The Tyranny Of Words by Stuart Chase

Author:Stuart Chase [Chase, Stuart]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Ensayo, Ciencias sociales
Publisher: ePubLibre
Published: 1938-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

The physician's lack of success comes from living in an imaginary world. Instead of his patients, he sees the diseases described in the treatises of medicine… He does not realize sufficiently that the individual is a whole, that adaptive functions extend to all organic systems, and that anatomical divisions are artificial.

The separation of the body into parts for study has been necessary and helpful. But to apply these artificial divisions to the patient-as-a-whole is dangerous and costly both for patient and for physician. Thus many doctors have fallen into the same word traps as the older scientists, with their matter, space, and time as separate entities.

How many of our fixed horrors —of blood, spiders, mice, snakes, thunderstorms, catching cold, darkness, enclosed places, tramps— are fears of words rather than of actual things, of an abstract “spider” rather than of real spiders weaving in a real world? How far can the semantic discipline dissolve these horrors, and restore to us a calm interpretation of our environment? I broke a mild case of snake horror by first studying the characteristics of snakes, then watching them at zoos, and finally allowing a friendly kingsnake —his name was Humphrey— to crawl up under my vest and out at my neck in the presence of a roomful of people to keep me steady. That ended that. I experienced snakes instead of worrying about Snakes with a capital S.

Highbrow and lowbrow. The semantic discipline throws a curious light on what constitutes intelligence. As matters stand, there is a kind of vested interest in intellectual matters claimed by some of us who are handy with our words, especially the long ones. It probably comes down from the time when plain people could neither read nor write, and the priest was both spiritual and intellectual leader. In spite of the indefatigable labour of the modern high-speed press, awe of the printed word persists. Do we word men deserve this homage and respect?

Robert1 is a writer and lecturer dealing with social problems. In the dark of the night, turning upon his pillow, he gets an idea. He revolves it on the triangle's left side. It sounds good. Presently he is writing a book about it, buttressing it with such facts as prove amenable. Publishers are impressed. Even some reviewers bow low at such lofty abstractions, such obvious learning. Adam1 buys the book and finds it hard going. He puts it on top of the piano, hoping to study it at a later date. Clearly there must be diamonds under the thick rock. The important subject, the long words, deserve intensive drilling. Perhaps they do. More often the book may be left upon the piano, for Robert1 has not located many of his referents.

You ask, “What is fire burning?” Robert1 replies with a knowing look, “Oxidation”. You are awed into silence, although “oxidation” means no more to you than “burning”. Neither does it to him. By using a synonym with more letters, he takes his place as your intellectual superior.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.