0 comment Wednesday, December 3, 2014 | admin
Too much loyalty, or too little?
It seems that loyalty is at the core of much of what is wrong with America today. In some ways we have far too much of it and in some ways we are lacking in it. Or we have the wrong kind of loyalty, to the wrong people, and are deficient in it where it is most needed.
I have been thinking of this in connection with the current political situation, and the woeful choices being presented to us in this election, but this problem is widespread and has a bearing on many aspects of our lives.
The most pressing misapplication of loyalty is of the 'vertical loyalty' in which people seem to look for some kind of charismatic man on a horse to put the world to rights for them. We need only look at the example of Barack Obama and the bizarre cult surrounding him: women swooning at his public appearances, and people reacting as they would at a fervid prayer-meeting or revival instead of at a political rally.
A disturbing number of Republicans are also showing signs of being drawn into the Obama admiration society. Any perceptive and honest person can guess at the reasons for this.
The more common problem among 'conservatives' at this time is not the unthinking 'vertical loyalty' to a slick leader, but to the Republican Party, coupled with the flip side, a rather exaggerated fear of the opposing party. Is this a 'horizontal loyalty', loyalty to a group of people or is it just a loyalty to the brand name of the GOP and what it purports to stand for? I would say it's more the latter.
Lacking on both sides of the political aisle is sufficient horizontal loyalty towards one's people, and I would say our loyalty to our own stretches not just laterally to our contemporaries but backward and forward in time, encompassing our ancestors and our future progeny. We see far too little concern for this; there is too much orientation to the present with little thought for the future. Since we have become a materialistic people with a dwindling belief in things eternal, in the old verities, we naturally tend to neglect the long-range prospects for our people.
Why have we come to have so little 'horizontal loyalty' to our own? There is no simple one-sentence answer but obviously there has been a long-term effort to undermine this natural feeling of kinship. Divide and rule has been an effective strategy and our country with its tradition of welcoming in people from far-flung countries was susceptible to having its very core identity and essence assailed by means of immigration from incompatible peoples.
I think it's too easy to blame 'the liberals' for much of this; in so doing, many Republicans and conservatives absolve themselves of any complicity in it, when in fact they have acquiesced if not actively participated in the divide-and-rule process.
As it stands, we are now divided many ways, based, most obviously, on race and ancestry, then along religious lines (atheists vs. Christians, other religions vs. Christians, Christians among themselves), as well as sex/gender lines, class lines, regional loyalties, and of course politics. The first and the last categories seem to engender the most bitter and intractable conflicts.
Al Gore appears to have been unwittingly accurate when he mistranslated 'E Pluribus Unum' as 'out of one, many.'
So, lacking the normal and healthy quantum of lateral or horizontal loyalty among ourselves, we substitute vertical loyalty, and tend to submit to the powerful at the top, whether a charismatic individual in whom we invest our allegiance, or whether we make The Party the be-all and the end-all and bow our knee to the party powers-that-be.
Some people, of course, devote most of their loyalty to a religious system or hierarchy, with some systems being more authoritarian than others.
As a Christian I believe that God alone merits that kind of total submission, not any human being or system. Any absolute faith in or devotion to a human being or a man-made philosophy or institution is just misplaced and will lead to grief at some point. Patriotism can become a false religion when it crosses the line to unquestioning, blind faith in one's country.
Patriotism, party loyalty, loyalty to a religious system or ideology, all these have to be taught; they are not natural and innate in us, as is the bond to those close to us, to kin and kind.
It becomes a perplexing question: how is it that so many of us are willing or able to forego their "natural affections" in order to follow a leader or a political party or system which is actually inimical and destructive to their kin and kind? What is short-circuiting our natural affections and loyalties that enables this to happen?
Human beings do possess innate instincts for group loyalty and affinity; I am convinced of that. But human beings, being flawed as we are, can circumvent or bypass the natural inclinations in many ways. Maybe part of our fallen condition, in Christian terminology, is that we are malleable and suggestible. That's the whole story of Genesis 3, isn't it? The persuasive serpent in the garden, leading Eve astray -- aided by her cooperation.
We seem to have lost the discernment and the ability to distinguish truth from falsehood, genuine from counterfeit, and when discernment is lacking, people look for a leader they trust and like. This might also be blamed on moral laziness; people seem to find it too demanding these days to discern right and wrong, good and bad, for themselves, so it's tempting to look either for a ready-made guide, some system of thought or ideology, to decide for us what is good or bad, right or wrong. And some declare that there is no wrong or right, merely different 'narratives' and preferences.
But following a charismatic leader is tempting for some people, perhaps the people who are the most emotionally immature, and the people who have nothing else in which they have faith. The leader then becomes their guide and their authority; they need only follow, and follow blindly in too many cases. Then it seems that when a cult develops around an individual, that in-group satisfies their natural need for group identity and belonging, a need which in a normal society would be met by the natural bond of the group one is born into.
In a society which is becoming more fragmented by the day, more lacking in normal attachments, we are on a path to becoming more susceptible to charismatic seducers who then provide the sense of belonging, and the sense of purpose that is lacking.
Thomas Carlyle, who wrote so much about heroes and great men, wrote about the different kinds of heroes or 'great men', including the prophet, the poet, and the 'commander over men.'
Carlyle said of the last type, the King, that "He is practically the summary for us of all the various figures of heroism: Priest, Teacher, whatsoever of earthly or spiritual dignity we can fancy to reside in a man, embodies itself here, to command over us, to furnish us with constant practical teaching to tell us for the day and hour what we are to do."
Is it true of all of us that we need this kind of authoritarian figure to 'command over us' and 'tell us for the day and hour what we are to do'? I like to think this tendency to submit blindly to flesh and blood is a weakness and a flaw that is not common to all human beings, but there may be that tendency in all of us. However it seems to me that Americans are more prone to this kind of submissive followership now than in past eras. Our founding ancestors did not approve of this kind of cravenness in human nature. George Washington (whose birthday just passed, without the honor due) refused the offer to make him a king instead of our first President.
In the past I've lamented the lack of leadership in our day; we seem to live in an age of pygmies and eunuchs who nonetheless have courtiers bowing to them. But in the end maybe it's true that each age gets the leaders it deserves.
If we could rediscover our history and our sense of unity we might be better able to raise up leaders, competent and decent men among us, and above all, to have the discernment to recognize those who are truly fit for leadership. As it is, we are at risk to be exploited by the manipulators and demagogues who dominate our age.
It seems that loyalty is at the core of much of what is wrong with America today. In some ways we have far too much of it and in some ways we are lacking in it. Or we have the wrong kind of loyalty, to the wrong people, and are deficient in it where it is most needed.
I have been thinking of this in connection with the current political situation, and the woeful choices being presented to us in this election, but this problem is widespread and has a bearing on many aspects of our lives.
The most pressing misapplication of loyalty is of the 'vertical loyalty' in which people seem to look for some kind of charismatic man on a horse to put the world to rights for them. We need only look at the example of Barack Obama and the bizarre cult surrounding him: women swooning at his public appearances, and people reacting as they would at a fervid prayer-meeting or revival instead of at a political rally.
A disturbing number of Republicans are also showing signs of being drawn into the Obama admiration society. Any perceptive and honest person can guess at the reasons for this.
The more common problem among 'conservatives' at this time is not the unthinking 'vertical loyalty' to a slick leader, but to the Republican Party, coupled with the flip side, a rather exaggerated fear of the opposing party. Is this a 'horizontal loyalty', loyalty to a group of people or is it just a loyalty to the brand name of the GOP and what it purports to stand for? I would say it's more the latter.
Lacking on both sides of the political aisle is sufficient horizontal loyalty towards one's people, and I would say our loyalty to our own stretches not just laterally to our contemporaries but backward and forward in time, encompassing our ancestors and our future progeny. We see far too little concern for this; there is too much orientation to the present with little thought for the future. Since we have become a materialistic people with a dwindling belief in things eternal, in the old verities, we naturally tend to neglect the long-range prospects for our people.
Why have we come to have so little 'horizontal loyalty' to our own? There is no simple one-sentence answer but obviously there has been a long-term effort to undermine this natural feeling of kinship. Divide and rule has been an effective strategy and our country with its tradition of welcoming in people from far-flung countries was susceptible to having its very core identity and essence assailed by means of immigration from incompatible peoples.
I think it's too easy to blame 'the liberals' for much of this; in so doing, many Republicans and conservatives absolve themselves of any complicity in it, when in fact they have acquiesced if not actively participated in the divide-and-rule process.
As it stands, we are now divided many ways, based, most obviously, on race and ancestry, then along religious lines (atheists vs. Christians, other religions vs. Christians, Christians among themselves), as well as sex/gender lines, class lines, regional loyalties, and of course politics. The first and the last categories seem to engender the most bitter and intractable conflicts.
Al Gore appears to have been unwittingly accurate when he mistranslated 'E Pluribus Unum' as 'out of one, many.'
So, lacking the normal and healthy quantum of lateral or horizontal loyalty among ourselves, we substitute vertical loyalty, and tend to submit to the powerful at the top, whether a charismatic individual in whom we invest our allegiance, or whether we make The Party the be-all and the end-all and bow our knee to the party powers-that-be.
Some people, of course, devote most of their loyalty to a religious system or hierarchy, with some systems being more authoritarian than others.
As a Christian I believe that God alone merits that kind of total submission, not any human being or system. Any absolute faith in or devotion to a human being or a man-made philosophy or institution is just misplaced and will lead to grief at some point. Patriotism can become a false religion when it crosses the line to unquestioning, blind faith in one's country.
Patriotism, party loyalty, loyalty to a religious system or ideology, all these have to be taught; they are not natural and innate in us, as is the bond to those close to us, to kin and kind.
It becomes a perplexing question: how is it that so many of us are willing or able to forego their "natural affections" in order to follow a leader or a political party or system which is actually inimical and destructive to their kin and kind? What is short-circuiting our natural affections and loyalties that enables this to happen?
Human beings do possess innate instincts for group loyalty and affinity; I am convinced of that. But human beings, being flawed as we are, can circumvent or bypass the natural inclinations in many ways. Maybe part of our fallen condition, in Christian terminology, is that we are malleable and suggestible. That's the whole story of Genesis 3, isn't it? The persuasive serpent in the garden, leading Eve astray -- aided by her cooperation.
We seem to have lost the discernment and the ability to distinguish truth from falsehood, genuine from counterfeit, and when discernment is lacking, people look for a leader they trust and like. This might also be blamed on moral laziness; people seem to find it too demanding these days to discern right and wrong, good and bad, for themselves, so it's tempting to look either for a ready-made guide, some system of thought or ideology, to decide for us what is good or bad, right or wrong. And some declare that there is no wrong or right, merely different 'narratives' and preferences.
But following a charismatic leader is tempting for some people, perhaps the people who are the most emotionally immature, and the people who have nothing else in which they have faith. The leader then becomes their guide and their authority; they need only follow, and follow blindly in too many cases. Then it seems that when a cult develops around an individual, that in-group satisfies their natural need for group identity and belonging, a need which in a normal society would be met by the natural bond of the group one is born into.
In a society which is becoming more fragmented by the day, more lacking in normal attachments, we are on a path to becoming more susceptible to charismatic seducers who then provide the sense of belonging, and the sense of purpose that is lacking.
Thomas Carlyle, who wrote so much about heroes and great men, wrote about the different kinds of heroes or 'great men', including the prophet, the poet, and the 'commander over men.'
Carlyle said of the last type, the King, that "He is practically the summary for us of all the various figures of heroism: Priest, Teacher, whatsoever of earthly or spiritual dignity we can fancy to reside in a man, embodies itself here, to command over us, to furnish us with constant practical teaching to tell us for the day and hour what we are to do."
Is it true of all of us that we need this kind of authoritarian figure to 'command over us' and 'tell us for the day and hour what we are to do'? I like to think this tendency to submit blindly to flesh and blood is a weakness and a flaw that is not common to all human beings, but there may be that tendency in all of us. However it seems to me that Americans are more prone to this kind of submissive followership now than in past eras. Our founding ancestors did not approve of this kind of cravenness in human nature. George Washington (whose birthday just passed, without the honor due) refused the offer to make him a king instead of our first President.
In the past I've lamented the lack of leadership in our day; we seem to live in an age of pygmies and eunuchs who nonetheless have courtiers bowing to them. But in the end maybe it's true that each age gets the leaders it deserves.
If we could rediscover our history and our sense of unity we might be better able to raise up leaders, competent and decent men among us, and above all, to have the discernment to recognize those who are truly fit for leadership. As it is, we are at risk to be exploited by the manipulators and demagogues who dominate our age.
Labels: Identity Politics, Leadership, Loyalty, Politics, Societal Decay
0 comment Monday, September 1, 2014 | admin
I've mentioned before that I collect ephemera, my favorite era being the early 20th century. I love learning about earlier times from the ephemera of the age: written material, magazines, even the ads tell a story. The artwork and the illustrations were often beautiful, much more so than today's counterparts.
One thing that catches my eye in the old ads and magazine articles is the presence of many upper-class people, dressed in their finery, attending some soigné event. Many of the domestic scenes in advertising depict elegant women at home with their housemaids. This kind of thing is conspicuously absent in our modern advertising, for obvious reasons. The world has turned upside down from what it was 100 years, or even 70 years ago. The egalitarian, downward-leveling trend has become the hallmark of our age. There are no clear class delineations as there were back then, with moneyed people and their luxuries. Nowadays, the rich often dress, act, and speak just like those at the lower end of the economic spectrum. Think Paris Hilton.
And since the English language is on my mind these last few days, coincidentally I was just at a forum where the discussion centered on class
distinctions in the UK as reflected in language.
Apparently, there remain, despite all the leveling efforts of the leftists, differences in vocabulary as well as pronunciation in the UK.
This article from long-ago 1992 describes the class patterns in British English:
John Honey, an itinerant English professor educated at Cambridge and Oxford who is currently teaching in Japan, created a stir in Britain when his book was published. He urged Britons to acknowledge that speech accents are the coding of the class system and to strike a blow for equality by teaching everyone to speak the Queen's English, which Honey termed "received pronunciation," or R.P. The classic example of R.P. would be the crisp, clipped speech of most BBC news readers.
The Charles-Di split, then, is a matter of two different styles of upper-class speech. Prince Charles speaks a marked version of R.P. -- the upper-crust English, oozing privilege, spoken today mainly by senior members of the royal family, old Etonians and aging Oxford and Cambridge dons. R.P. speakers pronounce "cloth" as clawth and talk about the lorst pah of the British Empah (the "lost power of the British Empire").
Princess Diana has swung to the other end of the R.P. spectrum, occasionally assuming a trendy down-market variant, including traces of popular London speech, that approaches cockney. Its most prominent feature is "t-glotalling," which means strangling the final "t" in most words. Expert ears, for example, have detected Diana saying there's a lo' of i' abou' for "there's a lot of it about." '
From the perspective of today, it would appear that the 'received pronunciation' has long since lost the battle. I've noticed how 'the Queen's English' has been displaced in the British media by various regional accents and by more 'working-class' patterns of speech. When I watch old British films, (for example, today I saw ''Great Expectations" from 1946), the English spoken then is markedly different than that heard in the British media today.
There may be some of the older generation whose accents follow the old patterns but they seem to be few and far between.
I believe the cultural Marxists want to eliminate anything that hints at ''elitism'' and class distinctions and standards, the latter of which are
anathema to them in all areas of life. In the UK as in the United States and throughout the West, there is the mania for 'equality' and for a malicious pulling-down of those who are looked at superior or elite in some way.
And that, to me, is the crux of this issue of class distinctions in speech. The left is always busily destroying all vestiges of our former standards and ideals. Having distinctions of any kind amounts to ''discrimination" and this must always be stamped out.
This piece cuts to the chase, regarding speech:
Every detail of our selves and our lives � our appearance, speech, activities and associations � is perceived by others as an emblem of who we were, what we have become and where we fit in. The social profile of each person is recognizable and unique, like a fingerprint.
The ways we speak also reflect this combination of social similarity and diversity in fine detail.
[...]
Language has always helped to signify who we are in society, sometimes serving as a basis for exclusion. A Bible story tells how a password, shibboleth, was chosen because the enemy didn�t use the sh sound. "Shibboleth" has since come to signify an emblem of belief or membership, an identifiable sign of those who must stay outside the gate.
Societies use shibboleths in many ways. Indeed, speech is a convenient stand-in for other kinds of stigma that we recognize but do not openly acknowledge. For example, in our society, discrimination based on appearance, race, sex, religion or national origin is TABOO and often illegal, whereas discrimination based on particular details of language use by men or women, people of different religions, people from other countries and so on is often allowed.''
Do we have any class distinctions in speech in the United States? I would say we don't. It may be that some traditionally-minded people are unfavorably disposed towards those who have very uneducated speech, or strong regional accents in some cases. But this need not necessarily reflect a class bias, or a racial bias. We just tend to react somewhat negatively to someone who displays ignorance in their way of speaking.
It's often said, with some truth in the allegation, that people tend to judge those who speak with a Southern accent as ''ignorant'' or backward, even if the speaker uses impeccable grammar and syntax. The accent itself bears a stigma, I would say as much or more than ''ebonics''. And you'll notice I didn't specify that ''Northern people tend to judge'' Southern accents negatively -- just ''people.'' There are some who are born and bred in the South who carefully cultivate a neutral accent, modeling it on the media standard. Many of the younger generations do not sound Southron at all, even if their parents speak with a strong regional accent. I think this move away from the Southern speech is sometimes not a conscious thing; it's simply 'in' to speak standard American English as heard on TV or in Hollywood movies. Younger people who watch the mainstream media consciously or unconsciously absorb the accent they hear; it has connotations of being hip and cool, unlike the Southern drawl.
Other than that, however, we don't have a great deal of class distinction in our speech. Education these days does not do a very good job of educating. Sadly, most of those in academia these days are dedicated leftists who think that proper grammar and enunciation are ''elitist' and outmoded, as well as 'reactionary'. So who is there to uphold standards of good grammar and speech?
The linked PBS article argues (just as my linguistics professor did back in the 70s) that language is perpetually changing, and that we mustn't try to stop or impede the change. Language is 'organic', so the party line says. Languages just grow, like Topsy, and we can't control or even direct the change that inevitably happens. We can be 'descriptive' in discussing language, in other words, simply observe and note what we see and hear, but we can't be 'prescriptive' and uphold standards -- because everything is relative, you see. Who are we to judge the ebonics speakers or those who speak some sort of pidgin English or Spanglish or whatever argot?
A complex pattern of influences keeps the linguistic pot bubbling. Variation is everywhere. Change never stops. Language gatekeepers cannot control an ever-changing world of diversity. It�s hard on them, because in the gatekeepers' world, variation means error and change means decline.
What�s more, the very notion of a single standard of correctness in language is quite recent. "Correctness" is based solely on a purist�s own notion of what is socially or culturally correct: if it's not in, it must be out. A language purist works from a list of exceptions to the rule, ordinary speakers follow a hierarchy of patterns that reveal analogical similarities.''
Yes, the usual leftist arguments are heard in the realm of linguistics as in all other areas. Change is inevitable; embrace it. Celebrate it. Above all, don't judge it. Don't try to control it or contain it.
Change is sacred to the leftist.
And we ''language purists' who think (silly us) that there are rules and standards which apply to language just as to any other system, and who think that we should try to contain and direct change, are just sticks-in-the-mud who are impeding the 'diversity' and the richness of our ever-changing language.
I suppose we have to give the left some kind of credit for being consistent in their 'philosophy'. They are consistent to the point of being monomaniacal, when it comes to advancing their agenda in every area of life.
The larger question, though, is the loss of standards in our society.
I suppose it could be said that the beginnings of our country already contained the seed of our current obsession with 'equality' and leveling, which we see in the assault on all standards. Proper speech is now denigrated as archaic and rigid, the province of 'language purists'. Basic etiquette and social graces are scoffed at as passé and old-fashioned. Dress codes are going by the wayside, as people more and more tend to dress for 'comfort', regardless of the occasion. There are very few occasions for which Americans dress up nowadays. Jeans and T-shirts and athletic shoes are the universal uniform for all occasions from church on Sunday to the symphony. As I mentioned, even the wealthy are likely to slouch around in the ''uniform'' when in public.
Sexual mores, like all social standards, are now strictly up to the individual; who are we to judge? Tolerance of anything and everything is a mark of the sophisticated, ''enlightened'' 21st century American.
Profanity and obscenity are everywhere, with no respect for the people present. Oldsters, toddlers, nobody is spared the foul language.
The arts are no longer governed by any sort of rules regarding aesthetics or skill. This is true of the so-called 'fine arts' as well as popular culture.
Mediocrity and even ineptitude are no obstacle to attaining fame or success in the arts and popular entertainment.
Good taste has gone out the window; once I tried to discuss 'taste' with a liberal friend; it was a foreign language to her. ''Taste'' is an elitist construct, imposed by the aristocracy on the sainted common man.
The sad thing about all this is that the ''conservatives'' for the most part are rank egalitarians and levelers in most respects, just as the liberals and leftists. Perhaps the old American obsession with demolishing social class in general, the tradition of hating aristocracy, has gone too far. It seems to me that even conservatives have accepted many of the class warfare bromides of the left.
Our country was born from a revolution against English royalty, and there was an anti-aristocratic undertone to the slogans and sentiments of many of the Founding Fathers -- yet there was a movement to make George Washington a king, rather than President.
There was an old Southron aristocracy, and I am sure there were wastrels and other undesirables among their ranks, but on the other hand, many good men came out of that class: the aforementioned Washington, Thomas Jefferson, the Lees, the Pages, the Randolphs, the Taylors, and many more. Aristocracy is not an innately bad thing, provided they are principled.
Can anyone argue that democracy is preferable? How is it working out for us now?
Our forefathers, at least the Founding Fathers, opposed the idea of democracy and 'equality', despite Thomas Jefferson's unfortunate phrase ''all men are created equal."
Democracy does not exist for a long time - it wastes, exhausts and destroys itself. There was never a democracy that didn't kill itself" - Samuel Adams
"Democracy always leads to conflicts and instability, but never provides for the security of the citizens or their property. Usually it is very short at life, and very bloody at death" -- James Madison
There are many more such quotes in the same vein. Yet somehow Americans have become enamored of 'democracy' and equality.
Equality and liberty can't coexist. Neither can equality and standards. If we are to level everybody, standards must be pulled down; those who excel or distinguish themselves in any way are to be pounded down so as to prevent inequality.
Not so many decades ago, we had a culture which encouraged all, rich, poor, or middle-class, to aspire to civilized, genteel behavior. Children were taught to be polite and courteous, and respectful of elders. Girls, in particular, were taught social graces and were often sent to 'charm school' to learn how to groom themselves, carry themselves, and to be gracious.
Everybody could, and most did, aspire to ''better themselves." Even those from a poor background could become educated, or educate themselves, acquire some social polish, and improve their status in the world. Now, it seems every economic class emulates the lowest level of society. The gutter culture is 'cool.'
The old-style rich in America were standard-bearers. While there were 'black sheep' among them, in general they comported themselves well in public; it was considered part of the duty of the 'upper classes' to set an example. Now that we no longer have a wealthy class with any sense of noblesse oblige, or with a desire to uphold higher standards of behavior, we have no exemplars at all, except vapid celebrities, who are often troubled people with no detectable standards. Or there are the overpaid athletes who are idolized by many.
On this blog we've often discussed the leadership void. Leaders need not be politicians or 'statesmen' -- and how many of the latter even exist today? Leaders are standard-bearers and standard-setters. They are people who, at their best, honor and uphold social and cultural standards and traditions, and set an inspiring example. We all need something to which to aspire, and we all need to aspire to something honorable and worthy. We have few if any such leaders and standard-bearers now. I wonder if, by killing our aristocracy metaphorically, we have done ourselves in. We can see in history how much harm was caused by the Jacobins and their obliterating of class distinctions.
Standards are necessary; our mania for 'democracy' and 'equality' is proving to be very destructive to our society. I believe any effort to undo all the horrendous errors of the last five decades or so must include a renewed respect for quality, excellence, merit, and achievement, as well as for order and beauty.
We live in an ugly, sloppy age dominated by willful adolescents. At some point, the adults will have to reassert control.
The liberals say 'change never stops', and if they are right, then the pendulum has to swing back eventually.
One thing that catches my eye in the old ads and magazine articles is the presence of many upper-class people, dressed in their finery, attending some soigné event. Many of the domestic scenes in advertising depict elegant women at home with their housemaids. This kind of thing is conspicuously absent in our modern advertising, for obvious reasons. The world has turned upside down from what it was 100 years, or even 70 years ago. The egalitarian, downward-leveling trend has become the hallmark of our age. There are no clear class delineations as there were back then, with moneyed people and their luxuries. Nowadays, the rich often dress, act, and speak just like those at the lower end of the economic spectrum. Think Paris Hilton.
And since the English language is on my mind these last few days, coincidentally I was just at a forum where the discussion centered on class
distinctions in the UK as reflected in language.
Apparently, there remain, despite all the leveling efforts of the leftists, differences in vocabulary as well as pronunciation in the UK.
This article from long-ago 1992 describes the class patterns in British English:
John Honey, an itinerant English professor educated at Cambridge and Oxford who is currently teaching in Japan, created a stir in Britain when his book was published. He urged Britons to acknowledge that speech accents are the coding of the class system and to strike a blow for equality by teaching everyone to speak the Queen's English, which Honey termed "received pronunciation," or R.P. The classic example of R.P. would be the crisp, clipped speech of most BBC news readers.
The Charles-Di split, then, is a matter of two different styles of upper-class speech. Prince Charles speaks a marked version of R.P. -- the upper-crust English, oozing privilege, spoken today mainly by senior members of the royal family, old Etonians and aging Oxford and Cambridge dons. R.P. speakers pronounce "cloth" as clawth and talk about the lorst pah of the British Empah (the "lost power of the British Empire").
Princess Diana has swung to the other end of the R.P. spectrum, occasionally assuming a trendy down-market variant, including traces of popular London speech, that approaches cockney. Its most prominent feature is "t-glotalling," which means strangling the final "t" in most words. Expert ears, for example, have detected Diana saying there's a lo' of i' abou' for "there's a lot of it about." '
From the perspective of today, it would appear that the 'received pronunciation' has long since lost the battle. I've noticed how 'the Queen's English' has been displaced in the British media by various regional accents and by more 'working-class' patterns of speech. When I watch old British films, (for example, today I saw ''Great Expectations" from 1946), the English spoken then is markedly different than that heard in the British media today.
There may be some of the older generation whose accents follow the old patterns but they seem to be few and far between.
I believe the cultural Marxists want to eliminate anything that hints at ''elitism'' and class distinctions and standards, the latter of which are
anathema to them in all areas of life. In the UK as in the United States and throughout the West, there is the mania for 'equality' and for a malicious pulling-down of those who are looked at superior or elite in some way.
And that, to me, is the crux of this issue of class distinctions in speech. The left is always busily destroying all vestiges of our former standards and ideals. Having distinctions of any kind amounts to ''discrimination" and this must always be stamped out.
This piece cuts to the chase, regarding speech:
Every detail of our selves and our lives � our appearance, speech, activities and associations � is perceived by others as an emblem of who we were, what we have become and where we fit in. The social profile of each person is recognizable and unique, like a fingerprint.
The ways we speak also reflect this combination of social similarity and diversity in fine detail.
[...]
Language has always helped to signify who we are in society, sometimes serving as a basis for exclusion. A Bible story tells how a password, shibboleth, was chosen because the enemy didn�t use the sh sound. "Shibboleth" has since come to signify an emblem of belief or membership, an identifiable sign of those who must stay outside the gate.
Societies use shibboleths in many ways. Indeed, speech is a convenient stand-in for other kinds of stigma that we recognize but do not openly acknowledge. For example, in our society, discrimination based on appearance, race, sex, religion or national origin is TABOO and often illegal, whereas discrimination based on particular details of language use by men or women, people of different religions, people from other countries and so on is often allowed.''
Do we have any class distinctions in speech in the United States? I would say we don't. It may be that some traditionally-minded people are unfavorably disposed towards those who have very uneducated speech, or strong regional accents in some cases. But this need not necessarily reflect a class bias, or a racial bias. We just tend to react somewhat negatively to someone who displays ignorance in their way of speaking.
It's often said, with some truth in the allegation, that people tend to judge those who speak with a Southern accent as ''ignorant'' or backward, even if the speaker uses impeccable grammar and syntax. The accent itself bears a stigma, I would say as much or more than ''ebonics''. And you'll notice I didn't specify that ''Northern people tend to judge'' Southern accents negatively -- just ''people.'' There are some who are born and bred in the South who carefully cultivate a neutral accent, modeling it on the media standard. Many of the younger generations do not sound Southron at all, even if their parents speak with a strong regional accent. I think this move away from the Southern speech is sometimes not a conscious thing; it's simply 'in' to speak standard American English as heard on TV or in Hollywood movies. Younger people who watch the mainstream media consciously or unconsciously absorb the accent they hear; it has connotations of being hip and cool, unlike the Southern drawl.
Other than that, however, we don't have a great deal of class distinction in our speech. Education these days does not do a very good job of educating. Sadly, most of those in academia these days are dedicated leftists who think that proper grammar and enunciation are ''elitist' and outmoded, as well as 'reactionary'. So who is there to uphold standards of good grammar and speech?
The linked PBS article argues (just as my linguistics professor did back in the 70s) that language is perpetually changing, and that we mustn't try to stop or impede the change. Language is 'organic', so the party line says. Languages just grow, like Topsy, and we can't control or even direct the change that inevitably happens. We can be 'descriptive' in discussing language, in other words, simply observe and note what we see and hear, but we can't be 'prescriptive' and uphold standards -- because everything is relative, you see. Who are we to judge the ebonics speakers or those who speak some sort of pidgin English or Spanglish or whatever argot?
A complex pattern of influences keeps the linguistic pot bubbling. Variation is everywhere. Change never stops. Language gatekeepers cannot control an ever-changing world of diversity. It�s hard on them, because in the gatekeepers' world, variation means error and change means decline.
What�s more, the very notion of a single standard of correctness in language is quite recent. "Correctness" is based solely on a purist�s own notion of what is socially or culturally correct: if it's not in, it must be out. A language purist works from a list of exceptions to the rule, ordinary speakers follow a hierarchy of patterns that reveal analogical similarities.''
Yes, the usual leftist arguments are heard in the realm of linguistics as in all other areas. Change is inevitable; embrace it. Celebrate it. Above all, don't judge it. Don't try to control it or contain it.
Change is sacred to the leftist.
And we ''language purists' who think (silly us) that there are rules and standards which apply to language just as to any other system, and who think that we should try to contain and direct change, are just sticks-in-the-mud who are impeding the 'diversity' and the richness of our ever-changing language.
I suppose we have to give the left some kind of credit for being consistent in their 'philosophy'. They are consistent to the point of being monomaniacal, when it comes to advancing their agenda in every area of life.
The larger question, though, is the loss of standards in our society.
I suppose it could be said that the beginnings of our country already contained the seed of our current obsession with 'equality' and leveling, which we see in the assault on all standards. Proper speech is now denigrated as archaic and rigid, the province of 'language purists'. Basic etiquette and social graces are scoffed at as passé and old-fashioned. Dress codes are going by the wayside, as people more and more tend to dress for 'comfort', regardless of the occasion. There are very few occasions for which Americans dress up nowadays. Jeans and T-shirts and athletic shoes are the universal uniform for all occasions from church on Sunday to the symphony. As I mentioned, even the wealthy are likely to slouch around in the ''uniform'' when in public.
Sexual mores, like all social standards, are now strictly up to the individual; who are we to judge? Tolerance of anything and everything is a mark of the sophisticated, ''enlightened'' 21st century American.
Profanity and obscenity are everywhere, with no respect for the people present. Oldsters, toddlers, nobody is spared the foul language.
The arts are no longer governed by any sort of rules regarding aesthetics or skill. This is true of the so-called 'fine arts' as well as popular culture.
Mediocrity and even ineptitude are no obstacle to attaining fame or success in the arts and popular entertainment.
Good taste has gone out the window; once I tried to discuss 'taste' with a liberal friend; it was a foreign language to her. ''Taste'' is an elitist construct, imposed by the aristocracy on the sainted common man.
The sad thing about all this is that the ''conservatives'' for the most part are rank egalitarians and levelers in most respects, just as the liberals and leftists. Perhaps the old American obsession with demolishing social class in general, the tradition of hating aristocracy, has gone too far. It seems to me that even conservatives have accepted many of the class warfare bromides of the left.
Our country was born from a revolution against English royalty, and there was an anti-aristocratic undertone to the slogans and sentiments of many of the Founding Fathers -- yet there was a movement to make George Washington a king, rather than President.
There was an old Southron aristocracy, and I am sure there were wastrels and other undesirables among their ranks, but on the other hand, many good men came out of that class: the aforementioned Washington, Thomas Jefferson, the Lees, the Pages, the Randolphs, the Taylors, and many more. Aristocracy is not an innately bad thing, provided they are principled.
Can anyone argue that democracy is preferable? How is it working out for us now?
Our forefathers, at least the Founding Fathers, opposed the idea of democracy and 'equality', despite Thomas Jefferson's unfortunate phrase ''all men are created equal."
Democracy does not exist for a long time - it wastes, exhausts and destroys itself. There was never a democracy that didn't kill itself" - Samuel Adams
"Democracy always leads to conflicts and instability, but never provides for the security of the citizens or their property. Usually it is very short at life, and very bloody at death" -- James Madison
There are many more such quotes in the same vein. Yet somehow Americans have become enamored of 'democracy' and equality.
Equality and liberty can't coexist. Neither can equality and standards. If we are to level everybody, standards must be pulled down; those who excel or distinguish themselves in any way are to be pounded down so as to prevent inequality.
Not so many decades ago, we had a culture which encouraged all, rich, poor, or middle-class, to aspire to civilized, genteel behavior. Children were taught to be polite and courteous, and respectful of elders. Girls, in particular, were taught social graces and were often sent to 'charm school' to learn how to groom themselves, carry themselves, and to be gracious.
Everybody could, and most did, aspire to ''better themselves." Even those from a poor background could become educated, or educate themselves, acquire some social polish, and improve their status in the world. Now, it seems every economic class emulates the lowest level of society. The gutter culture is 'cool.'
The old-style rich in America were standard-bearers. While there were 'black sheep' among them, in general they comported themselves well in public; it was considered part of the duty of the 'upper classes' to set an example. Now that we no longer have a wealthy class with any sense of noblesse oblige, or with a desire to uphold higher standards of behavior, we have no exemplars at all, except vapid celebrities, who are often troubled people with no detectable standards. Or there are the overpaid athletes who are idolized by many.
On this blog we've often discussed the leadership void. Leaders need not be politicians or 'statesmen' -- and how many of the latter even exist today? Leaders are standard-bearers and standard-setters. They are people who, at their best, honor and uphold social and cultural standards and traditions, and set an inspiring example. We all need something to which to aspire, and we all need to aspire to something honorable and worthy. We have few if any such leaders and standard-bearers now. I wonder if, by killing our aristocracy metaphorically, we have done ourselves in. We can see in history how much harm was caused by the Jacobins and their obliterating of class distinctions.
Standards are necessary; our mania for 'democracy' and 'equality' is proving to be very destructive to our society. I believe any effort to undo all the horrendous errors of the last five decades or so must include a renewed respect for quality, excellence, merit, and achievement, as well as for order and beauty.
We live in an ugly, sloppy age dominated by willful adolescents. At some point, the adults will have to reassert control.
The liberals say 'change never stops', and if they are right, then the pendulum has to swing back eventually.
Labels: Egalitarianism, English Language, History, Leadership, Social Class, Social Conservatism, Societal Decay
0 comment Friday, June 27, 2014 | admin
The events of recent days are so strange that it's hard to sift the news stories and the chatter about them to discern where the truth lies.
First, the bizarre flyover of Manhattan by Air Force One, accompanied by fighter jets; here's one blogger's take on it.
I've been following numerous internet discussions of that incident as well as talking with people about it in the 'real world.' Just about everyone agrees that the official explanation makes no sense -- that is, the story that a new photo of Air Force One flying over the Statue of Liberty was needed, and that the failure to notify the appropriate authorities or the public was just a 'mistake.'
It seems that there are theories aplenty of what really happened, and we will all be left to speculate and shake our heads about it, as we are not likely to hear a reasonably truthful account of it that makes sense.
My first thought when hearing about this supposed 'photo-op' flight was: why not just use Photoshop? Even I could put together a reasonable composite photo with Photoshop, and I am a rank amateur. No, I don't buy the photo-op story, but any other alternative explanation I can think of is so bizarre that it's pointless to speculate. But these days, almost anything, reasonable or not, seems possible, so strange are these times.
The second subject which defies our efforts to get at the truth is, of course, the Mexican flu story.
No, I won't call it the 'swine flu' as most of the MSM are doing, because from what I've read, the flu involves strains of not only swine but avian and human influenza viruses. And the fact that the politically correct get irate when someone calls it the Mexican flu, based on the site of its first known occurrences, convinces me that Mexican flu is just the right name for it. Whatever gives the PC crowd the vapors must be right.
The left-wing blogosphere is already using the term 'racist hatred' to dismiss any attempt to make the obvious connection between immigrants and this disease.
I've read and heard so much speculation and opinion about the flu from various people, and on the right it seems the most common response is skepticism; "it's just another flu, no big deal. It's a scare story cooked up by the mainstream media, who lie about everything" (which is nearly true, actually) or it's "created by the current regime either to 'cause panic' or to push through a nationalized health care plan", or to "justify repressive measures like martial law" or other outrages.
If it's true that there's nothing to it, that it's just another round of the flu virus, no different than the usual ones, what are all those images of Mexico City with people wearing masks, and the stories of the closing of many schools, and cancelling of public events? Or the closing of borders by other (more sensible) governments? How do the scoffers explain that away? Are the pictures all faked, like the supposedly faked footage of the moon landing in 1969?
If it were a manufactured crisis with a political end in mind, like 'pushing through nationalized health care', it would seem like a rather odd way to go about it. Why would such an event be needed? Does anybody think that the administration would have any trouble passing their health care plan, with the current Congress? How would a pandemic help, unless the idea is that a presidential directive or something would nationalize health care, that it would allow the administration to unilaterally do this?
It would seem to me that a pandemic, or another such nationwide health emergency, would be a bad time to try to institute a cumbersome bureaucratic system which included everybody. And there are the economic considerations; how could the enormous expense be justified in the current climate? I suppose that's a silly question, though, given our current wild spending spree with the economy on the rocks.
It may be a way to justify the need for some kind of 'global governance' to combat a worldwide health crisis; that would be more plausible to me, and if so, it's disturbing.
But regardless, the bottom line is: I don't think it's wise to scoff at the possibility that this flu epidemic might escalate into a real crisis, with widespread illness and lives lost. I certainly hope and pray it won't be as serious as that; I hope the doubters are right, but as of now, they are not basing their doubt on anything more substantial than stubborn skepticism and cynicism. They certainly have no solid reason that I've heard for their certitude that this is all hype and hysteria. Methinks they are whistling in the dark, or to use a grimmer metaphor, whistling past the graveyard.
Regardless of what one believes about the reality of this flu epidemic or about the degree of seriousness, it should trouble us that our supposed leadership seem to be more concerned with the political ramifications than with the health of the citizens of this country. It should disgust us that the people ''in charge'' seem oblivious to our well-being and safety, and that they have a completely passive, feckless attitude, reflected in their cavalier statements that 'there's nothing we can do to contain it' so there's no use in closing borders.
I've heard some cynical citizens make that same statement; they say it's too late; the horse is out of the barn. However I say it's not useless to try to close the door to the many illegal immigrants -- and the legal immigrants, tourists, and visitors from Mexico. I mean, is it not common sense to reason that the more such people enter our country, the greater the likelihood of the disease being transmitted to more Americans, faster? The government seems to take the attitude that since we've undoubtedly let the virus loose in our country, let's just say 'what the heck?' and bring in more and more of it via more immigrants and visitors. What does it matter if there are 1,000 people bringing the virus or 100,000 people bringing the virus? This is essentially the reasoning of our incompetent officials. One, or one hundred thousand, it's all the same, since it's here already.
What kind of 'leadership' is this?
Somebody in the blogosphere had my blog on a list of 'women misogynists', and I know this will further incriminate me in the eyes of such people, but I would feel a lot more confident with some old-style gray-haired gentlemen in positions of leadership. Call me misogynistic if you must, but the girls (of whatever age) with the grade-school-teacher personalities who are standing up there before the microphones inspire no confidence in me. They look and act and speak like sing-songy schoolmarms rather than people who should be in national leadership positions. (And please, if you are a grade-school teacher or any other kind, this is not meant to offend you. I am simply talking about a certain type of liberal female. I know there are wonderful conservative schoolteachers out there -- somewhere. And God bless them.)
Leadership is lacking, truth is in short supply, and the population is in a state of confusion and discontent.
This would be the perfect time, given the leadership vacuum, for local and regional authorities to step up to the plate and do what they should do; there is no direction from those at the top. America truly is, for now, a flock of sheep without a shepherd.
First, the bizarre flyover of Manhattan by Air Force One, accompanied by fighter jets; here's one blogger's take on it.
I've been following numerous internet discussions of that incident as well as talking with people about it in the 'real world.' Just about everyone agrees that the official explanation makes no sense -- that is, the story that a new photo of Air Force One flying over the Statue of Liberty was needed, and that the failure to notify the appropriate authorities or the public was just a 'mistake.'
It seems that there are theories aplenty of what really happened, and we will all be left to speculate and shake our heads about it, as we are not likely to hear a reasonably truthful account of it that makes sense.
My first thought when hearing about this supposed 'photo-op' flight was: why not just use Photoshop? Even I could put together a reasonable composite photo with Photoshop, and I am a rank amateur. No, I don't buy the photo-op story, but any other alternative explanation I can think of is so bizarre that it's pointless to speculate. But these days, almost anything, reasonable or not, seems possible, so strange are these times.
The second subject which defies our efforts to get at the truth is, of course, the Mexican flu story.
No, I won't call it the 'swine flu' as most of the MSM are doing, because from what I've read, the flu involves strains of not only swine but avian and human influenza viruses. And the fact that the politically correct get irate when someone calls it the Mexican flu, based on the site of its first known occurrences, convinces me that Mexican flu is just the right name for it. Whatever gives the PC crowd the vapors must be right.
The left-wing blogosphere is already using the term 'racist hatred' to dismiss any attempt to make the obvious connection between immigrants and this disease.
I've read and heard so much speculation and opinion about the flu from various people, and on the right it seems the most common response is skepticism; "it's just another flu, no big deal. It's a scare story cooked up by the mainstream media, who lie about everything" (which is nearly true, actually) or it's "created by the current regime either to 'cause panic' or to push through a nationalized health care plan", or to "justify repressive measures like martial law" or other outrages.
If it's true that there's nothing to it, that it's just another round of the flu virus, no different than the usual ones, what are all those images of Mexico City with people wearing masks, and the stories of the closing of many schools, and cancelling of public events? Or the closing of borders by other (more sensible) governments? How do the scoffers explain that away? Are the pictures all faked, like the supposedly faked footage of the moon landing in 1969?
If it were a manufactured crisis with a political end in mind, like 'pushing through nationalized health care', it would seem like a rather odd way to go about it. Why would such an event be needed? Does anybody think that the administration would have any trouble passing their health care plan, with the current Congress? How would a pandemic help, unless the idea is that a presidential directive or something would nationalize health care, that it would allow the administration to unilaterally do this?
It would seem to me that a pandemic, or another such nationwide health emergency, would be a bad time to try to institute a cumbersome bureaucratic system which included everybody. And there are the economic considerations; how could the enormous expense be justified in the current climate? I suppose that's a silly question, though, given our current wild spending spree with the economy on the rocks.
It may be a way to justify the need for some kind of 'global governance' to combat a worldwide health crisis; that would be more plausible to me, and if so, it's disturbing.
But regardless, the bottom line is: I don't think it's wise to scoff at the possibility that this flu epidemic might escalate into a real crisis, with widespread illness and lives lost. I certainly hope and pray it won't be as serious as that; I hope the doubters are right, but as of now, they are not basing their doubt on anything more substantial than stubborn skepticism and cynicism. They certainly have no solid reason that I've heard for their certitude that this is all hype and hysteria. Methinks they are whistling in the dark, or to use a grimmer metaphor, whistling past the graveyard.
Regardless of what one believes about the reality of this flu epidemic or about the degree of seriousness, it should trouble us that our supposed leadership seem to be more concerned with the political ramifications than with the health of the citizens of this country. It should disgust us that the people ''in charge'' seem oblivious to our well-being and safety, and that they have a completely passive, feckless attitude, reflected in their cavalier statements that 'there's nothing we can do to contain it' so there's no use in closing borders.
I've heard some cynical citizens make that same statement; they say it's too late; the horse is out of the barn. However I say it's not useless to try to close the door to the many illegal immigrants -- and the legal immigrants, tourists, and visitors from Mexico. I mean, is it not common sense to reason that the more such people enter our country, the greater the likelihood of the disease being transmitted to more Americans, faster? The government seems to take the attitude that since we've undoubtedly let the virus loose in our country, let's just say 'what the heck?' and bring in more and more of it via more immigrants and visitors. What does it matter if there are 1,000 people bringing the virus or 100,000 people bringing the virus? This is essentially the reasoning of our incompetent officials. One, or one hundred thousand, it's all the same, since it's here already.
What kind of 'leadership' is this?
Somebody in the blogosphere had my blog on a list of 'women misogynists', and I know this will further incriminate me in the eyes of such people, but I would feel a lot more confident with some old-style gray-haired gentlemen in positions of leadership. Call me misogynistic if you must, but the girls (of whatever age) with the grade-school-teacher personalities who are standing up there before the microphones inspire no confidence in me. They look and act and speak like sing-songy schoolmarms rather than people who should be in national leadership positions. (And please, if you are a grade-school teacher or any other kind, this is not meant to offend you. I am simply talking about a certain type of liberal female. I know there are wonderful conservative schoolteachers out there -- somewhere. And God bless them.)
Leadership is lacking, truth is in short supply, and the population is in a state of confusion and discontent.
This would be the perfect time, given the leadership vacuum, for local and regional authorities to step up to the plate and do what they should do; there is no direction from those at the top. America truly is, for now, a flock of sheep without a shepherd.
Labels: Leadership, Mass Immigration, Media Bias, News, Open Borders, Political Correctness, Public Health, Rumors