Words Mean Things...

[ElboRuum]

Edited because I discovered that I am a new superhero. My name is Typoman!


I just read another post on one person's take against the idea that DU is somehow anti-Christian, that position being one that DU is anti-bigot, anti-hypocrisy, and anti-theocratic. I largely agree. However, I'd like to expound on one of those if I might.

Anti-hypocrisy.

Well, we like to think we are.

Let's look at the word "hypocrisy" for a minute. "Hypo-" is an interesting prefix to me, because it is one of the few prefixes that address the idea of a continuum of degree, instead of the typical absolutism found in most prefixes. See, "hypo-" means less. It's diametric opposite is also a degree prefix, "hyper-" meaning more. While "a-" means no, "omni-" means all, "anti-" means against, "pro-" means for, "pseudo-" means fake, and the lack of a prefix means the real deal, all very absolutist, hypo- and hyper- give us what's in the middle.

Hypocritical means being "less critical", specifically of oneself and of those in one of the groups we identify with. Therefore a hypocrite is one who exhibits the quality of being hypocritical, and hypocrisy is the act of being hypocritical.

I have searched far and wide for an example of a person who is successfully and reliably not hypocritical, and have found none. We are all hypocrites, somewhere in our minds where our reason and emotions meet, there is a turbulence which muddles both and allows us to confuse our feelings on a matter with the fact of the matter. Fortunately, this little hiccup seems to occur in our conscious mind, where it can be subject to efforts to control it and correct it.

When we say that we are anti-hypocrisy, as before, it means we are "against being less critical" of one group versus another, but I must ask myself, do we achieve this, or is this one of those deals where the attempt is its own reward? I mean, I'm sure some of us drive gas guzzlers and call ourselves environmentalists. I'm sure some of us are anti-consumerist, but our house or apartment is home to some expensive little indulgences we just couldn't resist purchasing. I'm sure there are some of us who are vegetarian for political reasons who had a craving and just couldn't resist grabbing that burger. Is this hypocrisy? By pure definition, well, yes, it kind of is. But who of us is really Mother Theresa? No one?

Well, that's OK. Because we would be hypercritical (equally awful) to expect such attempts to reconcile our beliefs, our reason, and our desires into one tidy little package whose contents never escape over the sides. We all like to think of ourselves as righteous and well-intentioned, which may be true. But we also like to think we have extreme fidelity to those principles. And we are often wrong in that assessment.

Now after all of that, I still have to say that we are anti-hypocrisy here at DU. Not because hypocrisy is evil or something, but where it is found, it should not be encouraged because it muddies the waters. No problem was ever solved, no philosophical wisdom ever reached by indulging a hypocritical point of view.

The major contention between the viewpoint the rabid Christian right-wing hypertheists and DU on the whole (as I see it anyway) is that while we espouse a viewpoint that says that where hypocrisy exists, it should be acknowledged and efforts be made to correct it, whether those efforts succeed or fail, the whole of this other opposing view predicates itself on the idea that not only is hypocrisy OK, but it is an integral part of the philosophy.

I know it sometimes quite a lot of hard work to try to decrease your ambient levels of hypocrisy, but the process is necessary for the betterment of society, and DU, by and large, believes that this process is worth undertaking at a very personal level. I believe when we say that we are anti-hypocrisy, it is definitely in response to a society where some just don't seem to be pulling their weight in this regard. It's a society which seems to be entertaining this view for way too long, the idea that hypocrisy is not only normal, but something worthy of being encouraged, and ultimately, institutionalized.

[Warpy]

1. Oh, shoot, we all think that pejoratives applied to the opposition

is simply mere description of their basic character flaws, proclivities, and lack of intelligence while we become irate when anybody suggests that one of ours shares those flaws by using the same pejorative.

This is a mild form of hypocrisy, though, and a perfectly normal one.

The hypocrisy that needs to be exposed ruthlessly and used as a bludgeon is the type that is exemplified by "Do as I say, not as I do." You know, the politicians on the take, the "celibate" or "faithful spouse" clergy who are screwing anyone and anything in sight, the morality police of all types who are found to have intimate knowledge of the sins they denounce in others, and so on.

So yes, we all play games with ourselves that add up to mild hypocrisy. However, we're not all the whited sepulchres who preach piety on the outside and are sinks of depravity behind closed doors.

That's why it's so much more fun to out crooked Republics than it is to out crooked Democrats. Oh, both need to be punished for misdeeds, but it's just so much more fun to do it to a self identified paragon of morality and rectitude.

[ElboRuum]

4. "Do as I say, not as I do."

So you'd lump parents who understand the difference between, say "adult activities" and "child activities" with the politicians on the take, the morality police, the adulterer, etc.?

I'd be careful to use any hypocrisy as a bludgeon against anyone, and it has a lot to do with the "fun factor" you mentioned. Sure, I wince if a Dem gets caught with their pants down (either figuratively or literally), and I get a little charge of Schadenfreude when a Rep does, and yes that is normal. But I would argue that part of the reason that things have been so hard for the Dems over the past, what is it now, 40 years, is that if you want to present yourself as the more reasoned and ultimately moral choice than the opposition, then you must hold yourself to a higher standard.

If you don't, to a person whose defense to his own malfeasance is to say, "well, you do it too!", and to a country which is willing to buy that kind of schoolyard antilogic, pointing out the foibles of others all of a sudden shines the spotlight on you.

Hypocrisy can only be overcome through exposition, and the person who exhibits it must decide for themselves whether or not to accept the reality of it. While I see your... glee? is glee the proper word?... and where it comes from, certainly I've taken a chuckle or two from it as well, changing someone's mind means making it safe to admit they were wrong and allowing them to correct without too hard a time for the wear.

[Warpy]

5. Parents who smoke are generally going to produce children

who smoke, whether or not they tell those kids it's bad for them. The hypocrisy just diminishes the parent in the kid's eyes.

However, that's completely different from withholding your evening coctail from a curious kid and telling him "you're just not old enough yet." That is the truth. Alcohol isn't good for growing brains, and as a kid whose parent gave in and let her have a sip of straight bourbon at the age of two, I can tell you kids aren't going to like it anyway. That's one of my earliest memories and it's a painful one. Ugh!

There is a big difference between the mild hypocrisy involved when a smoking parent tells a kid not to start smoking on moral grounds (instead of the logical ones that might work) and outing a sanctimonious piece o crap like Delay who was laundering campaign money through a children's charity.

Face it, outing the egregiously hypocritical is delicious, while there is little pleasure gained in losing video game privileges in pointing out a smoking parent's hypocrisy in opposing smoking on moral grounds.

[ElboRuum]

7. Whatever...

As a smoker, it is true, I had parents who smoked. Now spare me the sanctimonious tirade I'm sure you must be thinking of floating in my direction. I merely mention this to make the point that never, once, during the time I was growing up, ever looked upon their admonitions to me about not smoking as "hypocrisy"? Why? I guess it has something to do with not being irretrievably stupid.

But then again, maybe it was a different time. After all, in that time, it wasn't "Do as I say, not as I do." It was "Do as I say. Period." Back then, it was made clear that adults were the boss... kids asked, they didn't demand. If you threw a tantrum in a store because you didn't get what you wanted, you got a nice whack on the backside for your trouble.

Nowadays, it seems that the kids make clear to the adults who is boss, and the adults try to justify their own inability to control or teach their kids with the latest idiotic psychobabble. Hell, from what most child psychologists spew on a regular basis, it is clear to me that their contention is that all children should be taken away from their parents at a very young age, not the least of which because all of this stuff we used to call effective parenting is only restricting their life experience and damaging them.

Well, restriction is about 92.5% of what parenting is all about, setting boundaries, promoting safety, training them for life outside the nest where very few have your best interests at heart, meting out little slivers of nearby adulthood only when you are convinced that they have the sense to handle the responsibility associated with them.

Adults have the right to make these decisions concerning their life. Kids do not. When kids become adults, then, and ONLY then, do they become the masters of their own destiny. Until that point, they are wards of their family and entreated to follow their demands. If you think that's hypocrisy, why don't you let your 10 year old take the car out?

We are sufficiently off the point now, such that getting back may require hiring a guide.

[cgrindley]

2. No, words don't mean things

the meaning of words rests entirely in their negotiated contextualized usage. The meaning of hypocritical is whatever person saying it means in the context of their entire sentence as modified by each individual listener's experience with the word in a variety of other contexts. The etymology, like a dictionary definition, is relatively unimportant in the equation.

To 99% of the population, hypocritical doesn't mean less critical, it means two-faced.

I would agree with you on your other points though.

[ElboRuum]

3. Thanks for the agreement.

I need to expound ever so slightly further on your reply though. Well, "need" is kind of strong given the nature of the exposition, so let's say "want".

"To 99% of the population, hypocritical doesn't mean less critical, it means two-faced."

Then, 99% of the population is wrong. The meaning of words does not rest in a "negotiated contextualized usage". 99% of the population may not "believe" this, per se, it's just what they've become accustomed to. It comes from years of perverting language to suit political end. It comes from years of absorbing political thought and advertisement and agenda-reconstituted meanings and spin. But it doesn't change the fact that words do have meanings and that any construction of language which accurately suits its idea can be taken precisely at face value. Which is the point of obfuscation of meaning, or as you called it, the "negotiated contexualized usage," that being to hide the original meaning to make it, presumably, more palatable than it is.

If the 99% of the population requires a more accurate word to represent two-faced, then may I suggest that they use "two-faced"?

I mean, think about the words that you used: "negotiated contextualized usage". Now, I'd ask why you chose those words, precisely.

If your conjecture is correct:

1) Negotiated: mutually agreed upon, presuming a compromise involved parties
2) Contextualized: having a specific meaning based upon the environment and conditions which were present at the utterance/writing
3) Usage: manner in which something is exposed (for the purposes of our language discussion here).

So what you're saying is that words gain their meaning from their common contextual usage. But that means that in the case of a misunderstood context (or absent context depending on the lack of forthrightness of the speaker) or common use which bears no resemblance to any actual meaning, words can mean generally anything. Which, interestingly, is the same thing as saying they mean nothing.

Well if discussions are composed of words, if our political discourse is, being a discussion, loaded with them, then it serves to reason that those discussions mean nothing, either. Anything times zero is zero, so no matter how much of this nothing you provide, no matter how much breath you waste providing this nothing, no matter how much zeal or anger or comfort is your intent to express or evoke providing this nothing, it is still nothing.

And all of this stems from the realization that if what you say is true, that since meaning is up for negotiation and based upon a provincial acceptance rather than an overarching definitive one, is that any group of words, properly perverted, sanitized, and stripped of any incipient meaning removes from our lexicon the idea of a common frame of reference.

Without a common frame of reference, everything means nothing.

Everything means nothing. Most of us, except perhaps those enamored of the more existentialist styles of philosophical thought, would find that an unacceptable statement because, very simply, if this site is full of activism, it means we care. And if everything means nothing, that no matter what part of everything you care about, it must be, by deduction, caring about nothing. That does call into question the purpose of this website and any other one for that matter which promotes the expression of opinion about issues that matter. I don't find it likely that many actually believe that this assessment of language, or discussion, or of issues themselves, especially not here.

From my relatively brief experience with DU, people genuinely care about things, their pet issues and general point of view, with a passion and a zeal that I find sorely missing in the general population, one which must be somehow instilled once again for it to be ubiquitous in our culture.

If their discussions have meaning (and I believe firmly that they do), then the words that comprise them have meaning. Specific meaning. Not some cobbled together vernacular which has only relevance and meaning to a small chunk of a population, but a general purpose language with weight all of its own, with only the briefest passing need for a context or collective agreement.

If 99% of the population believes, as you've said, that words have no meaning, it isn't because words have no meaning, but because they've either accepted the fact that the words don't match the meaning, or are particularly benefitted by the fact that idea that words don't need to match the meaning has gained such an enormous following and popular support.

Imagine how easy it would be to lie when the burden of proof is on the accuser not only to prove that the lie was told, but that the meaning of the words themselves, in such a malleable environment, didn't mean something else entirely? Imagine the things you could make people believe, as though it were the god's honest immutable truth, by simply bending the meaning of words to that end.

Oh, wait. 99% of us don't have to imagine, they're intimately half-aware of it every time they turn on the news or read the paper.

We'd better start acclimating to the idea that the fact that words have meaning, and corollarily using that idea to start taking back the language if we want this country turned around. Otherwise, all of this... all of this discussion... here on DU and elsewhere, will mean nothing because we have chosen it to.

[cgrindley]

6. This will never be resolved

There are descriptive grammarians and prescriptive grammarians. I'm one of the former. You're one of the latter. There's nothing wrong with either point of view, but it's not a matter that will ever be properly resolved.

You make a compelling case, but I'd bring up Anglosaxon. Without the ability of language to change and adapt over time according to seemingly random or nonsense usage, we'd all be limited to yelling hwaet! at each other. And, I guess, as much as I hate the guy, I'd probably have to cite Saussure's work on semiotics. Everything basically does mean nothing. It's disappointing to realize how random language is, but it's true.

Here's another example, the N-word. We can debate that thing for as long as we want, but when I walk down 125th street in Harlem, I hear the N-word being used casually by a dozen or so people in a one block area. It saddens the hell out of me, but to the people using the word (mostly young, school age kids), the N-word no longer means what we think it means.

I could give you any number of examples from Middle English: quaint, silly, wood, starved, and so on. Words can't be eternally restrained to a single signifier. They'll do whatever people want them to do.

I really like your writing style and I hope that we can really get into on something that we can actually resolve through debate. Your posts are exactly what I like to read at DU. Good quality debate, excellent writing, no bullshit.