Today I spoke with a friend who was present for President Obama's historic innauguration. His story about the enormity of his experience was remarkable to hear. And my friend - an older white man - spoke also about the need to be present when history is made, that that is what living is all about.
While I appreciate his sentiment about living life within the pulse of history - I think for many people the concept of being "present when history is made" sounds exclusive - as if it is the stuff of the lives of those who are privileged enough, or just plain lucky enough, to manage to be in the right place at the right time. Or to be a Forest Gump & accidentally stumble into historical moments. However - history is being made every minute of the day in every little corner of the world. It is true that our cultural ideology privileges historical events that can be photographed, filmed, dated precisely, documented and otherwise readily & neatly cataloged as the REAL stuff of history. The REAL important stuff of record.
And that's the key word - Record. But recorded history has - & always has had - blind spots. For example, for generations history textbooks have been written about the history of the world as if women didn't exist. Often as if NO minorites existed. History books have privileged the stuff of men, usually white - wars, politics, inventions, explorations etc. Tangible, recordable stuff. For generations history failed to look between the cracks of such bias at other important societal forces as work.
This has changed in recent years - finally. Textbooks are beginning to insert into the old narratives "new" information about the lives, experiences & contributions of women & minorities. Books are changing, curriculums are changing - but - in light of this man's comment to me today about life being lived by participating in historical events I thought - mmmmm - I wonder if his words, albeit unitentionally, still speak to a certain bias of thought. In other words, privileging the recordable. The tangible.
For many Americans, such as myself, the innauguration was something to be experienced electronically. We were not present. Our heads, our bodies did not help to create the mass of humanity now recorded by photographs and film, documenting the day for posterity. But we were still a part of the story. CNN.com reported that its circuits were overloaded during the innauguration. Well - guess what!? I helped to overload them! My contribution to the day!! I will not be able to tell my grandchildren about the day I stood in the cold to be present to usher in President Obama, but I can claim to have overtaxed CNN.com's resources - my historical story between the cracks of bias. Trying to watch an innauguration vie the internet instead of television - a first for many?
And what about people who took off from work (no small sacrifice today) to stay at home to watch the event on television? They were living their part of history as best they could in support of their new president. And . . . what about those who literally could not afford to take time off from work to watch or attend the innauguration lest more bills be left unpaid. Their un-able-to-watch situation is also part of the Obama innauguration story - Obama's historical moment in the midst of economic meltdown. For the un-able-to-watch folk this was a moment to be shared with fellow Obama supporters in spirit - "only?"
I do appreciate my friend's sentiment about the excitement of actually being THERE, in the moment. I once experienced a moment of privileged history myself - in the moment, in the place, in the presence of Nelson Mandela. And yes, it was a wonderful, unforgettable thing. But living is also about participating in any way you can. Making the effort to do so in the best way that you can is equally the living of life - in the cracks of properly recorded history - often the truest lived story behind the official story.
Squid - I love this post and I "keyed" immediately to the words in the first paragraph - "be present."
ReplyDeleteI stopped what I was doing on Jan 20th and watched the 44th President of the United States take the oath of office. All my attention was on the speakers in their turn, the crowds, the performers. I absorbed the moment and basked in the knowledge that I was a part of this moment. And so I focused all my senses on that moment, clapping and crying and cheering.
I didn't stand out in the cold in Washington, DC, didn't ride a bus or take a train, but I was "there" to watch a most historic moment in my country's history.
And I will tell my grandchildren and maybe even my great grandchildren what it was like to see and hear Barak Obama become the 44th president.
Rockync, present and accounted for!
Many thanks, Squid, lovely and perfectly fitting. In previous years, I might have been the one to witness history, front and center, but this time it was my daughters, my youngest and oldest, who were privileged to attended the inauguration ... while the old octopus stayed home. Their taking an active interest in our public life makes me especially proud and gratified.
ReplyDeleteenormity
ReplyDeleten 1: the quality of being outrageous [syn: outrageousness]
2: (informal) vastness of size or extent; "in careful usage the noun enormity is not used to express the idea of great size"
3: the quality of extreme wickedness
4: an act of extreme wickedness
Just ribbing you, of course, but someone surely will quote you as thinking Obama is wicked.
ReplyDeleteMy Dear Fussy Fogg,
ReplyDeletePlease stop dissing me because you don't understand the enormity [insert either meaning] of language usage's natural capacity for change!
Geez Louise!
Diss?
ReplyDeleteDo I diss dat? or is dat diss?
Will diss get worse or dissapate?
Do 4 and 4 equivocate 8?
Listen to the words I speak,
Must be English 'cause I don't know Greek.
Come on, I'm just ribbin' ya. Diss is sposta be funny. You'd a noticed if you could see the fright wig and red nose.
:-)
Capacity for change - that's another way of illustrating entropy, but do we have to accept that language grows more disordered with time? Why?
So don't miscalculate me, I know we live in a point in time of unparalyzed change and it's all beyond my apprehension, but I haft to get used to it irregardless or I might could go nuts.
All kidding aside, really, why do I have to believe that all change is good? Does confusion improve our language? Is there no such thing as bad English or is it all good? This is what everyone is telling me - and in either condescension or anger, but if we deconstruct, or disassemble, or dissemble or dissimulate ( all the same thing, right?) we have to say that the weaker the vocabulary, the less agility with the context, the less precision with the grammar, the better the English. Anti-intellectual dogma in it's most malignant form if you ask me -- which you didn't.
I will not equivocate growth with decay irregardlessly ( oops) of academic fashion. ( help - my language is changing and I can't stop!)
This "language must change - change is good" call and response reflex seems to have taken over English departments like some kind of gnostic certainty in the late 60's when all wisdom came from the masses and history was like irrelevant - man. Culture is like what's happening on the street - yaknow? I'm not aware that any other culture has so much disrespect for itself as ours does.
I don't like losing words and isn't it usually the really nice, specific ones replaced by some Malapropism; some vague and stale metaphor? This is the process by which mutually unintelligible dialects form.
I really hate losing "enormity" for instance. It has no exact synonym. It can only be replaced with a phrase. Like Affect which merged with effect and then was swallowed up by "making an impact on" which forced enormousness into oblivion. It didn't die for a cause or because it was no longer useful, it died because Joe the Plumber is the source of all that's good and true and because people get furious when you say that grammar isn't about rules, it's about saying what you mean.
Anyway, to me this business is a bit like equating Education with Alzheimer's because minds have to change and change is good. I don't think so.
You are a funny man, Fogg. The enormous enormity of your cleverness knows no known boundaries.
ReplyDeleteIn all do seriousness - I agree with much of what you say. I go through this every semester with my students - trying to reinforce to them that they can not write formal university papers like they talk. Professionally, I am a stickler for proper grammar. However, as a historian I also appreciate that rhetorical cultural shifts are naturally ocurring. It is all really a matter of balance.
The co-opting by colloquial uses versus formal uses of vocabulary does not alarm me as much as the fact that "don't" seems to be increasingly becoming an acceptable replacement for "doesn't." Drives me nuts!! And this is culturally reinforved en masse by pop culture. I am sick of song lyrics improperly using "don't" - playing at being "anti-intellectual" & more homey. (I'm trying to be PC & not mention that country music is a great offender in this area!).
Imagine for a moment, having me as an English student. Not one of my English - or German teachers for that matter still survives. Coincidence?
ReplyDeleteOf course that was in the days of unfissionable infinitives and undangleable participles and reading Melville in 5th grade. They would all have died of grief if they had survived me anyway.
I think 'don't' for 'doesn't' is a Southernism like many others creeping into English. Spoken, it comes out more like Doan as in "that car doan go." It gets clumsier and cruder to the point where we can't read our own literature.
Yes, there definitely a cultural shift and it's been going on for decades. We've achieved the dictatorship of the proletariat and we vote that way and we talk that way. Rich white suburban kids trip all over their tongues to emulate negative stereotypes of African Americans and everything is bitch, bitch, bitch, but they'll have to pry my language from my cold, dead fingers, if you'll pardon the disturbing metaphor.
I don't remember the last time I talked to someone who admitted that there is a big difference between "due to" and "because of." Further is taking the place of Farther and seldom is heard a protestant word. We're losing prepositions like for,of and about to the universal "on" and most people's writing seems only an exercise to see how many times "impact" can be worked into a paragraph without consciousness of the irony. We invent words like "pre-owned" or rather it's invented for us in the name of consumerism and we're obsessed with spurious neologisms like "emboldened" when encouraged was all we needed. If we're selling health care, it's no longer about health but about "wellness;" another commercial word invented because health might remind us of sickness. I've blown my top about INvite and DEEfense as the beginning of the Chinesing of English. Really did you ever notice that we defend a country it's defense, but if we're defending a goal it's D-fence?
I'm now hearing "had been" used as a stronger substitute for the past tense instead of what it really means. I could go on and on forever -- and I am, of course -- but why do I have to celebrate this? It's just ignorance, which may be inevitable, but it isn't inevitable that educated people should be dismissed or mocked or stifled by failing to follow their lead.
Of course it's a matter of balance, but as someone who loves language - reveres it actually, it feels like being a music lover in a world where Chopin is illegal and all you're allowed to enjoy is Britney. Come to think of it. . .
As for "don't" instead of doesn't" - it is BY NO MEANS just a southern thing. I have encountered it in every part of the country I have lived - especially small town NORTHERN America. And while country music is its most annoying promoter - other pop songs do it as well - I even heard it on the soundtrack of CURIOUS GEORGE the movie - a great way to educate kids!
ReplyDeleteAs for the rest that you say - I think, Fogg, that our increasing loss of proper vocab, grammar etc usage has to do with the inadequacies of English curricula in the public school systems. I am appalled at the lack of writing skills of my students. How they ever graduate from High school is a mystery. AND - even more telling - frequently some of my better students also do not have basic English writing skills. As a result the standards we hold them to sink. It is an institutional problem that we are all aware of but feel powerless to fix. yes - we can have tougher standards & demand more of students - but if a professor does so in too much excess of other professors than that professor gets a bad rap - which DOES matter because colleges & universities are increasingly relying on student evaluations of courses & professors for promotion etc. Increasingly education is seen as a consumer product & the consumer (parents) must be kept happy.
As I said - it is an institutional problem that runs deep. There was recently a reported case of a prof claiming to have been denied tenure because he graded too hard. Turned into a big scandal for the school.
In other words - I am genuinely convinced that our language skills as a society are going to be increasingly on the decline.
I could not agree more. What I meant by Southernism though is that, like redneck politics, some deep south dialect expressions have become mainstream. As a kid, we would laugh, for instance at the use of IN-vite for invitation.
ReplyDeleteYes, everything has become a consumer product, the news, science and especially English. That's a very good observation. Schools do seem terribly afraid of challenging students to read above the level of the least able. Reading builds vocabulary and a feel for language that makes it less necessary to memorize rules. Not no mo.
Not long ago I spoke with a high school teacher who was aghast that I thought Moby Dick was suitable for teenagers to read. I'm still shaking my head over that one.