MikeKardec
One Too Many
- Messages
- 1,157
- Location
- Los Angeles
I'm much more comfortable in the company of people who at least acknowledge their own failings. These days, we're witnessing many a racist who would tell you (and himself) that there isn't a hint of racism in him.
... and many people who betray through hypersensitivity where their minds go when their buttons are pushed. The question is, in those situations, who is the racist?
I believe that we will be better off as a society being happy with a 99%ish solution.
We have to accept a wide range of people and behavior rather than just looking at the surface that may justify a feel good vacation into outrage.
I may have said the following in another post, I know I wrote it somewhere not long ago. I have a friend, a man just barely old enough to be the father of someone my age, who was a State Dept Engineer with USAID and their contractors for nearly 50 years. He worked side by side with his construction crews all over the world, Africa, South America, South East Asia and Afghanistan. He slept in the same tents, ate the same food and was treated by the same doctors. His work probably saved and improved more lives in the third world than many charitable NGOs. Yet he spoke of the differences between people in the language of Southern California in the 1950s, identifying anyone and everyone by their race or ethnicity. Not using derogatory slang but still doing it in a way that would raise the hair of any younger person of heightened sensitivity.
I have spent some time with him in the field and noticed almost right away that his potentially controversial way of talking was also a reflection of many of the people he worked with in their native lands, his "clients" were VERY clear about the distinctions, racial or otherwise, between different tribes, nationalities or just variations of skin color. So it wasn't just an early 20th century American way of speaking it was something that existed in many places where difference have to be taken into account or the local culture makes note of them whether we (in all our enlightened glory) like it or not. If he's a "racist" as many on today's college campuses might call him because of the way he uses language I suspect the world may need more like him rather than less. I think his actions speak louder than his words.
Scrounging around I found another link on historical English dialect -- http://vaviper.blogspot.com/2017/03/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-go-and.html
I'm still not sure using fiction as a reference is all that accurate, different eras have had specific "entertainment styles" that existed mostly in fiction, theater or film and are not necessarily representative of the culture at large. Hollywood dialog in the Golden Era being one, the David Mamet/Sandy Meisner (an influential acting coach) repetition and double back style in the 1980s and '90s for another. I'm dead certain that many 19th century literary styles did not reflect actual speech at the time except when the speaker decided to take on a presentational "literary" affect. We see it today with the rise academic lingo, which at one time mostly existed in written form, in political and grievance speech. Does it exist as spoken language? Yep, but only in certain, specific, situations.
For what it's worth, a wonderful hoax from years ago -- http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/justin-cash/computer-arts_b_3083055.html and a more complete presentation of the issue -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism_Generator and the generator itself -- http://herbert.the-little-red-haired-girl.org/en/dada/