tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8009551625417231557.post4653888329495922195..comments2023-08-25T05:10:41.926-04:00Comments on the death of everything: The Death of Meaning Pt. 3: Hyperbolic DestructionUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8009551625417231557.post-46952812234445148322009-01-08T23:18:00.000-05:002009-01-08T23:18:00.000-05:00By the way, Leigh, I don't mean to casually dismis...By the way, Leigh, I don't mean to casually dismiss the value of colorful (up to and including hyperbolic) language. When your life starts sounding like an episode of Masterpiece Theater, a little verbal pyrotechnics to ridicufy the situation should be welcome.Bill Zinkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10614494130260695458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8009551625417231557.post-39064434801183265842009-01-08T15:41:00.000-05:002009-01-08T15:41:00.000-05:00Well, it's not that I have a problem with hyperbol...Well, it's not that I have a problem with hyperbole per se (the title "Hyperbolic Destruction" is itself hyperbolic - and a goof on Weasel Walter/Flying Luttenbachers album titles - as is the title of this very blog, "The Death of Everything"). Rather, it is the hyperbolic acceleration of some events into linguistically determined categories of evil that is problematic.<BR/><BR/>You can go to your favorite beach after a particularly nasty fish kill and say "What a holocaust" without raising an eyebrow. "Holocaust" is a word that has a life separate of the event which animates it in our current imagination (see Alex Chilton's "Holocaust": "You're a wasted face / You're a sad-eyed lie / You're a holocaust"). If, however, you went to the beach and said "This looks like the Holocaust", that comment would at least be moderately in bad taste since you are clearly associating the fish kill with the Nazi extermination (THE Holocaust). Still, that would not necessarily be destructive to meaning unless you seriously want to measure the fish kill against the Nazi extermination.<BR/><BR/>Did Bobby Rush really believe that people were going to lynch Roland Burris? Of course not. BUT HE CLEARLY IS TRYING TO CLASSIFY THE TREATMENT OF BURRIS AS LYNCHING ON A SCALE OF EVIL. Perhaps this is not specifically hyperbolic, but it is clearly a misuse of language under any name. It is doubly problematic that both Rush and Burris are black and, as members of the subculture most visibly victimized by institutionalized lynching, de facto authorities on the evil of lynching.<BR/><BR/>There is no "agonistic wrestling" going on here, there is no gamesmanship over meaning . . . quite the opposite, in fact: Rush is trying to end the game by throwing down his trump card, lynching. And, as "authority", he has the right (in the eyes of society) to throw it. Whenever a "trump card" is thrown in this manner (i.e., when language is used to create the irreducible), meaning is gone. <BR/><BR/>On the flipside, I think it's clear that I approve of the Thomas term "high-tech lynching", which is certainly hyperbolic . . . but, since it is not lynching simple, then it leaves itself open for investigation in a way that simple lynching does not. Too bad he equivocates it back to actual lynching later in the quote.<BR/><BR/>And, as far as the play of language, speech without commitment is a waste of oxygen. That doesn't eliminate hyperbole, just stupid, reckless language. Hunter Thompson has a special room in hell for what he hath wrought.Bill Zinkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10614494130260695458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8009551625417231557.post-22414608202288724222009-01-07T21:54:00.000-05:002009-01-07T21:54:00.000-05:00I disagree with you on this one, not that you're t...I disagree with you on this one, not that you're taking language too seriously (language is serious business and serious play), but regarding your concern over hyperbolic claims of evil as precipitating the death of meaning. Maybe it's just personal taste, but I've always enjoyed hyperbolic discourse. I see all of this as vital play and agonistic wrestling (not that I agree with the men that you critique here), within which dramatic moves are welcome but not sufficient--of course careful analysis is also crucial. But as someone who spends large quatities of time in social and professional settings where supposedly dispassionate rational discourse and disembodied cerebral accounts are the defining currency, a little hyperbole and discursive drama and chaos keep things interesting, as long as you understand the rules of the game.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com