"political"

[Dan Goncharoff]

I am lead to recall the "Meaningless Words" section of Orwell's "Politics
and the English Language":

"Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural,
vitality, as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense
that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly
ever expected to do so by the reader."

DanG


On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 2:37 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "political"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I'm with you, Jon, in "interrogating" "political".  For those who
> believe all writing has its agenda, then another writer's calling
> something anything is a "political" act.  And their agenda can
> appropriate "political" to mean "with an agenda.
>
> (Probably can be said better.)
>
> Joel
>
> At 5/15/2012 01:45 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > >Isn't the justification of a specific public policy a political act?
> >
> >Yeah, but that isn't the issue here.
> >
> >The author is simply discussing the question of whether war existed in the
> >Ice Age. He's saying that whatever they may have been doing to each other
> >with those spears, it is "a political act" to call it war.
> >
> >Because the Ice Agers, for all we know, might have thought of mass
> stabbing
> >and bopping as recreation or a neutral activity undifferentiated from
> peace
> >or a smart way to honor their gods (oops! political! maybe they didn't
> have
> >"gods"!).
> >
> >So "politics" and "policy" as we know them are not involved.
> >
> >JL
> >
> >On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 1:32 PM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > > -----------------------
> > > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > Poster:       Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
> > > Subject:      Re: "political"
> > >
> > >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > > Isn't the justification of a specific public policy a political act?
> The
> > > author was arguing that using " the activities of the hunters of the
> Ice
> > > Age" as justification for war is political.
> > >
> > > DanG
> > >
> > >
> > > On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 12:27 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> > > <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:
> > >
> > > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > > > -----------------------
> > > > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > > > Subject:      "political"
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > >
> > > > Gee, I'm dense. After decades of exposure to Marxist,
> deconstructionist,
> > > > structuralist, poststructuralist, and metastructuralist criticism, I
> > > still
> > > > don't know what "political" means!  Can you beat it?
> > > >
> > > > Can someone interpret the meaning for me in the following sentence? I
> > > mean
> > > > fairly authoritatively:
> > > >
> > > > "To use words from one culture to describe the activities of another
> is
> > > > always a political act. It is an ethnocentric value judgment to
> impose
> > > the
> > > > term 'war'  to describe the activities of the hunters of the Ice
> Age. The
> > > > peoples of that time probably had no word for war and would be
> amazed at
> > > > the concept."
> > > >
> > > > 'Self-serving'? 'Ethnocentrically self-serving'?  'Unjustifiable
> from a
> > > > perspective of cultural relativism'?  'Etc.'?
> > > >
> > > > There seems to be an underlying nuance of "politics" present that
> isn't
> > > > covered by OED either. But what exactly?
> > > >
> > > > Should we care?
> > > >
> > > > JL
> > > >
> > > > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> > > truth."
> > > >
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> >
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> truth."
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