A Hyde Park State of Mind
Jan. 12th, 2023 09:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraHideous White Stuff is coming down from the sky.
It’s my fault, of course. I haven’t been checking the weather forecast these past few days as obsessively as God intended, so God is punishing me.
Hey! What can I say?
I live in a magical universe.
###
I awakened this morning to the news that “field” is now a racist word, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and the University of Southern California.
This follows the news that various woke computer scientists are trying to ban the designation “master/slave” to describe flipflop circuits.
These kinds of linguistic clamp-downs are absolute bullshit. They make me furious.
###
My politics really haven’t changed in the last 50 years. At 20, I was marching against the Vietnam War and volunteering at the Berkeley Free Clinic and the Berkeley Women’s Feminist Health Collective. I believed in affirmative action, but I thought it should be based on class rather than race. Free speech was the political issue about which I was most passionate.
I still think the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a plutocracy is absolutely the biggest problem on the planet and that racial conflicts are a smoke screen since there is no biological basis for race.
Certainly, systemic racism exists, but you’re gonna have a hard time selling outrage to the majority of Americans who are descended from immigrants who migrated after the Civil War.
My kids think my politics are slightly to the right of Atilla the Hun’s.
It’s an interesting example of the cultural Doppler effect.
What’s that famous Disraeli quote? If you aren’t a liberal when you’re young, you have no heart; if you aren’t a conservative when you’re old, you have no brains. Words to that effect.
Except I’ve been standing still. It’s the culture behind me that has shifted. Like one of those old scrolling mudshow backdrops.
###
In his brilliant book Nine Nasty Words, the linguist John McWhorter reviews the evolution of profanity. The earliest set of taboo words derived from religion: God damn, hell, etc. The next wave described body parts and functions: fuck, shit, cock, the whole George Carlin pantheon.
These days, bad words reflect sociological relationships. The N-word for example (which McWhorter writes out because he’s Black and so can.) Derogatory terms for homosexuals etc.
It’s a fascinating book, and McWhorter is a highly entertaining writer.
As new sets of linguistic taboos set hold, restrictions against the old taboos relax.
My conditioning is so intense that I can’t even think the N-word without shuddering.
But honestly, I wish I were braver. Because what Nine Nasty Words says to me is that linguistic taboos are far from absolute. They reflect cultural mores. And cultural mores are not absolutes.
I am envisioning a new career in hiphop:
Straight out the wack dungeons of rap.
The SLAVE drops deep as does my MASTER.
I never smoke, 'cause to smoke is the brother of pastor.
Beyond the walls of FIELDS, life is defined.
I think of FIELD when I'm in a Hyde Park state of mind,
in a Hyde Park state of m-i-n-ddddd…
It’s my fault, of course. I haven’t been checking the weather forecast these past few days as obsessively as God intended, so God is punishing me.
Hey! What can I say?
I live in a magical universe.
###
I awakened this morning to the news that “field” is now a racist word, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and the University of Southern California.
This follows the news that various woke computer scientists are trying to ban the designation “master/slave” to describe flipflop circuits.
These kinds of linguistic clamp-downs are absolute bullshit. They make me furious.
###
My politics really haven’t changed in the last 50 years. At 20, I was marching against the Vietnam War and volunteering at the Berkeley Free Clinic and the Berkeley Women’s Feminist Health Collective. I believed in affirmative action, but I thought it should be based on class rather than race. Free speech was the political issue about which I was most passionate.
I still think the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a plutocracy is absolutely the biggest problem on the planet and that racial conflicts are a smoke screen since there is no biological basis for race.
Certainly, systemic racism exists, but you’re gonna have a hard time selling outrage to the majority of Americans who are descended from immigrants who migrated after the Civil War.
My kids think my politics are slightly to the right of Atilla the Hun’s.
It’s an interesting example of the cultural Doppler effect.
What’s that famous Disraeli quote? If you aren’t a liberal when you’re young, you have no heart; if you aren’t a conservative when you’re old, you have no brains. Words to that effect.
Except I’ve been standing still. It’s the culture behind me that has shifted. Like one of those old scrolling mudshow backdrops.
###
In his brilliant book Nine Nasty Words, the linguist John McWhorter reviews the evolution of profanity. The earliest set of taboo words derived from religion: God damn, hell, etc. The next wave described body parts and functions: fuck, shit, cock, the whole George Carlin pantheon.
These days, bad words reflect sociological relationships. The N-word for example (which McWhorter writes out because he’s Black and so can.) Derogatory terms for homosexuals etc.
It’s a fascinating book, and McWhorter is a highly entertaining writer.
As new sets of linguistic taboos set hold, restrictions against the old taboos relax.
My conditioning is so intense that I can’t even think the N-word without shuddering.
But honestly, I wish I were braver. Because what Nine Nasty Words says to me is that linguistic taboos are far from absolute. They reflect cultural mores. And cultural mores are not absolutes.
I am envisioning a new career in hiphop:
Straight out the wack dungeons of rap.
The SLAVE drops deep as does my MASTER.
I never smoke, 'cause to smoke is the brother of pastor.
Beyond the walls of FIELDS, life is defined.
I think of FIELD when I'm in a Hyde Park state of mind,
in a Hyde Park state of m-i-n-ddddd…
