Feminism. It's a word in the English dictionary. It has a stable, objective meaning. We'd all agree, for example, that it does not mean "cowboy" or "vivorum" or "复杂性" or "σκεῦος." And yet, are you neutral in your understanding of "feminism"? Doesn't the word (and your use of it in writing or in speaking or even in reading and in listening) immediately cause you to participate in its force, subjectively? "No, I am not a feminist," you might protest. And most of us would, likely, agree with you. But then we all -- each one of us -- could get into an argument over who "is" a feminist and who is not a feminist. Among self identifying feminists, this happens regularly, so that there are "waves" and there are kinds ("afrafeminism" and "womanism" and "academic" feminism and so forth) and there are memories of Mary Daly post mortem in which she's a "dangerous" or a "radical" or a "theological" or a "no longer representative of me and my sort of" feminist. The safest definition of the word "feminist" I have found so far is "a supporter of feminism." But what if a true "feminist" could care less about "feminism" per se? Feminism cares about feminism? You get the point of my personal questions, don't you? There's an inclusivity in the questions whether you're finding yourself on the outside or the inside of this word "feminism." These are rhetorical questions, aren't they?
Rhetoric. You know what that word means, don't you?
Translation. As with feminism and rhetoric, translation begs for experts. You can get a Ph.D. in it. And if you have less than that, well then, what other kind of training is necessary to talk about it, or to do it "right" and not wrong?
Bible. If we all could agree that it really means βιβλία [biblía] "books," then there would be so much less disagreement, right? We might not have to define biblioblogger or learn to read Alexa ratings or to count down from 50 or to count women so delicately if we're not one or so vigorously even if we are one or to "draft criteria for inclusion in" or to pronounce "niche" correctly. It might not matter so much whether someone else includes me or you so much or not. Alas. words. I know what they mean but then they change, change you, change me.
7 comments:
Do they change based on application or knowledge? Can words lose their meaning based on overuse?
Yes, yes.
And these particular words especially, it seems, get us positioning ourselves one way or another with respect to what we see as the (changing or stable) meanings to be, don't you think? The "overuse" of words, so to speak, is the confusion of different meanings over time. Aristotle seemed to despise this. Jesus seemed to take advantage of it. What do you think?
I think that the mission of Aristotle and Jesus would be different and perhaps that would influence their need to either hold tightly to words or to transform tightly held concepts?
As a layperson.... perhaps Aristotle's use of rhetoric to defend the political gods, etc... needed something rather tightly, while Jesus would have needed to destroy such religious control over words to free minds.
Here's the deal. Labels are limiting. They're exclusionary. I am ipso facto guilty for being not you. I would love to be an African. I identify and empathize and aspire but I will always be labeled as an azungu, outsider. I don't want to be a feminist. But then you don't want me either. As for rhetoric. This is. As for translation. Untranslatable. As for the Bible. "It" isn't. But the Gospel is.
au contraire, David. I want you as you are, as lingamish, a hippo, a seriously funny and important blogger. Labels. Couldn't agree more with you about 'em. And yet there's "wave" and "field" with the "particle," says linguist and Bible translator Kenneth Pike. Thanks always for commenting here!
You rock my face off! (I've heard that's what cool kids like your dude say (at least in Oregon))
Lol! (Never heard my son say that one, but then again I'm sure I haven't heard or even want to hear everything he says - in Oregon, Texas, or Virginia). Thanks for inspiring one of my posts today, and maybe another too today or tomorrow.
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