RE: Idiocracy of compelling speech
This is so good. It speaks about how words and labels shape our perception and give us the illusion that we understand the world. But in many ways it is all just an illusion. When we start out our lives the world is mysterious to us. So we go around and create words and begin to label everything that we encounter. After using the labels and words for a while things become familiar and no longer mysterious. At that point we believe that we "know" and understand the world. But its a bit of a circular argument. Can we really know and understand a mystery that we ourselves provided the explanation to?
Language then seems to simply be a process of making everything familiar.
Nice post. Really got me thinking. I'll have to google that image to see what its all about.
For those who are lazy to Google it:
This is a man who took a rusty gun to start the resistance.
After several months of fighting, he was captured and given to Gestapo.
They were beating him since autumn, until the spring next year.
It was ordered to publically execute him, but he was so broken, that the Gestapo decided to wait for him to recover.
On the day of execution, he shouted to the crowd: "What? What are you looking at, find your rusty guns or knives and fight the bastards! What are you waiting for, to shoot us one by one?"
On this photo, the rope is already around his neck and he was escorted by the collaborationists from his own nation (those two on the right). When the guard came close to him he kicked him in the head as the very last act of fighting. That movement made the bench falling down and that was the end.
Compare the bravery of this MAN with your bravery, dear scared reader from 2018, not brave enough to even speak, or otherwise, you will (maybe) be fined or (maybe) lose your job, imaginary benefit or whatever you have.
I know, I know, words are more frightening than MG-42, and 6 months of beating by the Gestapo is nothing in the comparison to some crazy HR person from some commission.