Every era of humanity has at least one salient feature that distinguishes itself from whatever two it happens to be sandwiched in between. If anybody is left alive to pen an epitaph on The Current Age, it’s already certain that they’ll have plenty of material.
One aspect that couldn’t possibly be overlooked is contradictions. What really stands out is how our contradictions find their expression in language. Our descriptive terminology achieves its purpose without imparting the slightest ambiguity, and yet the reality of the words at our disposal is the opposite of their definitions in a dictionary.
While key terms mean the opposite of what they’re supposed to mean, everybody knows precisely what the locutor is describing. This is quite unique in a way that seems to go underappreciated by the general public. Imagine if decades ago, during our conflagration in Southeast Asia, Walter Cronkite referred to the Vietcong as “pro-unification activists” as the CBS Evening News played reel of a jungle firefight. He’d have been met with reactions that ranged on a continuum from bewilderment to outrage.
That’s not the sort of response the modern media elicits from me as I watch a reporter narrate footage of an IED exploding during a looting spree while she explains it was “a largely peaceful protest.” I know exactly what she means, and she knows exactly what she means. There’s no reason for me to spit out my beer in fury at her ostensible lack of candor.
I retain an identical sensation of calm when I read that a besieged motorist was “driving aggressively” towards “anti-racist activists” blocking the interstate. Both myself and the hack writing for the newspaper are completely clear that there’s only one direction in which you’re allowed to drive on an interstate, and that driving is to be done around the speed limit when not constrained by traffic. We’re also both aware that these “activists” were as eager to deliver as much violence to that motorist as the aforementioned Vietcong.
I take the same attitude towards politicians. I encourage you to do so as well for the sake of your own sanity. Sure, they may be spouting lies but they’re simultaneously imparting reality. I’m not implying that this confers any redeeming value on utterly despicable people. My point is simply that you shouldn’t get exasperated since the truth is still coming out of their mouths.
For example, when Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot calls a press conference to proclaim that “we will never let anyone destroy the fabric of our city” in response to a black mob storming the Magic Mile to pillage its luxury retailers, everybody understands that the fabric of that city has been thoroughly destroyed for quite some time. She’s lying, but only in a technical sense.
Ultimately, the worst is yet to come. When desperate people start chowing down on other people, attempts at verbal dissimulation will probably be non-starters. Will anyone even bother to intone that there’s no need for consternation about “intra-species consumption”? Is there any effective obfuscatory vocabulary for saying that “I’m gonna slice up my obese neighbor and feed him to my kids”?
I’m a man possessed of fathomless pessimism, but these are possibilities even I consider non-existent. I’m confident that this inevitable inflection point in escalation will serve as a clear historical marker for the conclusion of The Current Age. Cheer up, we’ll soon find ourselves in a new era of refreshing verbal precision.
I’m proud to officially announce my candidacy for the office of Dogcatcher.
