I love to complain and I find it quite relieving, I'll be honest.Though this may be no surprise to the ones who know me – I want to put my cards on the table. But I'm not the only one.The writers I enjoy the most, or that had a major influence over my own work, are the ones that either deliberately strip the language naked, - reducing it to its own essence, or displays controversial language and situations at times.So when it comes to that, Goerge Carlin has naturally been source of great comfort, as well as motivation.Fine connoisseur of the English language, in one my all time favourite stand up comedy pieces he engages in a ten minute long, highly sophisticated, sharply comic monologue over how much words have changed over the years. And since language is at the very base of our society as well as our own existence (I stretch it here till the conceptual point that language does not just shape the world we live in – that's for another article*- but mostly on the assumption that anything can be expressed or defined due to the creation of language; in other words language creates reality and therefore nothing really exists until the moment we come out with a word for that, giving to it life and approval at the same time), changing those words does actually change our world.Our society is only shaped by the way we're able to describe it.I don't like words that hide the truth.I don't words that conceal reality.I don't like euphemisms, or euphemistic language.And American English is loaded with euphemisms.Cause Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality.Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent the kind of a soft language to protest themselves from it, and it gets worse with every generation.For some reason, it just keeps getting worse.
So far so good, nothing new, nothing but the truth, and anyone familiar with George Orwell or any other supporter of the idea that language control is nothing but a basic step in mind control will agree on that.The ability lays in pointing out where and most this happen, and Carlin shows off easily knowledge and satire in a comically reliving linguistic lecture. A significantly poignant critique of a rapidly increasing censorship's society. A shame society.Doug Stanhope, one shining example among many others, does that too, though with a more visceral, offensive style. The superiority in this of Carlin is obviously in managing to float just right in between two fine lines.
There's a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It's when a fighting person's nervous system has been stressed to it's absolute peak and maximum. Can't take anymore input. The nervous system has either (click) snapped or is about to snap. In the first world war, that condition was called shell shock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables,shell shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was seventy years ago. Then a whole generation went by and the second world war came along and very same combat condition was called battle fatigue. Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn't seem to hurt as much. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. Shell shock! Battle fatigue. Then we had the war in Korea, 1950. Madison avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called operational exhaustion. Hey, were up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase.It's totally sterile now.Operational exhaustion. Sounds like something that might happen to your car. Then of course, came the war in Viet Nam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years, and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it's no surprise that the very same condition was called post-traumatic stress disorder. Still eight syllables, but we've added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-traumatic stress disorder. I'll bet you if we'd of still been calling it shell shock, some of those Viet Nam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I'll betcha. I'll betcha.But. But, it didn't happen, and one of the reasons, one of the reasons is because we were using that soft language.That language that takes the life out of life.And it is a function of time. It does keep getting worse.
This ongoing threatening sterilization of the language is more of a serious issue that it may seem, - try to picture the absurd fear that some words can generate within our mind that we must avoid them otherwise an unpleasant shame-like feeling makes us immediately look down and come out with an over-complicated justification for that word. Or even worse, a pathetic attempt at replacing the unpronounceable, socially offensive word with a ridiculous empty, lifeless surrogate. Ostracization - is the risk.It's a process, that's been going on and on as long as the language invention itself, if you like – with variants and at different paces throughout history.
Sometime during my life. Sometime during my life, toilet paper became bathroom tissue. I wasn't notified of this. No one asked me if I agreed with it. It just happened. Toilet paper became bathroom tissue. Sneakers became running shoes. False teeth became dental appliances. Medicine became medication. Information became directory assistance. The dump became the landfill. Car crashes became automobile accidents. Partly cloudy became partly sunny. Motels became motor lodges. House trailers became mobile homes. Used cars became previously owned transportation. Room service became guest-room dining. And constipation became occasional irregularity!When I was a little kid, if I got sick they wanted me to go to the hospital and see a doctor. Now they want me to go to a health maintenance organization, or a wellness center to consult a healthcare delivery professional. Poor people used to live in slums. Now the economically disadvantaged occupy substandard housing in the inner cities. And they're broke! They're broke! They don't have a negative cash-flow position. They're fucking broke! Cause a lot of them were fired. You know, - fired. Management wanted to curtail redundancies in the human resources area, so many people are no longer viable members of the workforce.Showing how ridiculous it can get proposing extremely ridiculous example is the ultimate consequence while also has the as cathartic as vital function of fighting the whole process.A robotic language spoken by robotic person who are no longer entitled to use words too feelings evocative. Instead, words that covers up our truest nature.Smug, greedy, well-fed white people have invented a language to conceal their sins. It's as simple as that. The CIA doesn't kill anybody anymore, they neutralize people, or they depopulate the area. The government doesn't lie, it engages in disinformation. The pentagon actually measures nuclear radiation in something they call sunshine units. Israeli murderers are called commandos. Arab commandos are called terrorists. Contra killers are called freedom fighters. Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part of it to us, do they? Never mention that part of it.And some of this stuff is just silly, we all know that, like on the airlines, they say they want to pre- board. Well, what the hell is pre-board, what does that mean? To get on before you get on? They say they're going to pre-board those passengers in need of special assistance. Cripples!Simple honest direct language.There is no shame attached to the word cripple that I can find in any dictionary. No shame attached to it, in fact it's a word used in bible translations. Jesus healed the cripples. Doesn't take seven words to describe that condition. But we don't have any cripples in this country anymore. We have The physically challenged.Is that a grotesque enough evasion for you?How about differently abled. I've heard them called that. Differently abled! You can't even call these people handicapped anymore. They'll say, "Were not handicapped. Were handicapable!"These poor people have been bullshitted by the system into believing that if you change the name of the condition, somehow you'll change the condition. Well, hey cousin, it doesn't happen. Doesn't happen.We have no more deaf people in this country, hearing impaired. No ones blind anymore, partially sighted or visually impaired. We have no more stupid people. Everyone has a learning disorder, or he's minimally exceptional. How would you like to be told that about your child? "He's minimally exceptional." "Oh, thank god for that." Psychologists actually have started calling ugly people, those with severe appearance deficits. It's getting so bad, that any day now I expect to hear a rape victim referred to as an unwilling sperm recipient!And we have no more old people in this country. No more old people. We shipped them all away, and we brought in these senior citizens. Isn't that a typically American twentieth century phrase? Bloodless, lifeless, no pulse in one of them. A senior citizen. But I've accepted that one, I've come to terms with it. I know it's to stay. We'll never get rid of it. That's what they're going to be called, so I'll relax on that, but the one I do resist. The one I keep resisting is when they look at an old guy and they'll say, "Look at him Dan! He's ninety years young." Imagine the fear of aging that reveals. To not even be able to use the word "old" to describe somebody. To have to use an antonym. And fear of aging is natural. It's universal. Isn't it? We all have that. No one wants to get old. No one wants to die, but we do! So we bullshit ourselves. I started bullshitting myself when I got to my forties. As soon as I got into my forties I'd look in the mirror and I'd say, "well, I...I guess I'm getting...older." Older sounds a little better than old doesn't it? Sounds like it might even last a little longer. Bullshit, I'm getting old! And it's okay, because thanks to our fear of death in this country, I won't have to die - I'll pass away. Or I'll expire like a magazine subscription. If it happens in the hospital, they'll call it a terminal episode. The insurance company will refer to it as negative patient-care outcome. And if it's the result of malpractice, they'll say it was a therapeutic misadventure.I'm telling you, some of this language makes me want to vomit.Well, maybe not vomit.Makes me want to engage in an involuntary personal protein spill.At the core there is the illogical belief that if we ban some words – some bad words, we can prevent bad thing from happening.But there is absolutely nothing wrong with words themselves, as Carlin will explain in other shows, they are only words. They are not bad, or good, per se. Words are meant to be used.So it's the user, that makes the whole difference, as actions.“It's the context, the intention – that counts” Carlin would say.Banning words, does nothing but shift the focus on the language, rather than the speaker.It seems the wrong way to look at a no-problem over a real issue to me.It seems like maybe instead of creating new fancy, sterile, words we should appreciate and learn how to use the ones we already have.GEORGE CARLIN - EUPHEMISMShttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc&t=235sGEORGE CARLIN – THEY ARE ONLY WORDShttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUvdXxhLPa8
* All images, videos and copyrights belong to their respective owners.I do not own the rights to them and they've here been used for the solely purpose of philosophical debate.

EXPHILO

existentialist philosophy

You can't say that