Three Words to Banish

My friend Erin Phillips recently stated in her blog that she wished the word “closure . . . could be banned from the English language.” She is perfectly right. Unless a person is using the word closure to describe an archaic and arcane political maneuver employed to end a parliamentary debate (usually spelled “cloture”), it should have no place in the language of whole human beings. Why? Because of how the common usage and meaning of the word “closure” has evolved. As I remember it, “closure” flowed out of the lexicon of psychological counseling into mainstream usage a few decades ago as a recommendation for those unable to regain their footing in life because of some loss (death) or personal tragedy. It was directed – it seemed – at those who felt too much, those who were too sensitive. Now, it has too often come to mean: forget your troubling loss or tragedy; “move on”; or, simply and coldly, “get over it.” Original intent has been set on its head. Closure can be seen as serving the most simplistic and selfish purposes. Put the deaths of members of your family behind you – that is, forget them. Forget those events that have caused you hurt. In short, do not admit tragedy into your life. But to be human, of course, is to confront tragedy, to recognize its inevitable role in our lives. It is only through doing so that we acquire any emotional depth, any understanding of the complexities of existence, and any appreciation for the most interesting and unique characteristic of the human condition – irony.

While attending a meeting recently that dealt in part with how the City of Lethbridge might best decide the future use of a segment of its downtown “civic block,” a City official assured everyone that “all of the stakeholders” involved in this issue would be consulted. Stakeholder is another archaic word – this time from the early modern era (16^th – 17^th centuries, that is) – resurrected by capitalist ideologues over the last thirty years to supplant the term citizen. In keeping with neo-liberal economic theory (read: right-wing economic and political beliefs), “stakeholders” are those folks privileged, as John Locke argued, to have exclusive political interests and rights in society. Not only that, but Locke – to the great comfort of the modern right-wing – also encouraged “stakeholders” to seldom employ their political rights because “the least government was the best government.” Graduates of “management” schools or faculties love this word as a substitute for the messy business of democracy – which lets all of the riff-raff into making public decisions. Thus, “stakeholder” pushes aside three centuries of democratic progress, and subverts words like “citizen,” “civic-mindedness,” and “community or public interest.”

Have you been to your dentist lately? You know, the one you have come to admire and trust. Has he begun a “procedure” with the words – “this may cause a little discomfort”? For me, discomfort is finding the blanket has slipped off of me during the night. Discomfort is discovering that the wine you are drinking has more the undertones of tannins than of berries. Discomfort is that sweater that doesn’t quite fit right. An injection into your gums of novacaine or a root canal, are not “discomfort”; they are pain. As in our avoidance of tragedy (in relationship to “closure”) or our avoidance of the great-unwashed mass of citizens (in relationship to “stakeholding”), discomfort allows us to live the lie that we need no longer suffer pain. It is the soft, daily life equivalent of more profoundly disturbing words like – “collateral damage.” It is not quite Orwell’s “double-speak,” but discomfort is a word, along with its many kin, employed with a sleight-of-hand directed at a purpose that is fully and completely manipulative.

In my experience, everyone has several words that make them wince or protest. Computer language, with its catalogue of words now forced into the service of new meanings – e.g., input, download, boot – is a frequent villain among purists. And, ubiquitous phrases changed for no apparent reason – “step up to the plate” rather than the original “step up”; or “at that point in time” rather than the original “at that time” – can be just irritating to some of us (read: me). The point is: word usage usually says a great deal about the pretenses or the politics we embrace.

Nova Scotia

We are on the train leaving Nova Scotia. It has been some time since we took the train, and some of the contrasts with modern air travel are striking and ironic. During a flight, we see almost nothing, except endless sky, or a land or seascape that is hardly moving. Life is suspended; we are unengaged in almost every way. Narrow aisles, narrow seats, narrow airline management leave us feeling antisocial and trapped. Our privacy has vanished – often in the most embarrassing ways. Anxious for terra firma, our sole attention is directed toward counting off the minutes and hours before we land. The monotony, boredom, and lack of stimulation inside the hull of an airplane are akin to pre-civilized human existence, where we all huddle uncomfortably beside a weak and stinking fire waiting for the weather to clear so that we can move and hunt and eat. Aside from takeoffs and landings, air travel is visually and sensually flat and static. Flying, in short, stimulates few of our modern senses.

The length of time required to get to your destination on a long train trip discourages anxieties over time, and compels us to accept that we are on a journey. We do not have the sense, as we do in air travel, of being a mere object thrown like a dart at a destination. We tend to remain social animals, even if we engage only with our own traveling companion(s). We retain a sense of privacy and self, even a sense of human agency, that is absent in commercial passenger flight. During daylight hours, at least, our modern brains and eyes -- educated by film and television – trace scenes rapidly flashing before us with familiar acceptance. The “big screen” windows on the train -- emulating modern movies and television -- contrast tellingly with the postage-stamp portals of the airplane, through which we see only lonely space or still picture images of distant, unreal, city and landscapes.

What can be said about Nova Scotia that everyone, and all of the “literature” about Nova Scotia, has not already proclaimed? It has a charming coastline. Its landscapes and seascapes blend the wild and pastoral in perfect balance. It preserves its environment and its historic past. Its residential architecture seems placed just right for all passersby to admire and enjoy. (This is a play on June’s observation that all of the sheep in Devon, England, seem to have been positioned ideally for the perfect pastoral scene). Nova Scotia’s beauty is all packaged just right, in proportions manageable in ideal gradation to the foot or the eye or the automobile. And, if you need a change of scenery, a thirty-minute car ride pretty well guarantees any change you seek.

Regions vary extensively enough to make us want to see it all (or most of it). It has small towns with character, and with characters. Its residents seem genuine andcomfortable in their friendliness toward strangers. And, it has enough seafood to allow the formulation of meaningful gourmand comparisons regarding how every restaurant cooks and serves its chowder, scallops, and haddock.

But I am drawn to two other aspects of our holiday in Nova Scotia that return to my mind again and again. First, we are here in the fall. That is, we are in an area of North America where fall is a real and full season. I had forgotten all of the feelings that fall, with its colours and crisp air and mature beauty, evoke in me. At one time, it evoked a happy anticipation of a new school year – at least when I was very young, and then again when I was an undergraduate. As I sometimes reflect either joyfully or sadly, the return-of –the-school-year emotion no longer resonates in me. I suspect that for most persons, fall is mainly a harbinger of winter. It points toward ends, not hopeful beginnings. It is the last call at the pub.

But when I am in an area that has a real fall – not a region where summer’s plants are all ruthlessly and pre-maturely murdered in the first frosts, or where snow appears so suddenly that one feels embarrassed trying to take in their lawn furniture while still wearing shorts and sandals – I am filled with a sense of romantic languor and the satisfactory completion of things. It is the best of seasons for food. Summer menus and winter comfort foods are both appropriate, with fresh vegetables taking their rightful primary place on the table. It is a powerfully romantic season. Sentiments felt through the year are heightened and made more alert. Fall is the harvest, in many ways, of both what the land offers up and our best human empathy and emotions (what the 18^th century called – “sensibility”). It is fulfillment, not end.

Nova Scotia also reminds me of the 1950s. It must be admitted that as we retreat further and further from the 1950s, our appreciation of that long decade (really 1948 through 1962, in my historical calculation of periods) diminishes. What an ugly time the 1950s were in terms of public politics and affairs, and social relations (at least in the North America, and especially the U. S., where I grew up). Cold War hysteria, the McCarthy era with its very real assault on decent people, political conservatism, the beginnings of modern consumerism and greed, overt racism and bigotry, the suppression of more than half of the population (women) in a patriarchy more powerful than at any time before in North American history, and many more issues are rightly subject to our disdain. The 1950s as historical antecedent to the second half of the 20^th century and the early 21^st century comes across as truly irresponsible and reprehensible. So, when the right-wing seeks to return to the 1950s, we are easily repelled by the prospect.

I like to think, however, that even that 20% of Americans, and a far lower percentage of Canadians, who are right-wing, are imagining a different 1950s. The 1950s that Nova Scotia brings back to my mind is, first, one of modest expectations. Most folks in the 1950s, at least where I came from, experienced some sense of employment security, and some sense that they could cloth and educate the kids, fix the house, and drive an automobile that was reliable. I get that same sense of economic equilibrium between anxious poverty and excessive wealth in Nova Scotia. There is an underlying acceptance of things economic in this. No one expects a house with four bathrooms and a whirlpool bath or a Lexus in their driveway, and with those expectations out of mind, they can enjoy what they have. They can also live to a rhythm that is not frantic and distracting. The 1950s (at its best) and Nova Scotia today also seem to demonstrate a level of family and friendship interaction in which people were (are) more attentive to one another. While patriarchy may linger in the background (it did not in my family, even in the 1950s), people then (and today in Nova Scotia) seem to communicate better than we do now. Relationships seemed more complementary and not, as today, either formal or singular and private (i.e., relationships that are binary rather than communal). Anomie, although an emergent characteristic of the 1950s, was less pronounced than it is today. In the 1950s (and what little I have seen of Nova Scotia today), there was (is) a greater desire to live and act in a community of family and friends and acquaintances in a seamless way, rather than compartmentalize all of one’s relationships.

This is all wildly subjective and speculative on my part, of course, and that is why a blog is so much fun. This specific blog is also wistful. But I believe wistfulness is not solely negative. It incorporates a sense of what was or could be again as well. And, our capacity for wistfulness suggests that we need not think that alienation, estrangement, material greed, and consumerism are our only options.