Month: October 2002

I was strolling about the Internet recently (is that we do now — virtually stroll?) and stumbled upon a website, www.wordspy.com, that chronicles the progression of the English language through its acquisition and alteration of words and phrases.

While chewing on such juicy phrases as time-porn, privatopia and belligerati, I began to think about the ways in which the words that we use define the parameters of what may be possible in terms of addressing social issues, be they economic, cultural, or political.

As an example, let’s consider the term “pickade,” which is a linguistic cocktail blending the terms picket and blockade. This weekend, as many of you may know, there was a “Life Chain” that spread from downtown Memphis all the way to Collierville.

As far as I could tell, the gist of the event was for involved parties to stand along the side of the road toting banners that expressed their stance on the pro-choice/ pro-life issue.

Now technically, this would be a picket scenario, not a pickade, as said protesters were not in the street, but standing along its edge. However, I think there could be a case made that this was an ideological pickade.

To be frank, I think that if somebody wants to broadcast their values, then more power to them. Who am I to say that those particularly involved in the aforementioned controversy should not be free to express their take on it? (To say otherwise I would run the risk of becoming a member of the belligerati — or one who uses anger and controversy to make a point.)

That’s not to say that I agree with the methodology, and to be honest I don’t agree with the political statement either. But that’s not the point.

When it comes to a topic as delicate as the abortion issue has grown to be, I often wonder about the effectiveness of a non-interactive model of communication.

Here’s why. In a recent survey completed by Self magazine, published in their October issue, Memphis was given the dubious distinction of being the unhealthiest city in America.

This um, honor, was calculated when Memphis was compared to the 200 metro regions included in their analysis. Wow.

Factors contributing to this ranking include the occurrence of violent crimes and rapes at nearly double the survey’s average, an above average STD rate, and an elevated number of vehicular deaths.

With this taken into account it seems that an effective model of decreasing the perceived need for abortions, whether you think that there should be a choice or not, would be to take an active stance in bettering the community. I am not convinced that picketing is the way to go.

And I’m especially unconvinced that the women effected by said rates of violent crime and rape, who may have become pregnant in the process, need to be subjected to a barrage of signage that would have to make their decision-making process that much more devastating. Sure, this is a hypothetical possibility, but nevertheless, a group that bases their politics on their compassion for the unborn might do well to show the same compassion for the women involved.

The model chosen this weekend seemed more like a “pickade,” then, in terms of the public presentation of an extremely emotional debate in which there is no dialogue with the opposition.

Why not take the time spent creating that signage, and go work in a local community center helping people? Why not take an active stance that speaks louder than a piece of cardboard, and help some of the women involved rather than vilifying them?

Again, I don’t think it’s up to me to decide for people whether they want to be pro-choice or pro-life, but unless people come together to understand the factors that create the problem in the first place, I don’t think something like a Life Chain can be effective model of sparking change.

To be honest, it wasn’t all the trouble in the world or a crisis of faith or anything along those lines that drove me to take a night class in Nietzsche. It was J Lo’s butt. More specifically, it was the obsessive media attention to Jennifer Lopez and her butt, and Christina Aguilara’s video, and “must see” TV and the blurring of serious news and stupid entertainment that equates a terrorist bombing in Israel with the latest casualty of Survivor.

Because we’re all exposed to such claptrap whether we like it or not, and because the course in Nietzsche was being taught by two friends of mine at Rhodes College, and because it just seemed like the contrarian thing to do, I signed up for four sessions of “Nietzsche Squared.”

If Nietzsche was wrong and God isn’t dead, maybe He will credit it to my account that under no apparent duress I spent a few hours reading a philosopher, albeit an atheist, instead of watching Seinfeld reruns.

The class meets at Bosco’s in Overton Square, hence the name of the course, which is interesting in itself. When the tables were arranged and the 20 of us were seated, an adult education course coordinator from Rhodes explained that as part of the deal we could each order two beers or one glass of wine and one appetizer. (Sorry, the course is closed.)

Then professor Dan Cullen, who is Canadian which may account for the choice of venue, said a few introductory words about the course and old Friedrich. Soon the beers arrived, and for possibly the first time in Memphis history, a barroom bull session kicked off with an explanation by one of the participants — a very lucid and concise one, I might add — of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

We’re not really reading Nietzsche, at least not much. Be Hard!, said Nietzsche. Be Easy!, is more like it when you’re talking one night a week at Bosco’s. Professors Cullen and Steve Wirls can talk philosophy and political science with the best of ‘em, but the assignments are pretty short, there aren’t any tests or grades thank goodness, and two pints of Oktoberfest don’t exactly stimulate the old brain cells.

Unless I missed the point of the readings completely, which is possible, the general drift of Nietzsche’s thought was that the mass of humanity is intellectually flabby, foolish, lazy and going to hell in a handcart. And who can doubt it?

Like a lot of other people, after 9/11I started checking the news via my computer several times a day to see if the USA was being attacked. To get to the news, I have to go first to my Internet navigator’s start page. This is what greeted me there last week: “Working Wives and their Trophy Husbands.” “Kidnapping Tales of the Rich and Famous.” “Man Beaten by Child Mob Dies.” “Best New Cars for 2003.” “See Christina Aguilera’s ‘Dirrty’ Video.”

When and if nuclear war breaks out, I expect it to get equal billing with some celebrity’s video, a story about a child stolen by Gypsies, and an interactive poll on whether to lob one at Iraq or Saudi Arabia first.

There is more behind this than the space limitations of a computer screen. The line between news and entertainment isn’t being blurred, it’s been wiped out. Don’t tell me there’s no connection between all those television dramas about kidnappings and missing children and the hyping of real-life crime stories as major news. Chandra Levy, a missing child in California, a serial killer in Oregon, the crash of the Twin Towers, whatever’s in the 8 p.m. slot on Channel Eight — it’s all programming to AOL Time Warner, NBC/CNB, Disney, Fox, Katie, Connie, Diane, Dan, Tom, and Peter.

I can only imagine how Nietzsche, who I gather was a guy who did not suffer fools gladly, would feel about all this. Or, for that matter, about being fodder for shallow observations by journalists.

So what? Like the bathroom graffiti says, the joke’s on you, Fred: “God is dead” — Neitzsche. “Nietzsche is dead” — God. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step (Who said that? Nietzsche? General Patton? Confucius? Zig Ziglar?), and the antidote for a thousand AOL interfaces and stories about J Lo’s butt begins with a single page of Thus Spoke Zarathustra (so inscrutable that Nietzsche had to dumb it down twice, the professors said).

For three more weeks I will steadfastly light my little candle in the intellectual darkness. I will be a seeker of wisdom and truth. I will emulate the Superman. I will learn to correctly spell both Nietzsche and Ubermensch. I will be hard. At least until the Oktoberfest makes me fall asleep.