Posted on 03/21/2002 7:57:11 AM PST by Constitutionalist Conservative
Rod Dreher put out a call for readers to define the word "oprahfication" (created in honor of Oprah Winfrey). Below is his summary of some of the responses he received.
Wow, you guys are observant. I have way more great definitions than I can possibly post. Two of my favorite ones came from James McNeely, who snarkily questioned the notion of seeking a definition for "to oprahfy," writing, "It doesn't matter what I think 'oprahfied' means; what does your heart tell you it means?" But then he offered this: "Oprahfy: To confront all human conditions and problems by redefining them as a series of emotionally scarring events. ... A form of denial." Daniel Connaughton writes, "To oprahfy is to reduce or transform something into somethign that triggers and emotionally rewarding reaction." Matt Wood calls oprahfication "the act of applying a treacly veneer to a particular subject while simultaneously draining it of all force, power, significance and substance, so as to render it palatable to the broadest possible audience. And Kate Sherrod observes that "to oprahfy is to render the tragic ludicrous or the ludicrous tragic through various devices of sensationalizing; in either direction, it is to render sensible, tasteful, educated people completely incapable of caring about the matter (or material) to which one has tried to draw attention.
Sanjay Verbeek describes oprahfication as "tenderizing issues into bland pap more easily digested by small children and liberals," and gives the following perceptive example: "Translating the word 'Islam' as peace is an oprahfication of the truth; Islam actually means 'submission.' Prof. Terry Mattingly, who knows more about the theology of Oprah-ism than just about anybody, defines oprahfication as "to address a serious issue in daily life in a manner that assumes all truth is based on human experiences (feelings and emotions) and/or current pop-moral and pop-psychological theories, as opposed to the claims of religious doctrine, transcendent faith or cultural traditions." Edwin Maier notes that oprahfying "often focuses on finding the reasons for a person's actions with little regard for the seriousness of those actions," while Carmen Parlato discerns that oprahfication entails "ability to claim membership in or solidarity with a recognized victim group, a near complete inability to reason through actual undisputed facts, and a near perfect ability to ignore inconvenient facts."
And finally, Karen Bashore notes that the phenomenon of oprahfication involves "the idea that it is more important to be 'concerned' about an issue than to be right about it," which pretty much sums up contemporary liberalism, if you ask me. Gary Dienes calls oprahfication "enlightenment through talking about something until one is convinced one is not to blame for it." Along those lines, a reader whose name I forgot to write down called oprahfication "the tendency to accept an emotional explanation when a logical one hurts our feelings," or "It's not my fault, and here's an expert to tell you why." Toby Bianchi takes a broad sociological view, calling oprahfication "the phenomenon of offering a liberal outlook on Tuesday, and having it repeated as gospel at 10,000 soccer matches by Thursday." Thanks to all readers who participated. I hope language maven Bill Safire is reading!
I am so sick of the Oprah books, I stopped reading them a long time ago. I decided that I have enough problems of my own without reading about the inability of others to deal with their own problems.
I have seen Canadian T/V programs dealing with the unemployed from time to time. Sadly,some of them(I have been there) worked up to a tremendous enthusiam about their future. They floated on air, for a while.
Oprah may, of course, serve some good purpose, in some way. Trouble I have with it, is that there is the reality of life afterward. Yeah, that may be it, ie: bottled euphoria for consumption.
No more calls, please, we have a winner!
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