The Tintamarresque Theatre

Why do I hate euphemisms? I could spend all day digging at “political correctness” and the unprincipled abstraction of “spirituality,” as concepts and phrases. What I really hate is the malleability of language. I hate the moral latitude. The lack of authority and control–not to the ends of stifling creativity, analogy, metaphor…, but the winnowing of reality from things (words) that aren’t really real in any sense to begin with. See, the problem is a very old one. It starts at the relationship of subject to object, goes on to become Adamic, includes every sort of contention, violent and intellectual, but we finally get to the point where, if we’re not separated by language or dialect, a thing (as a word) becomes more or less fixed, “standardized.” An attitude, not just a vocable, becomes part of its surface. There’s a certain moral sureness in this. It is imposed on a thing’s reality. Fascism, which is always our intention, is not only realized but at last eutopian. However, when an attitude points to our reality, explains this reality in fragment, it is not altogether separate from the concrete. Now, reality does not necessarily change. It does not change–and yet moralities change. Or, if not change, become less public or more public. There are rivalries for the morality of words as there are rivalries for resources, including authority, culture and public trust. And many times words are not fought over but covered up or made into an enemy flag, new phrases substituted. If a political or moral or social body is too weak to add to or subtract from the size of a definiens, they can still add to the size of the dictionary. Nothing against creativity, as I’ve said. But with this expansion, and therefore attenuation of force, they contribute to the dementia of the language. Instead of competition–and the healthy destruction of the loser, his will along with his genetics, figuratively speaking–a parallel to reality is opened up. Coexistence, the lack of a fundamental universality, these introduce doubt and obsolesce science. And if there is one thing science is good for, it is supporting–while not supporting–the moral and ethical superiority of those good at reality. See how crosspurposed I’ve become? And all because of the possibility of a parallel to reality. Not because a status quo has been challenged, but because it has not been challenged. Infinity, desertion–inherent in words since the beginning–have come to trouble words. Ultimately, all things, including words, had learned to settle down under the force of gravity. Euphemism does not obey this, though. Sure, new attitudes may sink into the soil of words, yet, at the same time, the noses of such attitudes are shooting up away from any sense of reality. Proper words at least had the innocent hope of uncovering reality.