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From: Jasper
Date: Thursday, August 02, 2007
Time: 09:09:20 PM
Yesterday’s experience with Mr. No reminded me of a book I read in high school called The Tyranny of Words by Stewart Chase published in 1936. Although it was enlightening on its merits, I was most intrigued by the fact that while I was reading it in 1962, I needed frequent reminders that it was not written and published the day I read it. So many things Chase wrote would happen did happen and so much he wrote about in principle that applied to “current events,” kept getting me lost in time. ………..The cast of characters changed from 1936 to 1962 but the way movers and shakers of every era used words to conjure images and emotion that influenced the way people thought didn’t change. saw it in D.W. Griffiths’ Birth of a Nation and in George Orwell’s 1984. Take away the emotion-charged words and attendant images that separate “them” from “us” and you take away the power to unite one group against another. …………This wasn’t philosophy; it was science. Words DID have a major impact on the way people thought. The way they thought influenced how they behaved. ……….. Kim Goldman once said that O.J. Simpson’s name was so abhorrent to her that she would not use it. She called him “the killer.” A dead giveaway to how most people are going to process any information about O.J. BEFORE they see or hear it is when they call him “Simpson” rather than “O.J.” while referring to Nicole Simpson in the same context as “Nicole” This isn’t like “Chase,” where the full name is established and the last name is all that’s necessary to call it up. It’s a way of putting something into the name that calls up other things. ……….Consider this excerpt from Mark Fuhrman’s Murder in Brentwood Hypothesis of a Murder, page 208): “As Nicole passes through her kitchen, she thinks of her ex-husband’s violent temper and the many times he has hit her. She pauses in the kitchen, takes a large kitchen knife out and places it on the counter, within easy reach in case Simpson gets inside. She continues toward the front door, still holding one of the take-out menus in her hand. Barefoot and wearing only a short dress, Nicole opens the door and walks onto the landing. She plans to confront Simpson and demand that he leave.” ……….. Fuhrman is not describing O.J. Simpson as a hypothetical killer; he’s describing him as a killer. There is no way that anyone using the naming convention he used CAN construct a scenario in which O.J. didn’t do it. In that context “Simpson” is synonymous with “killer.” The only logic that CAN follow is the logic of guilt. And that’s the Tyranny of words in action. –Jasper