A Machine You Say?

Greetings to all who manage to end up here!

This being my first post (first blog too) I thought I'd share where I got the name for my blog, as well as some of the reasons I find myself blogging in the first place. Some people will, no doubt, understand the blog title right away, especially Science Fiction lovers. For everyone who might not recognize the reference, please consider the following quote:

“I don’t speak,” Bijaz said. “I operate a machine called language. It creaks and groans, but is mine own.”
Dune Messiah - Frank Herbert

Of all the things I've ever read, I think this single quote from Dune Messiah struck me most powerfully. I'd never contemplated before what language really was. It was how I let people know what I want, what I feel, my ideas on others' ideas and most of all it enabled me to know these things about other people as well. I'd never considered language before as simply another tool, however that is precisely what it is; Language is a tool that enables an idea to go from my head to yours, or vice versa.

It is a very powerful tool. It can persuade, entertain and provide valuable insight. It can also coerce, cause real pain/fear and it can mislead. It goes beyond basic 'body language' into details that you just can't convey in any other way. I'm aware of charades, but that example relies on being steeped in knowledge of language in the first place. One can't convey 'sounds like bed' and cause another person to arrive at 'red' without understanding what those concepts represent in the first place.

However, I think language is far too complicated to refer to as simply a 'tool'. I find 'machine' to be a much better description. It brings to my mind lots of little parts, assembled for the purpose of doing something none of the individual components could do alone.

I am no language expert and I am no professional writer. In fact, I tend to regard the structure of English (or any language) as a guideline only. If I can better represent the idea I'm trying to convey through means that might not be acceptable to 'the pros' then the guidelines go right out the window as far as I'm concerned. Phonetically spelling words to represent certain dialects or slang language, just as an example. Language is a machine, and sometimes I feel it's necessary to take the machine off the main road and see what it can do. If my idea is conveyed the way I intended it to be, then language has done its job.

I particularly enjoy reading 'Troll' posts on the internet. Here is the machine being put to use, no more no less. These have the desired effect on the people who respond to such posts. It's exactly as if the 'Troll' has a button that can make some people jump to the specified height; In some cases A LOT of people. Congratulations if you've ever responded to one of those posts. You were, whether you admit it or not, manipulated by someone who knew the right way to apply this machine we call language. By the way, they've gotten to me before too.

I think an understanding of what's really going on under the hood of language is more important than ever in this world today. Advertising and politics pounds on you, using psychological principles proven to work on people who are uneducated about what is happening, and a lot of times even on folks that know exactly what the commercial on T.V. is really doing. Repetition works, look at the way most of us learned our multiplication tables (in the U.S., I can't speak for other countries' educational methods) by rote repetition. That same idea is used liberally to get you to buy things, to get you to believe things, to get you to behave a certain way. In other words, it's leveraging language (exactly like internet 'Trolls' do) to achieve the desired result, which is often not what a person would choose on their own cognizance. And repetition is only a basic simple trick, there are others far worse.

In my opinion, this is an abominable practice. But the real horror is that in the U.S., and other places I'm sure, this is not only acceptable but encouraged behavior. You're the winner in this country, if you can talk people into doing things, talk people out of money or even talk people into believing things that wouldn't stand the light of logic and common sense.

Our politicians talk to us without really saying anything at all a lot of times. Just try it yourself. Take a transcript of a political speech, especially one where the politician is 'under fire' or fielding questions on a touchy subject. I guarantee you will find a lot places where the question that was asked is NEVER even answered. Instead, the trend is to immediately talk about something else which is often completely unrelated to the question asked or to obfuscate (great word that) the answer with language that consists of enormous words that most people just don't understand. This is done on purpose I can assure you, but please don't accept my opinion. My point here is to get you to think for yourself. I'm busy enough thinking for me thanks so much. Examine these speeches and press conferences for REAL content and decide for yourself. I know I have.

My purpose in this blog is to, hopefully, get more people to see through the bullshit and the big words and to continue evolving my personal understanding of the world around us. I made a comment in another blog (The Existentialist Cowboy to be exact) that there is a huge disease running rampant in this country today. I call it The Disease of Shiny Things. This is only my personal take on the situation (again I'm no expert) but it seems to me that most people would rather ignore the very real and horrible things going on around us and instead play with their iPhone, their new useless junk from home-shopping channels, etc etc etc. We're monkeys playing with shiny things instead of being responsible citizens, and it's really bitten us in the ass in a major way. American citizens are often mocked as being lazy and uninformed. But that's the goal here isn't it? To become very wealthy, surround yourself with more than you could ever possibly need or use and to mock (or even disregard) the ones who can't or won't do the same, while supporting government that enables you to gather even MORE for your personal pile to the detriment of other real people. To become a soulless robotic money-making machine, while sitting on the backs of the underpaid/undereducated people doing the real work that gets things done. THAT is the American Dream? Not to my mind it isn't.

I hope to operate this machine called language in a way that will, again hopefully, enable others to combat the machine that our government has become. But I can't do it for you and in fact no one can. It's a choice everyone has to make for themselves.

I think that about covers what I have to say for now, so thanks to anyone that has listened. Know that someone else out there cares about you and what's happening in the world we all share. You aren't alone.

Regards and Peace,
Tim