Commencement
Stephen Colbert made quite a stir with his White House Press Corp dinner appearance. He skewered the Emperor in Chief but good, and did it in character as the wannabe right-wing pundit. I think what he will be remembered fondly for, however, is the absolutely brilliant addition he made to the nation's lexicon: truthiness. The editorialist at the Minneapolis Star Tribune apparently agrees. This 'commencement speech' from today's edition puts the concept of truthiness in its context.
Members of the class of 2006:
A blind man couldn't miss your fidgeting impatience with the flow of words from this podium. You've had enough words, haven't you? Class after class, program after program, week after week in the years leading up this exercise.
But words matter -- most matter more than these -- and they matter because they have meaning. Of all the challenges awaiting you in the wider world, perhaps the biggest may be the campaigns to strip words of their agreed meanings and redefine them to serve some purpose, usually political.
The late Daniel Patrick Moynihan notably observed that we are all entitled to our own opinions but not to our own facts. How naive that sounds in an age when a presidential administration insists that "healthy forests" depend on accelerated logging, "clear skies" on postponed pollution control. When "war on terror" justifies snooping on ordinary Americans' phone calls. When discrimination of the most mean-spirited sort masquerades as a "defense of marriage."
The fellow in the White House is hardly alone in believing that he's entitled not only to his own opinion and his own facts, but even to his own dictionary. It's the ultimate expression of "truthiness," honored as last fall's classes were getting underway as Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society.
"Truthiness," as re-coined by Stephen Colbert, is the fact-like quality that President Bush and others attach to things they wish were true, or feel in their hearts or guts to be true, despite all evidence and reason to the contrary. It's a short step from holding such beliefs to expressing them in words that mean whatever the speaker feels or wishes them to mean, all dictionaries to the contrary.
What this means for civilization is surely trouble. What it means for you is that your days of needing to listen closely, critically and even skeptically have only begun. Here's hoping this school has taught you to do this well. [Emphasis added]
Nicely said.
Members of the class of 2006:
A blind man couldn't miss your fidgeting impatience with the flow of words from this podium. You've had enough words, haven't you? Class after class, program after program, week after week in the years leading up this exercise.
But words matter -- most matter more than these -- and they matter because they have meaning. Of all the challenges awaiting you in the wider world, perhaps the biggest may be the campaigns to strip words of their agreed meanings and redefine them to serve some purpose, usually political.
The late Daniel Patrick Moynihan notably observed that we are all entitled to our own opinions but not to our own facts. How naive that sounds in an age when a presidential administration insists that "healthy forests" depend on accelerated logging, "clear skies" on postponed pollution control. When "war on terror" justifies snooping on ordinary Americans' phone calls. When discrimination of the most mean-spirited sort masquerades as a "defense of marriage."
The fellow in the White House is hardly alone in believing that he's entitled not only to his own opinion and his own facts, but even to his own dictionary. It's the ultimate expression of "truthiness," honored as last fall's classes were getting underway as Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society.
"Truthiness," as re-coined by Stephen Colbert, is the fact-like quality that President Bush and others attach to things they wish were true, or feel in their hearts or guts to be true, despite all evidence and reason to the contrary. It's a short step from holding such beliefs to expressing them in words that mean whatever the speaker feels or wishes them to mean, all dictionaries to the contrary.
What this means for civilization is surely trouble. What it means for you is that your days of needing to listen closely, critically and even skeptically have only begun. Here's hoping this school has taught you to do this well. [Emphasis added]
Nicely said.
posted by Diane at 3:28 AM
3 Comments:
you find the best shit, dahlin;
didja get my reply of yester eve, about crashin' at the kennel? Yay, that was...
.
"Truthiness," as re-coined by Stephen Colbert, is the fact-like quality that President Bush and others attach to things they wish were true, or feel in their hearts or guts to be true, despite all evidence and reason to the contrary.
That makes it sound a lot less cynical than the definition in my mind, which is awfully close to "bullshit".
Oops, my bad. "self-serving bullshit".
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