This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
William Shakespeare - Hamlet
The other day we received a hand-written letter from the local chapter of Jehovah’s Witnesses inviting us to join them. Presumably this was their lockdown alternative to knocking on doors, trying to persuade the unpersuadable. However it did serve as a reminder of how often we are invited into political movements as passive disciples.
Language games are primarily where the invitations lurk. Like that Witness letter. I don’t know if it was always like this, but I suspect not because language today feels much more constrained than was the case only a few decades ago. As certain language games become widely understood as appropriate, virtuous or merely safe, we are invited into a global language game, an invitation which is increasingly difficult to decline.
Don’t talk about immigration, talk favourably about diversity or white privilege. Don’t talk about climate, talk about the human responsibility for climate change. Don’t talk about the environment without mentioning carbon pollution, species extinction and saving the planet. Don’t talk about men and women, talk about the patriarchy. Don’t fill up with petrol or diesel, fill up with dirty stinking fossil fuel while saying if only I could afford an electric car. And so on and so on forever.
Our language is being used to mould us into passive disciples of a global political movement where even polite refusal to play the game has consequences. Embedded in our day-to-day language are games which many people may not fully understand, but they understand where the minefields are. Even the factual language we use to decline the invitation is deemed inappropriate under the rules of the game.
Active or passive disciples of climate change, coronavirus lockdown, mass vaccination, race guilt, history revision, gender cults, recycling, sustainable power, electric cars, immigration and the EU. That’s the choice – active or passive. The list is long and growing and there is an implacable intention to make life difficult for those who have not yet joined.
It is not at all like that harmless letter from the Witnesses. We can't easily bin this one.
6 comments:
The Jehova's Witnesses used to call on a regular basis. I was always polite but brusque with a 'No thank you'. They stopped calling after I said that I accepted the Theory of Evolution, and when the lead man started to say that there were reasons why the Theory of Evolution was wrong I called him a fool and shut the door. They never called again.
So my suggestion is that whenever people start playing language games with you call them fools and immediately disengage. The longer they speak the more 'validated' they feel so deny them that opportunity. Don't give them an opportunity to distort the debate in their favour. Walk away, walk out, defund them, vote for somebody else.
The language game of the Jehovah's Witnesses is relatively innocuous because it is so obviously far from everyday concerns. The others you mention are insidious because they are close to normal language.
The inappropriateness of our language is where the damage is done. Mention immigration or question global warming to many middle class people, and they just politely glaze over. It's as if you have farted or have a stammer; it's bad form to acknowledge it.
Diversity, is it not meant to reflect society ? TV has now become like an African state, where there are white people (85% of the population I believe) it seems innevitably to be white women with black husbands.
My Chinese wife wonders what she has to do to see the hundreds of thousands of her race represented as part of our society ? Riot, smash some shops up and attack the police ?
The JHs have a scoring ticket for each call...
1) Get someone to a door
2) Start to talk
3) get a response
4) get a discussion
5) Be invited in
6) asked if they want tea
7) Agree to rampant sex on the carpet
8) Sell the video to Netflix
9) Be invited by Megan and Ginge to their palace in LA
10) Start a whole new religion based on luxury, money, and a couple of 'Omigods' chucked in for good measure...
I cured the cold calling by the local reps of that American-tax-fiddle moneycentric cult many years ago. I kept them in a thoroughly reasonable discussion on the doorstep in the rain.
DJ - sometimes I don't mind engaging with them but they aren't very good at science or even at putting across their own views. Well out of their depth in my limited experience.
Sam - yes it is like that, people do glaze over as if you have farted. It seems to worry people if it is suggested that things aren't as the BBC says they are.
MrMC - I agree, TV is becoming weird in its efforts to be seen as diverse. I suppose it's the squeaky wheel getting the oil.
Scrobs - is that anything like the ten point plan Boris is so keen on?
Jannie - we don't get the American tax-fiddle moneycult round here. Maybe we don't look prosperous enough.
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