Plague Journal, Your Move
Last night I participated in a wide ranging discussion about language. How language, words and a manner of speaking, those informal “rules” that channel our conversations in predictable ways — make up our minds. When I look at the assertion which I just wrote I feel an inner disquiet, dismay. It appears that language, all of those labels, and especially the verbs surrounded with unspoken cultural assumptions, is more hard edged than mere ephemera that we’d off-handedly like to think.
For example the meaning of the word “freedom,” surrounded and freighted with emotive connotation is used differently in conversations at this Starbucks in Geneva, Illinois, than would be the case in a locally owned diner in a small town in Iowa, or in South Carolina, or in southern Missouri. If you listen carefully you can hear the differences. In Iowa, South Carolina, or Missouri the conversation might revolve around “my rights,” the notion that in the public sphere no 
limits, no rules are legitimate especially when it comes to guns, faith, vaccine obligation, speech, voting rights, etc. The atmospherics of “freedom” and its cognates are disparate depending on the geographical location in the country, where a hypothetical conversation might take place.
That was the direction our discussion of semiotics took last night. At a level of instinct, deeper than my reason, my rational-map-making of our situation here in the States, — I and everyone else, without exception are subjects to the culture, to our word-forged-minds that can be traced back to the beginnings of our trafficking in slave labor as a nation. The horrific cataclysm of war between the Federal government and the Southern states notwithstanding — we still marked through language by those events.
It isn’t over. The divide is palpable. Each is on one side or the other.
Freedom of choice, that illusion of “deciding” based upon good and sufficient reasons, — is a necessary fiction.
What now? It’s your move, or perhaps it is mine. Sometimes I lose track in this game of words that we are playing. Whose move is it?
I suggest a song. As always the lyricist, the composer of melody, of harmony, unites us in a vision of what might be. A vision of what is possible, elevates us from the determinism, from the bat-shit-crazy of conflict, pointing to the foundation of caring that is possible for all. Can we aspire to care more, to care better, more deeply? Words can be a pivot point for self-respect, and for compassion toward others. Words offered and received to “calm the storm inside.”
Alive And Kicking
By Simple Minds
You turn me on, you lift me up
And like the sweetest cup I’d share with you
You lift me up, don’t you ever stop, I’m here with you
Now it’s all or nothing
‘Cause you say you’ll follow through
You follow me, and I, I, I follow you
What you gonna do when things go wrong?
What you gonna do when it all cracks up?
What you gonna do when the Love burns down?
What you gonna do when the flames go up?
Who is gonna come and turn the tide?
What’s it gonna take to make a dream survive?
Who’s got the touch to calm the storm inside?
Who’s gonna save you?
Alive and Kicking
Stay until your love is, Alive and Kicking
Stay until your love is, until your love is, Alive
Oh you lift me up to the crucial top, so I can see
Oh you lead me on, till the feelings come
And the lights that shine on
But if that don’t mean nothing
Like if someday it should fall through
You’ll take me home where the magic’s from
And I’ll be with you
What you gonna do when things go wrong?
What you gonna do when it all cracks up?
What you gonna do when the Love burns down?
What you gonna do when the flames go up?
Who is gonna come and turn the tide?
What’s it gonna take to make a dream survive?
Who’s got the touch to calm the storm inside?
Don’t say goodbye
Don’t say goodbye
In the final seconds who’s gonna save you?
Oh, Alive and Kicking
Stay until your love is, love is, Alive and Kicking
Oh, Alive and Kicking
Stay until your love is, love is, Alive and Kicking
Lyrics by James Kerr, Charles Burchill, Michael Joseph Mac Neil
2 thoughts on “Plague Journal, Your Move”
In the following quote from your blog today, I have a slightly different perspective; “no rules are legitimate especially when it comes to guns, faith, vaccine obligation, speech, voting rights, etc.” Rules are fully accepted when they fit the narrative of the person who is making them, otherwise rules made by others do not apply. Freedom of Speech, for example, is only allowed if it supports the basic beliefs of those with whom you agree, any other form of speech must be banished. Guns should have no rules at all, unless those guns are in the hands of an adversary. The Faith of the congregant is something that others need to adhere to and fully accept without question. Voting rights are only for those who plan on voting the correct way, otherwise disenfranchisement is the order of the day.
Of course, the vast majority of these decrees are monumentally hypocritical, but that is no matter, for as long as they fit within the parameters of the tribal imperative, rule=good. Otherwise it’s chaos as usual.
You are correct. A society without rules, would be a state of chaos, without support for human life. Your observation is to the point. The subcultures who are opposed to the rules which we have aspired to live under, rules rising from an Enlightenment heritage that reason matters, that human being thrive when accorded “inalienable rights” without exception…
They desire to manage a society under the aegis of rules crafted to their liking.