As a columnist it’s hard to have something meaningful to say every week. The thought of a readership, the idea of people giving thought to my words can be unnerving.
What if I say the wrong thing? What if my statements do more harm than good? The pressure can be intimidating.
I think that in many ways people underestimate the power of their words. Language, more so than any weapon, is the most dangerous and destructive resource of the beast called “man.”
Words have started wars. Who can ignore the rhetoric coming out of our own government and from those around the world?
We speak the language of justice tinged with retribution within dangerous tones of righteous indignation.
One cannot deny that without language there would be no organized religion, no Crusades, no holy wars, no fanatics hijacking airplanes and plowing them into the buildings and bodies of innocent bystanders.
If there was no speech, then there couldn’t be any religious or political differences, no Jews, no Palestinians, no Nazis, no Americans, no good guys or bad guys.
There would be no white, no black, no majority, no minority, for without words there is no society, no church, or government.
I find there is much danger in language, especially with the printed page.
Print has a way of, over time, becoming part of history. How many “great truths” started out merely as an idea put to paper?
What truth is real beyond personal experience? Unless one has lived the life, has done the deeds; the only knowledge one can have is the perception of someone else’s words.
John Milton in his tract Aeropagitica argues that books have a life of their own, and long after the author is dead the words remain, words that are subject to our definition.
Indeed all words are not so much subject to the truth as they are to meaning and interpretation. For just as every word was man’s creation, so wrote he their definitions, each word defined unto his satisfaction and conforming to his standards.
Yet without this standard of language there would be nothing. The world would exist as an unquantifiable concept, with life having (pardon the pun) little or no meaning.
Without words there would be no father, no mother, no lover, no friend. There would be no common denominator, no feelings and, indeed, no love.
There would be no love for without language there can be no we. There is only self, mere existence, occupation, marking time.
Without words there could be no poetry, no criticism, no study, for without communication, life is but survival.
Lacking language there can be no Shakespeare, no Washington, no Mohammed, no Bible, no Koran, no Talmud and no truth except for that we make.
Communication is the basis of society, of learning and of self-awareness. With no words, no concepts, no lives, what is humankind? As humans, we’d be merely upright beasts with harsh intentions.
Yet for all the beauty, love, learning and sharing, for all the capabilities of language to build a palace in the mind, we so often use it as a blunt instrument, clumsily bludgeoning and destroying our fellow man.
A word is a loaded gun; its effect worse than any bullet, for it leaves the body living and decimates the spirit.
Perhaps the question then should be, are words more dangerous than they’re worth? Is the power and pleasure of art and creation worth the spitefulness and pain of bigotry and condescension? Or are the words themselves, perhaps, not the source of this moral conundrum?
I contend that words are merely that. They are constructs, made from symbols, given worth by their perceived meaning, much as man himself. Consider that dirty hateful words are such because we think them so.
Indeed, if a man believes an insult to be a compliment, is the meaning still one of hate? If a man believes the righteousness of his bigotry and speaks not his words in anger or with conscious hate, are his words then evil, if others perceive them as hateful? Is the use of language the responsibility of the messenger, or of those who would receive it? As writer of this editorial, who is responsible for how my words are perceived?
If I believe that what I say is not inflammatory, am I responsible for those who become inflamed over my speech?
If I advocate acts of harassment and violence, believing they are justified, am I responsible if someone commits them?
If I advocate these things as satire, or parody of such thoughts, am I the villain if one commits these acts, because of my misperceived “encouragement?”
For if I am responsible for the mind of every reader, to be the conscience, absent of depravity and complexity, it would be better never to put pen to paper, for fear that one, in ignorance, may misinterpret my intention.
I say that I am responsible to my own conscience and you to yours, for though acts are regulated under laws, I submit to you that each man is the sole master of his mind. His responsibility is to himself, and to his God (if that is his choice), to make peace with his existence.
Therefore, as an author, my responsibility to self and world is to be faithful to my conscience, truthful in my statements and honest in my opinions.
For, I submit, you are no more subject to my words than I am to your definitions.
Information is power. We are watching.

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