Wednesday, August 15, 2007 :::
 

Bullshit You Can Think and Say

I know for a fact that I have posted something on this subject before. I don’t see how I could not have. But rather than search through all previous posts (and possibly deny myself a repeated rant on a subject that at its best is a pseudo-intellectual meandering) I decided to post this anyway…

Let’s agree on some ground rules on how life, language, and the human machine operate.

Rule #1: If you can think something— an idea, an image, or even a fairly abstract concept like love or income taxes— you can articulate that into the spoken language of your choice.

Rule #2: If a person, event, or act is described to you, even if in incomplete terms, you can formulate a contextual image in your mind of the things described filling in from imagination and experience the missing details.

So using the two rules above nothing can be UNSPEAKABLE and nothing can be UNTHINKABLE.

These are Reserve Words of the Media and people with poor imaginations and poorer vocabularies.

I get the intended meaning. I understand that when a person says this they are trying to cordon off the event or act in question from the logical world and point it out as an anomalous hiccup of morality or decency. But if you use bullshit words to take a bullshit stand the end result is just more bullshit.

::: posted by Mike at 9:05 AM