Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies

I have often been a curious observer of the manner in which we use words, and in a rather simplistic manner I prefer for words to mean what they mean with no need whatsoever, for playing cat and mouse over the intended meaning of what is said (a small-personal view on this is found here). In a world where there is war of words (innuendos, hate speeches, the cry for political correctness, for being diplomatic  and so on), how we speak is becoming more and more important. While words remain the same, the meanings are undergoing changes and some can no longer be used in the old sense. Every word is subject to scrutiny and to explanation. Perhaps, it is becoming truer that the pen is mightier than the sword as words are pitched against each other in battle array. 

While these thoughts wandered in my mind, by a chance encounter I came across Marilyn Chandler

McEntyre's Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies, standing on the shelf of a little bookshop, and the title caught my eye and so after reading from cover to cover (the front and the back covers), I decided to buy it to read the "in between" the covers pages. And this book has not disappointed. 

Right  in the beginning of the book McEntyre states,

Like any other life-sustaining resource, language can be depleted, polluted, contaminated, eroded, and filled with artificial stimulants. Like any other resource, it needs the protection of those who recognize its value and commit themselves to good stewardship (1). 

On the seventh page, McEntyre further emphatically states "We need to mean what we say. And for that purpose we need to reclaim words that have been colonised and held hostage by commercial and political agencies that have riddled them with distorted meaning" (7).

Reading those lines, I could only nod my head in strong agreement (I would have nodded it off, if not for the sake of maintaining good reading demeanour). Much like the need to preserve our ecological resources, McEntyre writes that the need for stewardship of words, managing our resource of words rightly involve three things: 

(1) to deepen and sharpen our reading skills, (2) to cultivate habits of speaking and listening that foster precision and clarity and, (3) to practice poesis - to be makers and doers of word (9-10). 

There are twelve stewardship strategies (love words; tell the truth; don't tolerate lies; read well; stay in conversation; share stories; love the long sentence; practice poetry; attend to translation; play; pray; and cherish silence) proposed, and each is dealt with as a chapter. Each stewardship strategy is argued for and practices that will enrich our experience with words offered. We get to see both sides of the spectrum: what it means to be a good steward of words and also when it is not. Sample the following lines:

On "Love Words":

Loving language means cherishing it for its beauty, precision, power to enhance understanding, power to name, power to heal. And it means using words as instruments of love (23).

Precision of expression is neither taught not appreciated in a culture that has prostituted language in the service of propaganda. To the degree that we consent to cheap hyperbole, flip slogans, and comfortable unexamined claims, we deprive ourselves of the felicity of expression that brings things worth looking at into focus (34).

On "Tell the Truth":

Truth telling is difficult because the varieties of untruth are so many and so well disguised. Lies are hard to identify when they come in the form of apparently innocuous imprecision, socially acceptable slippage, hyperbole masquerading as enthusiasm, or well-placed propaganda. These forms of falsehood are so common, and even so normal, in media-saturated, corporately controlled culture that truth often looks pale, understated, alarmist, rude, or indecisive by comparison (42).

But there is no question that precision is difficult to achieve. Imprecision is easier. Imprecision is available in a wide variety of attractive and user-friendly forms: cliches, abstractions and generalizations, jargon, passive constructions, hyperbole, sentimentality, and reassuring absolutes. Imprecision minimizes discomfort and creates a big, soft, hospitable place for all opinions; even the completely vacuous can find a welcome there. So the practice of precision not only requires attentiveness and effort; it may also require the courage to afflict the comfortable and, consequently, tolerate their resentment (44).

On "Don't Tolerate Lies":

the responsibility not to tolerate lies...we live in a culture where various forms of deception are not commonly practiced but commonly accepted (56).

The deceptions we particularly seem to want are those that comfort, insulate, legitimate, and provide ready excuses for inaction (57).

The reading is not difficult and the thoughts are engaging though occasionally I had to pull up the dictionary for some words (McEntyre is a professor of English and you get to experience the richness of the English vocabulary). That should not be a deterrent though, we are all on different level of our knowledge of the language and perhaps the words that are new to me are familiar to you. McEntyre in the introduction to the reader directly states that the book itself is based on lectures delivered within the context of the Christian community and therefore in both (the lecture and the resulting book) observations made are also drawn from the Christian Scripture. The book seems to end rather abruptly with the final strategy of stewardship principle and does not have a conclusion where we are either offered a summative response of the whole book, or a "what now" kind of epilogue. However, the chapters in themselves are very precise and as we read through, we are offered the road to take as well as the road not to take (to borrow from Frost's kind of words). In a world where social media has made it all the more easier for everyone to voice their opinions and thoughts, this book is a welcome to think about how we use words in such an open platform. The right to free speech can be celebrated, but when the exercise of that right harms others, perhaps we all need to slow down to think carefully what that right entails: how we exercise our freedom with words.

Thank you for your time,

kk