The internet has provided a safe haven for the ‘less than popular’ social pedant. Those who enjoy the pastime can now do so without constant concern for encountering a fast moving stapler or paperweight to the face.
I cannot claim that I haven’t given in to the urge to correct another persons language or assumptions, but I have the philosophy that personal standards of correctness are for the individual to resolve. Unless I’m trying to bug someone I’ll only correct what I think necessary to correct. I believe this is the general attitude of the population in most circumstance. Pedantry, especially in private conversational language, isn’t particularly vital to progress.
Public discourse is a different matter, as is intellectual debate. In the case of intellectual debate, not pedantically applying pedantry might only slow the progress being made on the subject addressed. Public discourse is another matter. The intention and result of public discourse is the creation and application of the rule of law, or as it might be perceived by those of a less anxious nature, to develop a functional system of communal management.
In Law, pedantry is used to eliminate confusion and facilitate certainty. The fact that laws are limited to that which they verbally specify and cannot be applied with generic and sweeping translations is generally considerable as a positive example of pedantry.
In politics pedantry is a curse. It is not used for providing clarity but for blurring the lines. It is used in debate and political media to confuse and misdirect issues. Politics has a(n in)famously proud history of the proponents ability to deceive, divide(but only into two opposing masses that are far more likely to fall over each other then give up and go home before ever being of any threat to the person who both ‘represented’ them and started the fight) and conquer(yay!). Rather than fostering a progressive culture that attempts to conform to the legislations that govern it, the political arena clings to ingrained philosophies that originated as methods to avoid large scale violence or public knowledge thereof. Politics is inclined in practice, to seek methods of circumventing law or coercing the publics response. Rather than the diplomat being the arbiter between the law and the populace he is the devil’s advocate. And it all essentially comes down to an ingrained boys smoking room club culture that probably predates written history by a fair way.
The public’s avenue of redress to the deployment of “the club’s bag of dirty tricks” is, naturally, the law. Which should seem logical on so many levels including environmental. Today, the greater population of the world either harbors genuine animosity toward the political assembly, or are disillusioned with the effectiveness of democracy. It is easier to ‘evict a head’ than it is to effect change to the political culture. Ignorance toward, or even ‘opposition to the system’ is just as ingrained in the population, ergo socialism/communism.
Reform to government has provided enough to soothe the public ire for a long time, but communication on todays scale provides the public a means to become restless on a scale unprecedented. Can the ‘bag of tricks’ evolve quickly enough to keep up with the internet and twitter? Not in response time. Johnny ‘bowls ‘em short’ H is probably doing a heads of government lecture tour on how to do ‘Be Alert, Not Alarmed’.
Which pretty well brings this to finding out if there was more to this than a big fat lead into a half arsed one-liner. Are there answers that don’t go round in colorfully flaming circles?
If we’re talkin about reforming a culture then we’re talkin about talking, (‘n I don’t wanna hear ya doin “ThaT” do I, Mario?). Words convey perceptions and curry(or curdle) our cultures.
If your the average Mario feeling roughed up by the system, you can choose to remain silent or you can hope what you allow yourself to talk about doesn’t get you upside down in a dumpster. Political antics and diversionary tactics are as irritating as conversational pedantry without any general consensus of who is being spoken to, who is being corrected and who is being taken for a ride. The rule of roundabout politics is someone always gets stabbed in the back. Not that pedantry hasn’t served a positive purpose in our evolution. Attention to detail has resolved many issues and built a history that we can learn from, to say the least.
And saying the least is what this about. So I’ll say no more. Except this to ask this. What does authority mean?
