"As far as I could see, tolerance of dissenting opinion was the sine qua non of a free society; indeed it was the freedom on which the structures of freedom rested. Yet, it turns out, I couldn’t see as far as I thought I could. Back then, all the way to — it seems — the day before yesterday, I saw the battlefront as one between the individual and the state. It is still that, of course, all over the globe, but identity politics has thrown up a phenomenon, a battleground that is not political so much as psychosocial, an intolerance between individuals, and it’s about language. Words speak louder than actions. Sticks and stones will still break your bones, but the idea that words can’t hurt you has been repealed. People are being hurt by words, and consequently are picking up sticks and stones, not in the form of death threats (mostly) but (frequently) in the form of hounding the transgressor out of his or her livelihood.... [P]ersonally I always had faith in the ultimate commensurability of language and reality. When the German Democratic Republic put out that the Berlin Wall was to keep people out it made me laugh. Reality would take care of itself.... I don’t want to criminalise every fool who says the moon landing was faked and there were no gas ovens. Reality will take care of them too. But no one, not even Lewis Carroll, saw identity politics coming.... 'When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less,' [Humpty Dumpty] tells Alice. And that includes pronouns. Will reality take care of it now?"
Says the great playwright Tom Stoppard (in The London Times).
Stoppard was born in Czechoslovakia in 1937, and his family fled in 1939 (on the day before Hitler invaded). They fled to Singapore, then, because the Japanese were about to invade, to India. The father stayed behind and died in the war, and the mother remarried and Englishman who liked to quote Cecil Rhodes — "to be born an Englishman was to have drawn first prize in the lottery of life"— and to tell young Tom, "Don't you realize that I made you British?"
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"'When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less,' [Humpty Dumpty] tells Alice. And that includes pronouns. Will reality take care of it now?"
Yes, one way or another. Because reality is about who gets to choose. Either progs or the sane. Good to know Stoppard is on our side.
Words don't mean what you want them to mean, unless you are very skilled. They carry head meanings, dominant meanings, secondary meanings, all variously called out, usually in combination, by the context.
Almost anything that matters has to be clarified.
"Back then, all the way to — it seems — the day before yesterday, I saw the battlefront as one between the individual and the state. It is still that, of course, all over the globe, but identity politics has thrown up a phenomenon, a battleground that is not political so much as psychosocial, an intolerance between individuals, and it’s about language."
The intolerance between individuals is a political tactic, used in service to the Almighty State, to achieve its ends on inuring people to local dictators so their resistance to national- or global - dictators will be too worn down for them to care.
"I don’t want to criminalise every fool who says the moon landing was faked and there were no gas ovens."
"Gas ovens"?
Our corrupt media, corrupt Biden-Pelosi-Clinton FBI nexus of lies and money grubbers, and the CASTRO-esque Cabal of Cancel Commies remind us of historical monsters.
Obey - you INSURRECTIONISTS! or to the Gulag.
They [words] carry head meanings, dominant meanings, secondary meanings,
They are more like chords than single notes.
@Jupiter: I believe he is referring to those people who deny that Hitler gassed millions of Jews in the Holocaust.
The rest of that Lewis Carrol quote is more important than the bit Stoppard used:
“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”
It isn't about the words, it is about power.
Exactly like the Nail in the Forehead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg
Maj. Gen. Charles George Gordon to Romulo Gessi, Nile River, 1880? "What a shame you were not born an Englishman!"
Following that comment Gessi, who had done remarkable work for Gordon Pasha, received high praise, but was paid less than native English speakers, reportedly threw down his hat and quit in disgust.
"As far as I could see, tolerance of dissenting opinion was the sine qua non of a free society; indeed it was the freedom on which the structures of freedom rested. Yet, it turns out, I couldn’t see as far as I thought I could.
No, you saw correctly.
What the "identity politics" Left wants is to destroy free society, because in a free society most of them just don't matter.
Whereas they thing that in a not free society, they'll get to be one of our jailers
Back then, all the way to — it seems — the day before yesterday, I saw the battlefront as one between the individual and the state. It is still that, of course, all over the globe, but identity politics has thrown up a phenomenon, a battleground that is not political so much as psychosocial, an intolerance between individuals, and it’s about language.
Nope, it's still a fight between the individuals and the State.
Sometimes the State acts through big companies (you know, fascism), but the Left in government is fighting hard to destroy our freedom.
See the UK police hunting down and prosecuting people for posting thought crimes on social media. See US Democrats pushing Big tech to censor conservatives
Words speak louder than actions. Sticks and stones will still break your bones, but the idea that words can’t hurt you has been repealed.
Nope.
That's just an excuse for teh fascists. Because if they meant it, then anyone attacking a "Trumper" would be heading to jail, too.
[P]ersonally I always had faith in the ultimate commensurability of language and reality.
So you're not a leftist, and not a moron. That's good.
But reality won't stop people from lying about it. That's our job
Not by throwing them in jail, but by pointing out their lies
So, the concert was pretty good. One of the best of the two or three B9's I've seen live.
I listened to the broadcast of last night's concert, so I knew that they would play the US national anthem followed by the Ukrainian one. What I didn't expect was that the Ukrainian flag would be on stage too.
When the SSB was over I sat down. I made a few glances around and as far as I could see I was the only one who sat for the Uke song. (One of the musicians is Ukrainian and was singled out for acknowledgement too.)
Anyway, it felt good to stand up by sitting down again.
Tocqueville wrote almost 200 years ago that the danger to liberty in America was far less likely to come from government than from the power of social conformity. I think that's still largely true; at least, social pressure and judgement are encountered every day, everywhere. The gummint ain't there. Yet.
It does have something to do with today’s disconnect with the spirit, the godly, nature.
God used to carry the load we now have trouble moving, let alone carrying.
Lem: word.
I’m thankful this thoughtful man, given a break by the grace of G*d, can see the Truth.
He sees the 2faces of Progress. Now. How the get all those who have ears, to hear?
Tocqueville could have said the same of them Church.
ps: The Nail in the Forehead
Did you do that just for rh??
Once I sat down (I was front row center of the mezzanine) I could see the lower half of the screen they used to project the words to the SSB and the Uke anthem. The latter ended with a line about showing the world they were descendants of Cossacks!
Online, I find that "Ukraine is not yet dead . . . we are Kosac kin." A Ukrainophobe could have several field days unpacking the less savory aspects of Cossackhood . . .
There's some twisted amusement to be had at the notion of Ukrainian Nazis. Or should that be Ukrainians that identify as Nazis? Old school Aryanist Germans were happy to recruit Slav dumbos for their wet work, but it took more than bloodthirsty antisemitism to make a Nazi.
It's also fascinating that after 3 or 4 generations of Sovietdom the most powerful force to emerge was nationalism, often of an extreme kind. It almost makes me think it has been planned this way.
Stoppard is the great playwright of the 2nd half of the 20th C. I loved doing his stuff when i still acted, and reading it now.
Narr said...
Old school Aryanist Germans were happy to recruit Slav dumbos for their wet work
You got some support for that claim?
because in the history I'm familiar with, the Ukrainians were more than happy to "stab the commies in the back", until the German Nazis let them know that, as far as the Nazis were concerned, they were just more Slav Untermenschen
Reading this post prompted me to retrieve my DVD copy of his excellent "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead ", starring Gary Oldman, Tim Roth, and Richard Dreyfuss. Hamlet as conceived by Laurel and Hardy. A brilliant writer and director, perhaps Stoppard could find some comedy in all this tragedy.
Just some old white guy, obviously.
Greg, I don't think we're in contradiction. The Nazis used willing collaborators wherever they found them, and they found a lot in the Ukraine. Using the local yokels kept them busy and was easier on the master race.
That the Ukes would perish or be enslaved under the Nazis was not in doubt in the long run, however much some might suck up to them.
History is full of ironies--such as the fact that Cossacks were the bully-boys of the Russian Empire for its last century or so, pogrom-ready freebooters of the most backward of the European great powers.
“…living in Czechoslovakia where I had friends who were persecuted for what they spoke and wrote."
Presumably, Stoppard is referring to prosecution of Czech artists during Communist times.
After Communist rule collapsed, persecuted play writer Vaclav Havel was lionized and became President.
Is it possible there will be a similar blowback against the woke in the West?
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