OF DOGS AND CHICKENHAWKS

Human communication is a wonderful thing, supposedly putting us above the animals in this respect, at least in its sophistication, if not in precision. But surely this awful problem of imprecision, which often precludes us from staying on the same page with our interlocutors, must really make us envy the animals, who always seem to know what they are “talking” about, among themselves.

The ‘animals’ of this entry’s title provide two examples of such imprecision, leading us into a discussion of the Cynics (Dogs), which belongs to the next two items.

Only yesterday, in my posted piece Neoconservatism, Marxism, And Hitler, I was addressing the subject of American neoconservatism. Now, what does” neoconservatism” have to do with the American conservatives? Nothing! In fact, the neoconservative credo is contrary to all traditional conservative values, and the authentic American conservatives, like Patrick Buchanan, have been indignant about such an unwholesome linguistic misappropriation, but cannot do much about it. Why has this terribly misleading word been used in this particular association? Apparently, so that the chickenhawks, as they’ve been more properly called, could wrap themselves in a good word, in order to pass themselves off as something which they are not, in an effort to confuse and deceive.

By the same token, every authentic American liberal ought to have long been up in arms about the parallel misappropriation of his own self-identification, to signify all sorts of unsavory things. In a soon-to-be-posted entry, I am going to discuss yet another stolen and misappropriated word libertarian, but that will be another, separate story.

The examples of such confusion and deception are many, fuelled by media-encouraged, and often induced, public ignorance. The terrible misuse of the good word humanism, started by the conniving authors of the Humanist Manifesto, and thereafter carried on by the Christian Right, duped into declaring a war on that very core of Christian ethic,--- falls into the same category… Live and never learn!

…The great Epictetus had this humble request of mankind: “First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.” Obviously, that was too much to ask…

Previously, we were talking about the more recent linguistic misidentifications, resulting from mischievous intent, coupled with public ignorance. There are other kinds of misidentifications, courtesy of essentially the same culprits, plus certain inadvertent, probably innocent mistakes. But, unlike the recent ones, these have been “sanctified” by ages of historical misuse. Greek philosophy in particular suffered greatly at the hands of its early Christian detractors, who regrettably saw all philosophy as a threat to Christian theology, hence the subsequent “Dark Ages.” To them we owe our perverted understanding of “Epicureanism” as some kind of gluttonous orgy, which has nothing to do with Epicure’s philosophy, and was conceived as an especially cruel post-mortem joke toward the poor man whose severe gastric ailment prevented him from ever enjoying a meal.

A similar fate has befallen the word Cynic, whose evolution, particularly through the nineteenth century, has led to its total divergence from the original meaning. Very ironic, though, since in my treatment of Christian asceticism I describe it as Christianized Cynicism… But here I run before my horse to market. The entry on this subject will be posted in a couple of days, right after The Dogs Of Virtue, which is coming next.