Feb. 28th, 2008 [Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος]

"'Obscenities' may be jarring, disturbing, or even revolting at times, but they all speak truth. Sometimes, they speak truth about the matter being described ('Cops give a damn about a negro'). Other times, as with the use of racial epithets, they speak truth about the person speaking. Words like these exist in every human language, though the specific items included often differ. Wherever they are used, though, they bring us back to a primal and visceral reality, one free of whitewashing or window dressing. As such, if they didn't exist, we'd have to invent them.

[...]

"There is another class of words that you don't normally hear about when 'obscenities' come up. Unlike the 'explicit' words declared 'obscene' by conventional wisdom, these words speak no truth. They do their best to conceal it. They are bloodless, heartless evasions that destroy the truth whilst leaving the underlying facts mostly intact (though they are occasionally outright lies). These are the euphemisms.

( [examples] )

"Each of these expressions manages to express an identifiable fact, while totally obliterating the underlying truth.

( [more examples] )

"If we were not so deeply deluded, we would easily realise that 'shit', 'piss', 'fuck' et al. do not hold a candle in the obscenity department to even the mildest of the above expressions. Each one eliminates unspeakable atrocities and great injustice and suffering from the picture. They seek to anaesthetise mind and conscience alike. They distort the realities that lead people to say 'Fuck tha police' or note that 'cops give a damn about a negro' into the bloodless truthlessness of 'the problems of police-community relations'. They turn crimes for which every one of us should feel deep outrage and shame into neat, tidy abstractions, each syllable a mass grave hiding thousands of bodies. They turn the great sadistic butchers of our time into great visionaries who seek only peace and democracy. The mental operation that turns the mass murder of innocent civilians into 'collateral damage' is not at all far removed from the one that gave us 'special treatment' and 'final solution'.

"No wonder you're not allowed to say 'bullshit'."

-- Élise Hendrick, "Fuck Euphemisms", 'Life After Gonzals' blog, 2007-11-17 [Note that I cut a lot to whittle this down to an almost reasonable size for a quote-of-the-day, skipping over some of the author's other points as a result. I suggest clicking through to read the whole thing organized as it was intended.]

There are 4 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

"'Obscenities' may be jarring, disturbing, or even revolting at times, but they all speak truth. Sometimes, they speak truth about the matter being described ('Cops give a damn about a negro'). Other times, as with the use of racial epithets, they speak truth about the person speaking. Words like these exist in every human language, though the specific items included often differ. Wherever they are used, though, they bring us back to a primal and visceral reality, one free of whitewashing or window dressing. As such, if they didn't exist, we'd have to invent them.

[...]

"There is another class of words that you don't normally hear about when 'obscenities' come up. Unlike the 'explicit' words declared 'obscene' by conventional wisdom, these words speak no truth. They do their best to conceal it. They are bloodless, heartless evasions that destroy the truth whilst leaving the underlying facts mostly intact (though they are occasionally outright lies). These are the euphemisms.

( [examples] )

"Each of these expressions manages to express an identifiable fact, while totally obliterating the underlying truth.

( [more examples] )

"If we were not so deeply deluded, we would easily realise that 'shit', 'piss', 'fuck' et al. do not hold a candle in the obscenity department to even the mildest of the above expressions. Each one eliminates unspeakable atrocities and great injustice and suffering from the picture. They seek to anaesthetise mind and conscience alike. They distort the realities that lead people to say 'Fuck tha police' or note that 'cops give a damn about a negro' into the bloodless truthlessness of 'the problems of police-community relations'. They turn crimes for which every one of us should feel deep outrage and shame into neat, tidy abstractions, each syllable a mass grave hiding thousands of bodies. They turn the great sadistic butchers of our time into great visionaries who seek only peace and democracy. The mental operation that turns the mass murder of innocent civilians into 'collateral damage' is not at all far removed from the one that gave us 'special treatment' and 'final solution'.

"No wonder you're not allowed to say 'bullshit'."

-- Élise Hendrick, "Fuck Euphemisms", 'Life After Gonzals' blog, 2007-11-17 [Note that I cut a lot to whittle this down to an almost reasonable size for a quote-of-the-day, skipping over some of the author's other points as a result. I suggest clicking through to read the whole thing organized as it was intended.]

There are no comments on this entry. (Reply.)

Frustrated and anxious[*]. Taking a write-chatty-nonsense break to settle my nerves.

Inanimate objects are not obeying my directions. This is part of the frustration. (And no, I am not giving them commands in English; I'm aware that most inanimate objects cannot grasp English commands other than "Stay!" and "Fall!". I use the generally accepted language for instructing inanimate objects: directed application of kinetic energy. They're still not listening. Or possibly the gravity in my house is off kilter and needs to be adjusted. (Is that something I have to repair myself, or is it considered a city-provided service that I should call 311 for?))

Consequently, while I am searching for two items that migrated from their last known locations without permission by stealth, other objects are diving in a less-stealthy fashion toward my toes. Makes me a bit jumpy.

Hmph. And now I'm losing track of virtual objects as well. *grrr* But at least I can send the 'find' and 'grep' golems to hunt those for me while I go back to changing the potential energy of things that might have other things under them.[**]

Also, new item for my to-do list: carve a new knob for the lid of the kettle.

Throat still bothering me. Nervous about a couple of deadlines.

Still need to post cat-adventure from a few days ago. Should probably not be trying to debate the merits of hate-crime laws elsejournal while so sleep deprived.

[*] Having gotten a mere single hour of sleep before leg cramps woke me is probably an exacerbating factor in this.

[**] Since two of the five realms I may need to have the golems search for me are in Windowships (the others are two Linuxocracies and a BSDom), I must add: huzzah for Cygwin! Though ifwhen I get around to converting the XP machine from FAT32 to NTFS, I wanna play with 'andLinux'. And yes, I know there's a 'more user friendly' search function in the Windows Start menu, but 'find' commands are more automatic for my fingers, and I feel more comfortable using it. *shrug* I use Windows but I'm not really a Windows person.