grumpyWords - like knives
February 6th 2008 11:14
Ok, I’m supposed to be Grumpy. That’s what you want, isn’t it? That like Maximus, I should stride into the arena, sword in hand and proceed to take apart all the gladiators therein? Correct? And at the end I should stand, unrepentant for the carnage I have caused and ask “are you not entertained?”
Well, I admit there are things that make me think pleasant thoughts about shotguns and burger restaurants in various forms of satisfying combination.. But I am not a violent man. I have only once ever wanted to kill someone for real. In my darker moments I still regret that I didn’t, but we all have some evil within us. We all have that dark place within that we hide from the world, even while we tut-tut at the news of another bombing, another senseless bashing or yet another crime of passion, knowing perfectly well that given the right circumstances, the right provocation, there but for the grace of God we might stand: victim or killer. It makes no difference, the equation must have both.
In this culture we now glorify evil, but always at a safe distance both physically and psychologically. In the movies we see evil portrayed either like a high camp drag queen, some alien monster or as the worst kind of human garbage imaginable. Yet no-one seems to notice that the hero in the end is ultimately just as evil as the serial killer, the monster or the “very nasty corporate murderer” who eventually gets a full clip from their holy handgun.
Ah, but he had “good”, “right” or “God” on his side, and we’re all satisfied in the end that the guy in the white hat saved the day and we can all sleep soundly, knowing our hero is out there protecting us from evil.
There are some people; some very misguided souls, who believe that we numb ourselves to the evil of the world by exposure to such trash. No – we just become numb to Hollywood artifice, numb to the effect, the shock or the spine tingling horror created in that artificial universe. Very few films have the power to affect us in the way that the thought police believe they might, and when they do it is usually because they have under portrayed, merely hinted at the potential for monstrous evil which lies dormant in every one of us.
So what has this to do with blogging, or with writing in general? Return to my initial thought. Words can be used to bash like blunt weapons, they can be used to firebomb entire categories, they can be used like lances or knives to attack one carefully singled out opponent. But in all instances such overt evil is ever subject to the mediation of argument, rhetoric and plain old tit for tat. We become immune to attack, immune to the effrontery of others, immune even to the angst, pain or sheer malevolence of their motives. Thus runs the old saying “stick and stones” etc, which in some form or another we often trot out in the midst of such word wars we might have initiated or retaliated against.
“But words will never hurt me,” goes the line. No, perhaps words used like Hollywood special effects won’t hurt you – in fact the more you hear them the more immune you become to their intended effect. But words can hurt you – words used to imply, words used like a surgeons scalpel to suggest, to gently tease forth the hideous potential for self destruction we all carry, these can hurt us beyond the power to heal. Even here.
What is worse however is to realize the full truth: that without any special skill, without any true conscious understanding on our part, the evil within us can use our words with far more effect than even the most skilled writer.
That as parents, teachers or simply strangers passing on the street we might, in one unguarded moment with one unconsidered word or phrase, place a blade deep into the heart of another human being which continues to stab for the rest of their lives, a blade so adamant that it can never be removed.
Well, I admit there are things that make me think pleasant thoughts about shotguns and burger restaurants in various forms of satisfying combination.. But I am not a violent man. I have only once ever wanted to kill someone for real. In my darker moments I still regret that I didn’t, but we all have some evil within us. We all have that dark place within that we hide from the world, even while we tut-tut at the news of another bombing, another senseless bashing or yet another crime of passion, knowing perfectly well that given the right circumstances, the right provocation, there but for the grace of God we might stand: victim or killer. It makes no difference, the equation must have both.
Ah, but he had “good”, “right” or “God” on his side, and we’re all satisfied in the end that the guy in the white hat saved the day and we can all sleep soundly, knowing our hero is out there protecting us from evil.
There are some people; some very misguided souls, who believe that we numb ourselves to the evil of the world by exposure to such trash. No – we just become numb to Hollywood artifice, numb to the effect, the shock or the spine tingling horror created in that artificial universe. Very few films have the power to affect us in the way that the thought police believe they might, and when they do it is usually because they have under portrayed, merely hinted at the potential for monstrous evil which lies dormant in every one of us.
“But words will never hurt me,” goes the line. No, perhaps words used like Hollywood special effects won’t hurt you – in fact the more you hear them the more immune you become to their intended effect. But words can hurt you – words used to imply, words used like a surgeons scalpel to suggest, to gently tease forth the hideous potential for self destruction we all carry, these can hurt us beyond the power to heal. Even here.
What is worse however is to realize the full truth: that without any special skill, without any true conscious understanding on our part, the evil within us can use our words with far more effect than even the most skilled writer.
That as parents, teachers or simply strangers passing on the street we might, in one unguarded moment with one unconsidered word or phrase, place a blade deep into the heart of another human being which continues to stab for the rest of their lives, a blade so adamant that it can never be removed.
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