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Toward a Language of Civil Discourse
By lynmiller-lachmann on 2011-03-27 17:31:04
I enjoy reading all the comments to the various “Waging Peace” blog posts—what blogger doesn’t like people reading and
responding?—though many of my book reviews tend not to attract a huge amount of debate. However, my post in January
on violent rhetoric, “I Cannot Remain Silent: Words, Images, and the Arizona Massacre,” attracted quite a few responses,
many from outside the Capital District.
The internet allows writing from the smallest of towns and venues to reach a worldwide audience. When I traveled in early
La
February to speak at a high school in Fairfax County, Virginia, I learned that
many of the teachers had already read my piece. The teachers were particularly interested because the high school was an
alternative program for boys who had been expelled or excluded from their home schools. While the students were
considered so disruptive or dangerous that they could not ride the school bus and had to take taxicabs to and from school,
there were no security guards or metal detectors at the trailer that housed the program. The teachers worked hard to build
trusting relationships and to help students deal with their anger and conflict resolution issues before those issues erupted into
violence. Having read my piece, the teachers asked me to talk about the topics of language and image that I examined in my
article.
The students had already read my novel Gringolandia, as well as the picture book adaptation of a short story by Antonio
Skarmeta titled The Composition, about an essay contest assigned by a military officer of an unnamed dictatorship. The
children are supposed to write on the topic, “What My Family Does at Night.” Having watched his best friend’s father taken
away by soldiers, the main character realizes the hidden motive for this contest and writes that his parents play chess even
though, in reality, they listen to the shortwave radio for uncensored news about their country.
My activity for the students was to create a billboard of something we would
see in a democracy that we wouldn’t see in a dictatorship—and a billboard of something we would see in a dictatorship that
we wouldn’t see in a democracy; Interestingly, many of the billboards were quite similar. Some advertised products, but in
the case of a “Oh Thank Heaven for 7-Eleven” sign, used a slogan that in a theocracy may be deemed offensive. There was
also one of the ubiquitous “If You See Something, Say Something,” signs found in urban subway systems in the United
States. Another sign, however, read, “Our Eyes Are Watching You: Report Traitors to 1-800-TRA-ITOR.”
What is the difference between a legitimate effort to keep citizens safe from attacks by organized terrorists or lone assassins
on the one hand, and the utilization of citizens to identify and root out potential dissidents on the other? We identified certain
code words that distinguish the two, such as traitor, enemy, vermin, parasites, and scum. We observed that the language of
dictatorship, oppression, and violence creates an us vs. them situation and treats “them” as less than human. Once you begin
to see your “enemy” as less than human—lacking the same intellect, feelings, desires, and network of relationships that you
have—it becomes easier to deprive that person of freedom, dignity, and life itself. For young people who have threatened or
committed violent acts in the past, this discussion of language and its power
was eye opening, as it gave them the tools to understand how conflicts could arise and to empathize with the other person
before things could spin out of control.
Thinking about the language we use for personal and political discourse isn’t only for teenage boys at alternative high
schools. All of us can benefit from a more critical examination of what we hear in the media and say to each other.
