Posted on 12/26/2016 2:57:34 PM PST by rey
Has any body read Abus of Language Abuse of Power by Josef Pieper or any other books by Pieper? Would you comment on them please? Good? Recommended?
Thanks.
No, but Eric Blair (George Orwell) had plenty to say on the matter.
I will check out Pieper.
Piper brilliant and sometimes difficult to read. Book you mention about abuse should be a keeper.
Piper brilliant and sometimes difficult to read. Book you mention about abuse should be a keeper.
Piper brilliant and sometimes difficult to read. Book you mention about abuse should be a keeper.
Not familiar with Pieper, but may I recommend this: Idols for Destruction, Herbert Schlossberg. An absolutely incredible and still relevant book written over 20 years ago. Reviews are all five star. You will not be disappointed. https://www.amazon.com/Idols-Destruction-Christian-Confrontation-American/dp/0840758324/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1482793732&sr=1-2&keywords=idols+for+destruction+schlossberg
One of the clearest examples of politicied language has been given by the sociologist Peter Berger, who said:
"My mother was from Italy and my father was Austrian. As a child I spent a lot of time in Italy. This was in the 1930s, when Italy was of course under Mussolini. Sometime during that period, I forget which year it was, Mussolini made a speech in which he called for a reform of the Italian language.An insight on PC language. Every time you open your mouth, it makes you bow, or face the consequences.In modern Italian - - as in most Western languages, with the interesting exception of English -- there are two forms of address, depending on whether you are talking to an intimate or to a stranger. For example, "tu" and "usted" are used in Spanish. In modern Italian "tu" is the intimate form of address, "lei" is the formal address. "Le"> happens to be the third person [feminine singular].
I do not know the history of this, but it has been a pattern of modern Italian for, I would imagine, some two hundred years. No one paid any attention to this. Even as a child, I knew what one said in Italian. It meant nothing.
"But Mussolini made a speech in which he said that the use of "lei" is a sign of effeminacy, a degenerate way of speaking Italian. Since the purpose of the Fascist Revolution was to restore Roman virility to the Italian people, the good Fascist did not say "lei"; the good Fascist said "voi" -- from the Latin "vos" -- which is the second person plural. From that point on, everyone who used "lei" or "voi" was conscious of being engaged in a political act.
"Now, in terms of the empirical facts of the Italian language, what Mussolini said was nonsense. But the effect of that speech meant an awful lot, and it was intended to mean an awful lot. Because from that moment on, every time you said "lei" in Italy you were making an anti-Fascist gesture, consciously or unconsciously -- and people made you conscious of it if you weren't --- and every time you said "voi" you were making the linguistic equivalent of the Fascist salute.
"The "funny feeling" which we associate with generic "man" and with other instances of inclusive language is the same twinge of uneasiness that second- person "lei" would have prompted in Fascist Italy. The feeling is not a natural response but a conditioned response to the stimulus. We feel it because we have been coached to feel it. We feel it because, like rats repeatedly given a jolt of electric current when they move in a particular way, we have become aware of potential unpleasantness accompanying certain behavior. That is how a taboo works.
The Italian who used stigmatized risked Fascist anger; the English speaker who uses stigmatized "man" risks feminist wrath, but the phenomenon is identical. The converse is also applicable. As Berger says, the accommodationist Italian who said voi was giving the equivalent of a fascist salute. The accommodationist in our time who uses "inclusive language" is making a little genuflection, a curtsy, in the direction of feminism."
OK, OK, OK.
I refuse to stop using “man”. A spokesman can be a male or a female; I will not say “spokesperson”. It’s stupid.
Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Do not know how that happened.
I was so disappointed. I thought, “Wow, this post is more popular than I thought it would be.” I’m originally from the Chicago area, so I know what it means to vote more than once.
Thanks.
Josef Pieper is a tough slog and I’m not sure if it’s worth the effort unless you plan to be a scholar. Other, easier Catholic Thomists (e.g., Peter Kreeft and Mortimer Adler) are much easier and the payout much greater, IMHO.
I read that sort of stuff. I like economic books. I have read all of von Mises, and Hayek, even some of Sowell’s technical stuff. I have read a ton of literary criticism. I love philosophy books. I have Pieper’s book on Leisure. As long as he isn’t like Hegel (see link below), and has something to say, I would not mind.
http://existentialcomics.com/comic/62
Yeah. I am from the border. We do it automatically.
Than what about Chesterton? You can buy the collected work of Chesterton for Kindle for $1.99.
I have Chesterton. I love Chesterton. I like Father Brown as well. Chesterton was insightful but I do not think of him as philosophical. He is more accessible than Pieper but I do not think he is as insightful as Pieper.
An example of abuse of language to abuse power:SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.For “some writers” (“liberals," in modern parlance) to equate the evil (albeit necessary) which is government with the “blessing” which is society is an abuse intended to promote tyranny.Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil . . . - Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)
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