Sunday, 12 July 2009

• Currently The World's Great Scriptures (An Anthology of the Sacred Books of the Ten Principal Religions) By Lewis Browne see related

  So to speak

  We don't often stop to think about the words we use.  What we say to ourselves as well as those we speak with.  The real meanings and the nuances of language are seldom utilized to convey really exact meanings.  Not like  William Shakespeare who used English so perfectly that most of us have to stop and process what he is saying only to marvel at the how distinctly he has rendered his thought.  We can still find middle ground and we have to practice. I read something today in the preface to a book called "The great scriptures of the world"   In the forward the words of Lewis Browne speak clearly and precisely one of the greatest problems facing man in the modern world.

  
  "Bigotry is not born of ignorance, which is simply non-knowledge.  It is a product of stupidity, which is wrong knowledge.  The minds of bigots are worse than the bare truth; they are full of falsehood.  And that is why they are so grave a menace: being polluted they cannot help but spread disease."   He's comparing bigoted people rubbing shoulder to shoulder in this smaller modern world to a refuge camp with cholera.   The false but believed to be truth of the bigot spreads the disease.  So as a parent, as a friend as a responsible human being better would it not be that we all question ourselves before we instruct others?

  
  'So to speak' is an expression that gets used to mean this is what I'm saying or believing, but it is approximate, and I can't vouch for the truth of it.  It should also be recognized to mean "Danger this might lead to foolishness or even worse forms of thought".   With the tenuous grasp that the average American has of the language of the land teachers and parents should all try to get across the point to  youngsters coming up that speech and thought are only abstractions, they don't really mean anything absolutely.  Just a little thought can infect a mind to the point that the mind is a failure, diseased and incapable of perceiving reality even with the limited clarity that we all hope to achieve.  Like becoming a bigot.  Look before you leap.  Learn before you speak.  And, take some pride in how you choose what it is your saying so that you can say to yourself, "that is what I mean, truly".

  
  

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