I think I was a kid when I read this, and I can't remember what I thought of it at the time. But it seems a good example of something that's been going on my entire life-- that is, the constant diet of obliquely dismissive comments regarding this or that social institution. But never saying exactly what's wrong with them.
A common example of this used to be sardonic references to "2.4 children." Of course, the birthrate has dropped well below that now, and our societies are dying, so maybe 2.4 children wasn't so bad after all.
But nobody ever really said what was wrong with it. It was just a standard snide comment meant to portray people as-- what? Bourgeois, average, complacent, white-bread, banal...something like that. It was never actually articulated.
I'm sure you can think of many other examples of this. Perhaps the most obvious one these days is "white male". If you refer to somebody (or an institution, or an audience) as "primarily white and male", or something like that....you don' t have to explain what the problem with that is. It's just a generalized expression of disapproval or disdain. Somehow just using the words is scoring a point.
"Middle America" is another example.
I think this is one of the way the left has exerted its cultural dominance for decades now...a constant drip-drip-drip of this sort of derogatory reference, so pervasive and almost subliminal that it's a type of conditioning.
Because really, what's wrong with the nuclear family?
(When I hear leftists use the slogan "It takes a village to raise a child", I have the strong sense that they really mean: "It takes the government to raise a child". The slogan itself is unobjectionable.)
(When I hear leftists use the slogan "It takes a village to raise a child", I have the strong sense that they really mean: "It takes the government to raise a child". The slogan itself is unobjectionable.)
I could never understand how they settled for a word that designated the destruction of the earth to use as a adjective for families
ReplyDeleteApparently the term was coined in the 1920s, so it probably wasn't deliberate so far as its genesis goes. But as for its use, who knows?
ReplyDeleteI endorse this post! It is, indeed, one of the most effective types of manipulative rhetoric - and one we need to be aware of.
ReplyDeleteHaving noticed this being done, we can then categorize the author as malign (by our own standards. And then (preferably) stop reading, watching, or listening - or else put mental brackets around whatever else he says, to provide a kind of negative marker in our memories.
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Also, harking back to your recent post on "cliches", or stock phrases; I think you would be interested by this - from timepoint 3:39:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCaBBSNDhRA
It is the blogger extemporizing answers to a question from a 1920s Oxford University Anglo-Saxon Old-English imagined exam, from a letter by Tolkien.
What would interest you is the way the vlogger uses a couple of lines from Beowulf to demonstrate the role and effectiveness of two stereotypical poetic phrases - how, although present ostensibly in order to satisfy the strict alliteration, they also enhance the poetry.
Thanks so much! I look forward to reading that. I love Anglo-Saxon poetry (in translation, of course).
DeleteAnd I do indeed generally stop reading (or viewing) once I come across this sneaky sort of rhetoric!