This month Dante’s Inferno has gotten a lot of media attention. By Dante’s Inferno, I don’t mean the great poem. Xbox just released a game entitled Dante’s Inferno, in which players lead a buff warrior-knight, Dante, through the nine levels of hell. He must battle his way to the very bottom to save the soul of his beloved Beatrice, who had been kidnapped by Lucifer.
I write that Xbox’s game is “entitled” Dante’s Inferno and not “based on it” because it bears little resemblance to Dante’s poem. In the poem, Dante journeys through hell and interacts with the damned. There is some action, as when his enemy Filippo Argenti tries to grab him. But it is nothing like game character blasting his way through a horde of unbaptized babies in Limbo. Xbox kept Dante’s infernal topography and the names “Dante,” “Virgil” and “Beatrice.” But they changed everything else to make a more exciting game. Indeed, in the poem, Beatrice is a heavenly being who Saves Dante. “Saves” with a capital “s,” because her intervention allows him to turn from sin towards redemption.
Xbox’s game raises the question of the difficult relationship between mass media and the arts. When mass media—movies, TV shows, and now video games—are based on literary works, they have to transform the texts, sometimes dramatically. Film scripts need to shorten and condense the plots of novels; they have to simplify complex ideas, and put them in the mouths of characters. No one would play a game literally based on Dante’s “Inferno”—it’d be too plain dull!
Of course, there is a positive side when mass media is based on literature. Games and films generate interest in the works among people who otherwise might not read them. And when they are successful, more interest—and sometimes money—goes toward the works and the people who study them.
What causes consternation among readers of those works is not so much how the media alter them. That is to be expected. It’s how the new versions actually supplant the originals in many people’s minds. The show (or game) becomes the new “standard,” and has the tendency to marginalize the original. JK Rowling’s books are rich, nuanced works, which the films strip down to their most simplistic form. Yet for as many times as I’ve read all of them, I can’t help but picture Harry Potter as Daniel Radcliff.
At times, people expect the original to have the changes—and the special effects—of the latest movie, TV show, or game. Worse still, others don’t realize that those changes have nothing to do with the original.
Case in point: conjure up the image of a velociraptor—about the size of a man, green lizard-skin, maybe 12 feet long from nose to tail. This is the velociraptor from Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park. And it’s incorrect. Scientifically speaking, velociraptors were about 6 feet long, and stood about waist-high to a person. As happens with literary works, the movie-version has totally supplanted the scientific reality in people’s minds.
Oh, and they were probably feathered too.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Sick at Heart
Help! The king is ill and is killing his subjects!
After learning that his beloved was unfaithful the king lost his mind. He began marrying young women, bedding them on the wedding night, and then executing them the next morning. But when Scheherazade was in his bedchamber, she told him a story; she embedded one story into the first so that when the evening ended, the narrative was incomplete. She thus postponed her execution by a day. The next evening she did the same thing, and so on for many more nights to come.
After a thousand and one nights, however, a funny thing happened. The stories came to an end and the king was cured of his insanity.
A more dramatic cure takes place in Boccaccio’s Decameron. During the plague of 1348—a real event which killed over a third of all people throughout Eurasia—ten youths escape to a Tuscan villa. They spend two weeks telling a hundred tales. But at the end, they return to Florence… and the plague is gone.
Of course, I’m not going to suggest that literature can cure mental illness, to say nothing of physical ailments. But for centuries literature has brought comfort to readers.
For centuries, the history of literature was about giving voice to different groups—people of a common language, heritage or citizenship, or of a particular region or belief. The process is still ongoing.
For example, in a society that still undervalues certain groups—women, people of color, of lower socio-economic status, or of certain sexual orientations—it can be uplifting for individuals to “read their story.” Of course, the works are fictional, and therefore not literally “their story.” Still it is important for people to see themselves as actors in the world, even when the society defines them otherwise.
But socio-politics is only part of the picture. Literature can speak to difficult experiences, and can help people make sense of them. Whether dealing with emotional betrayal or universal calamity, it gives a person the sense that someone else understands their predicament. And that knowledge alone can be crucial.
Literature may not change tragic circumstances, and it won’t cure psychosis. But it can make a difference in how someone faces their situation. And sometimes, that makes all the difference in the world.
After learning that his beloved was unfaithful the king lost his mind. He began marrying young women, bedding them on the wedding night, and then executing them the next morning. But when Scheherazade was in his bedchamber, she told him a story; she embedded one story into the first so that when the evening ended, the narrative was incomplete. She thus postponed her execution by a day. The next evening she did the same thing, and so on for many more nights to come.
After a thousand and one nights, however, a funny thing happened. The stories came to an end and the king was cured of his insanity.
A more dramatic cure takes place in Boccaccio’s Decameron. During the plague of 1348—a real event which killed over a third of all people throughout Eurasia—ten youths escape to a Tuscan villa. They spend two weeks telling a hundred tales. But at the end, they return to Florence… and the plague is gone.
Of course, I’m not going to suggest that literature can cure mental illness, to say nothing of physical ailments. But for centuries literature has brought comfort to readers.
For centuries, the history of literature was about giving voice to different groups—people of a common language, heritage or citizenship, or of a particular region or belief. The process is still ongoing.
For example, in a society that still undervalues certain groups—women, people of color, of lower socio-economic status, or of certain sexual orientations—it can be uplifting for individuals to “read their story.” Of course, the works are fictional, and therefore not literally “their story.” Still it is important for people to see themselves as actors in the world, even when the society defines them otherwise.
But socio-politics is only part of the picture. Literature can speak to difficult experiences, and can help people make sense of them. Whether dealing with emotional betrayal or universal calamity, it gives a person the sense that someone else understands their predicament. And that knowledge alone can be crucial.
Literature may not change tragic circumstances, and it won’t cure psychosis. But it can make a difference in how someone faces their situation. And sometimes, that makes all the difference in the world.
Monday, February 1, 2010
No One Saw It Coming
Economist Thomas L. Friedman has discussed how the world economy has made national borders obsolete. You might think that the languages would be valued more highly right now. Yet Americans still learn foreign languages at woefully low rates.
As I have stressed several times in this blog, the value of the humanities transcends the question of job preparation. But the question increasingly posed to all academics these days is the value of their fields—“value” often understood strictly in terms of economics. Will this information help someone get a job? For many reasons, the humanities fare worse in answering this question these days.
My field, Italian, suffers the same fate as the rest of the humanities. Sometimes more so. We simply haven’t done a good job overall of explaining the benefits of Italian. People associate Italian with pleasure—food, fashion, art, and opera. But business?
For decades, Italy has been a part of the G-7 (or G-8 or G-20) groups of economically powerful countries. Last year Italian automaker Fiat announced its take-over of Chrysler. Business has become transnational, and Fiat’s acquisition of Chrysler is only another example of that fact. Fiat’s acquisition of Chrysler is a clear example of how Italian is a valuable business asset.
I wish I could say that I had some foresight of Fiat’s owners’ decision. I had no more prescience than anyone else in the US. And that’s precisely the point I’m trying to make.
No one saw Fiat’s decision coming. But in the wake of Fiat’s purchase, Italian appears a little bit more essential. Funny how that works, isn’t it? Particular areas of knowledge seem trivial until they suddenly become necessary. In the first half of the twentieth century, physics was a backwater. Then World War II necessitated the production of an atomic bomb, and then the Cold War required many more. With the government’s interest—and investment in—nuclear physics, it became the cutting edge. Similar shifts take place all the time. When President Nixon declared a war on cancer, oncology research became a booming field. With the threat posed by the Soviet Union, federal moneys went to Russian and Slavic languages. And what field could be less lucrative than paleontology—until, that is, Hollywood produces a blockbuster about dinosaurs.
A university education benefits the individual, of course, but it also benefits the society. The community profits by having people trained in many different areas. It is arrogant to presume that some fields of knowledge are essential and others are not. Because who can tell? It is just a matter of time before circumstances require a group of individuals trained in those areas.
As I have stressed several times in this blog, the value of the humanities transcends the question of job preparation. But the question increasingly posed to all academics these days is the value of their fields—“value” often understood strictly in terms of economics. Will this information help someone get a job? For many reasons, the humanities fare worse in answering this question these days.
My field, Italian, suffers the same fate as the rest of the humanities. Sometimes more so. We simply haven’t done a good job overall of explaining the benefits of Italian. People associate Italian with pleasure—food, fashion, art, and opera. But business?
For decades, Italy has been a part of the G-7 (or G-8 or G-20) groups of economically powerful countries. Last year Italian automaker Fiat announced its take-over of Chrysler. Business has become transnational, and Fiat’s acquisition of Chrysler is only another example of that fact. Fiat’s acquisition of Chrysler is a clear example of how Italian is a valuable business asset.
I wish I could say that I had some foresight of Fiat’s owners’ decision. I had no more prescience than anyone else in the US. And that’s precisely the point I’m trying to make.
No one saw Fiat’s decision coming. But in the wake of Fiat’s purchase, Italian appears a little bit more essential. Funny how that works, isn’t it? Particular areas of knowledge seem trivial until they suddenly become necessary. In the first half of the twentieth century, physics was a backwater. Then World War II necessitated the production of an atomic bomb, and then the Cold War required many more. With the government’s interest—and investment in—nuclear physics, it became the cutting edge. Similar shifts take place all the time. When President Nixon declared a war on cancer, oncology research became a booming field. With the threat posed by the Soviet Union, federal moneys went to Russian and Slavic languages. And what field could be less lucrative than paleontology—until, that is, Hollywood produces a blockbuster about dinosaurs.
A university education benefits the individual, of course, but it also benefits the society. The community profits by having people trained in many different areas. It is arrogant to presume that some fields of knowledge are essential and others are not. Because who can tell? It is just a matter of time before circumstances require a group of individuals trained in those areas.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Making College Relevant
The January 3 2010 issue of the New York Times contained a story entitled “Making College ‘Relevant.’” It details the pressures on universities to justify their programs in the current economic climate. Increasingly administrators—and the general public—are demanding that university programs do a better job of preparing students for their future employment.
Many people assess the value of an academic field in terms of job preparation. They wrongly assume that the humanities offer little in terms of job skills. As several people argue in the story, however, the humanities contribute greatly to future employment. Employers do not want students to over-specialize in their youth, but to have a broad range of skills. Some of those skills included:
• Critical thinking
• Clear use of language
• Educating people for a lifetime, and not merely as job preparation
As people mentioned in the story, these are areas the humanities excel at teaching.
Some of the news items are troubling, such as the closure of programs in philosophy and classics, which are central to university education. The explanation offered for closing philosophy is equally troubling; the perception that philosophy is an essential program “has lost some credence among students.” Thus, students’ opinions on the field’s value now determine the curriculum.
If students and the general public do not see the relevance of a field of study, then there is indeed a problem. The answer is not for humanists to dig in our heels and reiterate old arguments. We need to conceive of ours fields in new ways and make a better case for them to a skeptical public (skeptical in my opinion, not hostile). As the story shows, many people are currently addressing the importance of the humanities. The fact that more people are dealing with the question gives me hope.
Many people assess the value of an academic field in terms of job preparation. They wrongly assume that the humanities offer little in terms of job skills. As several people argue in the story, however, the humanities contribute greatly to future employment. Employers do not want students to over-specialize in their youth, but to have a broad range of skills. Some of those skills included:
• Critical thinking
• Clear use of language
• Educating people for a lifetime, and not merely as job preparation
As people mentioned in the story, these are areas the humanities excel at teaching.
Some of the news items are troubling, such as the closure of programs in philosophy and classics, which are central to university education. The explanation offered for closing philosophy is equally troubling; the perception that philosophy is an essential program “has lost some credence among students.” Thus, students’ opinions on the field’s value now determine the curriculum.
If students and the general public do not see the relevance of a field of study, then there is indeed a problem. The answer is not for humanists to dig in our heels and reiterate old arguments. We need to conceive of ours fields in new ways and make a better case for them to a skeptical public (skeptical in my opinion, not hostile). As the story shows, many people are currently addressing the importance of the humanities. The fact that more people are dealing with the question gives me hope.
Monday, December 28, 2009
The Troubles with –ibles (and –ables)
Despite appearances to the contrary, there are practical applications to the study of literature. Perhaps the most important is the deep knowledge of language. English contains up to a quarter million words. Imagine a tool calibrated to a quarter million settings; that’s a high degree of precision. The study of literature brings with it a greater awareness of the clarity of language. Conversely, it can teach the dangers of imprecise language. During December 2009, my blog entries dealt with the uses and abuses of language.
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I’ve dedicated this month to the deep knowledge of language that comes from the study of the humanities. But in my previous entries, I’ve defined the humanities almost exclusively as the study of literature. The humanities, however, encompass both literature and languages. It’s easy to see the practical application of a foreign language for travel, or for dealing with tourists in the United States. But how does the study of a foreign language, like Italian, help in the knowledge of English?
Those of us who teach second languages know that they help a great deal in understanding English. The American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) has a national standard based on five “c’s”: communication, cultures, connections, comparisons, and communities. The fourth “c,” comparisons, is about learning about one’s first language by reference to the second.
All of this is pretty abstract, so let me use one simple example—spelling. Spelling is the bane of every learner of English, whether it’s your first or second language. The reason is simple: English spelling isn’t phonological, but etymological. That means that it doesn’t reflect present-day pronunciation, but the history of the word. Right, write, and rite all sound the same now, but are spelled differently because in the past they were entirely different. The fact is, the spelling of many words simply needs to be memorized.
As kids, we all faced two lists of words to be memorized, -ibles and –ables. As in edible and eatable; responsible and answerable. The differences between the two lists were imponderable. We suffered considerable anguish and spent unreasonable amounts of time, but our results were often risible. English is incredible! Sometimes the pronunciation helped, as in possible and probable. Much of the time it didn’t. If only there were a rule…
Actually, there is an easy rule as to when it’s –ible or –able. In Latin, verbs came in three forms, with endings that were either –are, -ere or –ire. The rule is this: if the word’s derived from a Latin –are verb it’s –able; if –ere or –ire it’s –ible. And any verbs of non-Latin origin get treated as if –are, hence doable, drinkable and readable.
Ok, few English-speakers know Latin etymologies. Is there any other way to learn the rule?
In its evolution from Latin, almost no Italian verbs changed category. So –are verbs in Latin are almost always –are in Italian (likewise with –ere and –ire). Hence, in Italian we have adjectives that are either –abile or –ibile. Those adjectives are almost identical to their English equivalents (i.e., possibile, probabile). The difference is, in Italian, -abile and –ibile are pronounced differently from each other, so spelling them is rather easy. The shortcut is this: if it’s –abile in Italian then it’s –able in English, -ibile in Italian then –ible in English.
But if you’ve never learned Latin or Italian, well then you’re just plain out of luck. Start memorizing!
-------------
I’ve dedicated this month to the deep knowledge of language that comes from the study of the humanities. But in my previous entries, I’ve defined the humanities almost exclusively as the study of literature. The humanities, however, encompass both literature and languages. It’s easy to see the practical application of a foreign language for travel, or for dealing with tourists in the United States. But how does the study of a foreign language, like Italian, help in the knowledge of English?
Those of us who teach second languages know that they help a great deal in understanding English. The American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) has a national standard based on five “c’s”: communication, cultures, connections, comparisons, and communities. The fourth “c,” comparisons, is about learning about one’s first language by reference to the second.
All of this is pretty abstract, so let me use one simple example—spelling. Spelling is the bane of every learner of English, whether it’s your first or second language. The reason is simple: English spelling isn’t phonological, but etymological. That means that it doesn’t reflect present-day pronunciation, but the history of the word. Right, write, and rite all sound the same now, but are spelled differently because in the past they were entirely different. The fact is, the spelling of many words simply needs to be memorized.
As kids, we all faced two lists of words to be memorized, -ibles and –ables. As in edible and eatable; responsible and answerable. The differences between the two lists were imponderable. We suffered considerable anguish and spent unreasonable amounts of time, but our results were often risible. English is incredible! Sometimes the pronunciation helped, as in possible and probable. Much of the time it didn’t. If only there were a rule…
Actually, there is an easy rule as to when it’s –ible or –able. In Latin, verbs came in three forms, with endings that were either –are, -ere or –ire. The rule is this: if the word’s derived from a Latin –are verb it’s –able; if –ere or –ire it’s –ible. And any verbs of non-Latin origin get treated as if –are, hence doable, drinkable and readable.
Ok, few English-speakers know Latin etymologies. Is there any other way to learn the rule?
In its evolution from Latin, almost no Italian verbs changed category. So –are verbs in Latin are almost always –are in Italian (likewise with –ere and –ire). Hence, in Italian we have adjectives that are either –abile or –ibile. Those adjectives are almost identical to their English equivalents (i.e., possibile, probabile). The difference is, in Italian, -abile and –ibile are pronounced differently from each other, so spelling them is rather easy. The shortcut is this: if it’s –abile in Italian then it’s –able in English, -ibile in Italian then –ible in English.
But if you’ve never learned Latin or Italian, well then you’re just plain out of luck. Start memorizing!
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Danger! Metaphors!
Despite appearances to the contrary, there are practical applications to the study of literature. Perhaps the most important is the deep knowledge of language. English contains up to a quarter million words. Imagine a tool calibrated to a quarter million settings; that’s a high degree of precision. The study of literature brings with it a greater awareness of the clarity of language. Conversely, it can teach the dangers of imprecise language. During December 2009, my blog entries dealt with the uses and abuses of language.
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Warning: Metaphors ahead!
Probably the single most important literary technique is metaphor. For the readers to identify with a fictional character, they must view it as representative of themselves. Odysseus’ ten-year struggle to return to Ithaca therefore can be symbolic of some personal struggle for the readers. The study of literature familiarizes the students with metaphor, and that’s highly important. In the wrong hands, metaphors can be dangerous.
No, I’m not being facetious. We all learned about metaphors in middle school. Metaphors and similes are two types of analogy. Similes have the word “like” or “as,” and metaphors don’t. Simile: “My love for you is like a rose.” Metaphor: “my love for you is a rose.” What’s the problem?
The problem is that all analogies are fundamentally wrong. Love is not literally a flower. I may recognize one aspect of it as similar to a rose. With a simile, everyone is conscious of the analogy. “Like” reminds everyone that it’s just a comparison. Metaphor doesn’t offer that help, so its meaning needs to be implicit. But sometimes its meaning becomes too implicit. If a metaphor becomes commonplace, people can easily forget that it is, in fact, a metaphor. Instead, it gets treated as a truth statement. Here lies the danger: people propose courses of action based on the analogy, rather than the facts at hand.
For example, in 1992, presidential candidate Pat Buchanan proposed that the US military should “protect the border” from illegal immigrants. Consider that for a second: how would the government have used the military? Would the government have deployed tanks against border crossers? Shelled northern Mexico? And how exactly would the US Air Force have figured in? Buchanan hadn’t entirely taken leave of his senses. For years, the illegal immigration problem was discussed in certain quarters with the language of invasion. The word invasion was metaphorical, but Buchanan proposed a course of action as if it were literal.
Another example: in 2002, during the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq, French President Jacques Chirac opposed the invasion on the grounds that the UN weapons inspectors should be given more time. In agreement with him were the governments of Germany, Russia, China, and the Vatican, among others. But in the US, there was great anger directed specifically at France. Why France and not the other countries? During the run-up to war, many people compared Saddam Hussein to Hitler and the current crisis to World War II. And, of course, the US liberated France in World War II. It struck many US citizens as an act of betrayal that France didn’t support the US in this World War II. They confused the metaphor for reality. But Saddam Hussein was not literally Hitler, the Iraq invasion was not literally World War II, and in retrospect Jacques Chirac was absolutely right that the UN inspectors should have had more time to search for the (non-existent) WMD program.
If you pay attention to everyday discourse, there are many examples of people confusing common metaphors for reality. And I haven’t included the very tragic cases when demagogues defined another group of individuals as vermin or an infestation, and then the masses acted accordingly.
Here then is a societal benefit to the widespread study of literature. An informed citizenry, cognizant about literary techniques, might stand less of a chance of confusing metaphors with reality.
-------------
Warning: Metaphors ahead!
Probably the single most important literary technique is metaphor. For the readers to identify with a fictional character, they must view it as representative of themselves. Odysseus’ ten-year struggle to return to Ithaca therefore can be symbolic of some personal struggle for the readers. The study of literature familiarizes the students with metaphor, and that’s highly important. In the wrong hands, metaphors can be dangerous.
No, I’m not being facetious. We all learned about metaphors in middle school. Metaphors and similes are two types of analogy. Similes have the word “like” or “as,” and metaphors don’t. Simile: “My love for you is like a rose.” Metaphor: “my love for you is a rose.” What’s the problem?
The problem is that all analogies are fundamentally wrong. Love is not literally a flower. I may recognize one aspect of it as similar to a rose. With a simile, everyone is conscious of the analogy. “Like” reminds everyone that it’s just a comparison. Metaphor doesn’t offer that help, so its meaning needs to be implicit. But sometimes its meaning becomes too implicit. If a metaphor becomes commonplace, people can easily forget that it is, in fact, a metaphor. Instead, it gets treated as a truth statement. Here lies the danger: people propose courses of action based on the analogy, rather than the facts at hand.
For example, in 1992, presidential candidate Pat Buchanan proposed that the US military should “protect the border” from illegal immigrants. Consider that for a second: how would the government have used the military? Would the government have deployed tanks against border crossers? Shelled northern Mexico? And how exactly would the US Air Force have figured in? Buchanan hadn’t entirely taken leave of his senses. For years, the illegal immigration problem was discussed in certain quarters with the language of invasion. The word invasion was metaphorical, but Buchanan proposed a course of action as if it were literal.
Another example: in 2002, during the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq, French President Jacques Chirac opposed the invasion on the grounds that the UN weapons inspectors should be given more time. In agreement with him were the governments of Germany, Russia, China, and the Vatican, among others. But in the US, there was great anger directed specifically at France. Why France and not the other countries? During the run-up to war, many people compared Saddam Hussein to Hitler and the current crisis to World War II. And, of course, the US liberated France in World War II. It struck many US citizens as an act of betrayal that France didn’t support the US in this World War II. They confused the metaphor for reality. But Saddam Hussein was not literally Hitler, the Iraq invasion was not literally World War II, and in retrospect Jacques Chirac was absolutely right that the UN inspectors should have had more time to search for the (non-existent) WMD program.
If you pay attention to everyday discourse, there are many examples of people confusing common metaphors for reality. And I haven’t included the very tragic cases when demagogues defined another group of individuals as vermin or an infestation, and then the masses acted accordingly.
Here then is a societal benefit to the widespread study of literature. An informed citizenry, cognizant about literary techniques, might stand less of a chance of confusing metaphors with reality.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Flattery, Hype, and Bullsh*t
Despite appearances to the contrary, there are practical applications to the study of literature. Perhaps the most important is the deep knowledge of language. English contains up to a quarter million words. Imagine a tool calibrated to a quarter million settings; that’s a high degree of precision. The study of literature brings with it a greater awareness of the clarity of language. Conversely, it can teach the dangers of imprecise language. During December 2009, my blog entries dealt with the uses and abuses of language.
-------------
In one of the lowest portions of hell, Dante comes across the flatterers. The flatterers are immersed in a large, stinking pile of excrement. They wallow in it, and their bodies are smeared all over by it. The symbolism of the passage is quite clear. Flattery is no better than dung. There is a modern-day term that strongly recalls Dante’s allegory: BULLSH*T.
Recently, the philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt published a study entitled On Bullsh*t. Frankfurt tries to determine the very nature of bullsh*t, in particular how it differs from lies. He concludes that a liar accepts the truth (but wants to keep you from it), while a bullsh*tter speaks with no consideration of the truth. A lie is based on the truth, albeit negatively. Bullsh*t is language where the distinction between truth and falsity is irrelevant.
During this month, this blog is dealing with the contemporary uses and misuses of language. The previous two entries have dealt with meaningless language; how people use words without consideration to their meanings, and worse, how people refer to entire texts without consideration of their messages. Both entries are dealing with essentially the same phenomenon. In a word, it’s bullsh*t.
To use examples from the earlier entries, a bank promoted itself as “extreme banking,” and Nike used the Beatles’ “Revolution” in its advertisement. “Extreme” means nothing in relationship to banking, and the Beatles’ song has nothing to do with shoes. These are all different from basic errors in grammar. In common speech and emails to friends, everybody makes mistakes. But in multi-million dollar ad campaigns, every word and image is picked over. Someone somewhere chose to make all those statements, regardless if they reflected the truth or not.
Frankfurter’s analysis is insightful, but he omits one important point, the bullsh*tter’s motivation. There is always an ulterior motive. This is where Dante’s Inferno is quite helpful. One of the flatterers in Dante’s hell is a character from classical literature, the prostitute Thais. Dante recalls her false praise of her customer’s sexual prowess. Of course, he wasn’t really good in bed, but she wanted to ensure his repeat business. Sound familiar? Just like flatterers, people bullsh*t to get something from the listener. The hype in today’s advertising is no different from Thais’ flattery.
Sometimes bullsh*tters want to impress you by making themselves look better; or sometimes they want to make someone else look worse. These are the most common examples of bullsh*t in political discourse. After the US House of Representatives approved President Obama’s healthcare reform, those opposed rallied on the Capitol’s steps. Someone had erected a sign with a photograph of the bodies at Dachau under the caption “Socialized Medicine.” So… by extending coverage to all Americans, which would save lives, the law is somehow like the extermination of millions of human beings?
BULLSH*T!
-------------
In one of the lowest portions of hell, Dante comes across the flatterers. The flatterers are immersed in a large, stinking pile of excrement. They wallow in it, and their bodies are smeared all over by it. The symbolism of the passage is quite clear. Flattery is no better than dung. There is a modern-day term that strongly recalls Dante’s allegory: BULLSH*T.
Recently, the philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt published a study entitled On Bullsh*t. Frankfurt tries to determine the very nature of bullsh*t, in particular how it differs from lies. He concludes that a liar accepts the truth (but wants to keep you from it), while a bullsh*tter speaks with no consideration of the truth. A lie is based on the truth, albeit negatively. Bullsh*t is language where the distinction between truth and falsity is irrelevant.
During this month, this blog is dealing with the contemporary uses and misuses of language. The previous two entries have dealt with meaningless language; how people use words without consideration to their meanings, and worse, how people refer to entire texts without consideration of their messages. Both entries are dealing with essentially the same phenomenon. In a word, it’s bullsh*t.
To use examples from the earlier entries, a bank promoted itself as “extreme banking,” and Nike used the Beatles’ “Revolution” in its advertisement. “Extreme” means nothing in relationship to banking, and the Beatles’ song has nothing to do with shoes. These are all different from basic errors in grammar. In common speech and emails to friends, everybody makes mistakes. But in multi-million dollar ad campaigns, every word and image is picked over. Someone somewhere chose to make all those statements, regardless if they reflected the truth or not.
Frankfurter’s analysis is insightful, but he omits one important point, the bullsh*tter’s motivation. There is always an ulterior motive. This is where Dante’s Inferno is quite helpful. One of the flatterers in Dante’s hell is a character from classical literature, the prostitute Thais. Dante recalls her false praise of her customer’s sexual prowess. Of course, he wasn’t really good in bed, but she wanted to ensure his repeat business. Sound familiar? Just like flatterers, people bullsh*t to get something from the listener. The hype in today’s advertising is no different from Thais’ flattery.
Sometimes bullsh*tters want to impress you by making themselves look better; or sometimes they want to make someone else look worse. These are the most common examples of bullsh*t in political discourse. After the US House of Representatives approved President Obama’s healthcare reform, those opposed rallied on the Capitol’s steps. Someone had erected a sign with a photograph of the bodies at Dachau under the caption “Socialized Medicine.” So… by extending coverage to all Americans, which would save lives, the law is somehow like the extermination of millions of human beings?
BULLSH*T!
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