked by little or no motion or activity, gentle, easy going

♦️  free from noise or uproar, unobtrusive, conservative taste.   

So, are the Quiet Australians minimally active, gentle, easy-going, quiet, calm, unobtrusive people with conservative taste in clothing and food? Don't they even occasionally yell at their children?

Well no, the word quiet means something much more insidious in politics. 

TATKOP 124

There Are Two Kinds Of People: those who illuminate reality and those who obscure it.

See more in the TATKOP series.

 

Diversity 2 - comfort, power and counting

In part 1, I explored the word diverse which means 'various or assorted' and what sits behind the misuse of diverse to mean 'different from me'.

Learning to value diversity in humanity involves positive interactions with a variety of people.

 

However, some individuals never have this experience. With their limited interactions, they can grow up to think people 'like me' (according to sex, race, economic status, ability, etc.) are 'us', and anyone 'different from me' is 'them' or 'the other'. 

 

The two mind maps in part 1 illustrated how these individuals see their 'self' as the 'default human' and the 'other' as a lesser human.

The idea that any person could claim to be the 'default human' is patently ludicrous but it operates subconsciously, deep below our awareness (except for white supremacists and others who overtly promote this idea).

It is far from clear-headed and it spawns unfairness and injustice in the forms of racism, sexism, ableism etc.

 

How can some people never experience a real challenge to such a distorted view of the world that they are the 'default human'?

 

From Isaac Asimov

Wordly Inspiration from Isaac Asimov, who has long inspired me to write:

"Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers."

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Diversity - defeated by the default

Diversity (likewise inclusion) is a word I hear frequently. Diversity appears in technology, education, the arts, music, and science, sometimes accompanied by 'diversity' targets. We hear about the diversity of culture and opinion in Australia. Many companies have Diversity and Inclusion Divisions with KPIs for their annual reports.

 

The driver for diversity is fairness. It entails welcoming all people, ensuring decision-making groups are representative of the broader society, and more people can participate in a greater range of life's opportunities. 

But I think diversity and its adjective diverse are most often just buzz words: they make a 'buzz', but they communicate little (likewise inclusion and inclusive).

 

The word diversity should convey an important idea: diversity is a positive characteristic of societies and groups. But the word has been emptied of this idea in many uses. This has happened through a subtle linguistic 'shift' to use diverse to describe individual people, usually meaning a person from a minority group.

 

Is this just a normal change in meaning? Is it just the all too common loss of a useful word? (I've written previously about accepting that words can change meaning over time, even really useful words, see Alternate - a small grief.)

 

Or is there something else going on here? Has this subtle linguistic 'shift' been engineered? It seems to me that this way of using the word diverse actually serves to keep people out.

TATKOP 123

There Are Two Kinds Of People: those who know democracy is messy and those who want their leaders to keep things clean and tidy. 

See more in the TATKOP series.