From the files: a Nation article I had kept, on GW Bush’s use of language. He creates dependency by scaring people and painting himself as the savior, so people will do as he says. “Empty language” is one term the article uses; another is “personalization,” which he uses instead of argumentation. The third is “negative framework” or a pessimistic image of the world. People learn that they have no control over their environments, i.e., they learn to be helpless. They then cannot listen to reason, because despair fills their hearts.
I can use it now if I am to ever finish my languishing magazine essay on language and the entrepreneurial university. But I kept it because it explained some of the discourse of Reeducation, which as we know, caused me to give up on life. I had taken notes:
1/ The conflict between head and heart is historically situated, there doesn’t have to be such a conflict. Being able to keep your head does not mean you do not have a heart or are repressing your heart, as Reeducation insists you are.
2/ Reason is not rationalization, which Reeducation claims it is.
3/ Feelings in Reeducation are the only valid thing, but they must be conformist ones. I, for example, am to “become honest” and drop my ambitious nature, which must be a “false self.”
4/ The idea (from Reeducation) of people who “carry the truth.” They are loved or hated, so if you have a strong reaction to someone they must carry [some kind of] truth. (At the time I thought the logic of this statement was manipulative. And I’ll note that I spent so much time and energy trying to understand Reeducation, it is a true shame.)
5/ I was newer here then than I am now. A colleague with vision said the place was anti-growth and anti- women with the PhD. Truer words were never spoken. This was 21 years ago and I do not give myself nearly enough credit for surviving the atmosphere, despite having spent most of the time just trying to keep my head above water. Almost literally.
6/ I noted that the university liked to say “you/we can’t,” “it’s impossible,” and “they will never permit.” Reeducation, meanwhile, said “you must admit you have no power” and “you must relinquish control.” AS IF one were an abusive person, or as if one were someone who did not deserve some control over their day and some sort of power in one’s own life.
7. So, the article on Bush and language interested me at the time. I am slightly more sophisticated now in my understanding of things, yet still the same.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 