She Treads Softly: Word Wars

Saturday, November 27, 2021

Word Wars

Word Wars: How Attack on Meaning Robs You of Free Speech by Morgan Moore
11/3/21: 85 pages
Part of the Life and Liberty Series

Word Wars: How Attack on Meaning Robs You of Free Speech by Morgan Moore is a very highly recommended short booklet on the freedom of speech.

Moore makes the clear and compelling case that freedom of speech and thought is essential for democracy and ensures a life of liberty. It is up to all of us to protect speak up and protect our rights. A very small segment of our society is currently challenging the freedom of speech for everyone. It is obvious at work and in everyday life. We need to lose the idea that a small elite group can be the thought police for everyone believing their moral stance is superior, while the majority of people are simply working, caring for their families and getting through the day.

I appreciated the fact that Moore pointed out negotiating meaning is our human thing and it is what we have always done together as a society until now. The current postmodern fear-infatuated culture, prone to safetyism and emotional reasoning, has taken control. This culture doesn't like debate or discussion, displays bureaucratic controlism, and equates emotional discomfort with actual danger. Also covered is the loss of integrity and honesty in the mainstream media, and he brings up the question I continually ask, which is why my intrinsic biological identity now has to be erased.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.