Last night I watched a bit of the rerun of Secreatry Rice’s testimony in the Senate. I was particularly struck by her response to a question about why the administration has decided to not pursue negotiations with Iran and Syria as was advised by the ISG. She simply assumed an understanding of their position and said there was no point in talking to them. After all, they are the enemy and we have nothing to gain by giving them the opportunity to make demands that we have already decided are unacceptable.
This response got me thinking about the paradigm that is being used when talking about finding solutions to the situation in Iraq. The only way I can grasp that paradigm or an alternative is to think about the words we use.
So I decided to try and make a list of words I want to hear a lot less and those I would like to hear more often. Here’s what I came up with:
Words I’d like to hear less often
Enemy
Victory
Defeat
Evil
Forces
Troops
Terrorists
Surge
Weapons
Threat
Violence
Insurgents
Secure and hold
Unilateral
Win/Loose
Command
Extremist
Attack
Destroy
Border
Detainee
Rules of engagement
Homeland
Targets
Invade
Words I’d like to hear more often
Civility
Diplomacy
Compromise
Allies
Listen
Hear
Learn
Negotiate
Cooperation
Understand
Empower
Enhance
Humanity
Humanitarian
Support
Resources
Unite
Restore
Opportunity
Wisdom
Forgive
People
Humility
Is there some reason why words like this are unacceptable when talking about finding solutions to the situation in Iraq? If so, call me naive in continuing to “have a dream.”
I suspect that the reason its not seen as acceptable is that anyone using the words I’d like to hear more often would quickly be labelled a “girly man” and loose his/her “Alpha Male” credentials.
Anyway, there’s what I want to hear. Have any additions?
Manicheans divided the world into good and evil forces. To them, there were divine and demonic forces, and humans in between. The word has come to signify dividing the world into perfect good and perfect evil, with nothing in between and no possible understanding between the parts.
An alternative to manicheism is Spinozism which doesn’t see light and dark as two opposed forces but rather sees dark as absence of light, ignorance as absence of knowledge etc. From this point of view, there is something positive to everything (even to Hussein, Hitler, Bin Laden etc) and the idea is not to destroy something negative (because nothing negative exists) but rather to foster what is positive.
Thank you. That sums up wonderfully what I was trying to say.
Great diary, I feel the same way, I can’t stand hearing these phrases anymore, and I get driven mad by Rice in particular. I probably have words and phrases to add, but it’s too cold in the room I’m in to continue, so perhaps tomorrow. Brrrr,
Aren’t you in Southern California Diane? What’s up with being cold, and where’s your heat?
I’ll look forward to some additions tomorrow. I’d especially love to add to the list of things we want to hear more often. That list was a little more difficult to make because that kind of conversation is not taking place about Iraq.
List 1:
win/win
sustainable
peace
trust (earning of)
moral authority
respect
altruism
List 2:
Patriotism: The folly of believing one’s country is the best because one was born in it… a very famous southern writer said taht, his name escapes me right now…
I just LOVE all of these. But I can’t believe I left respect off my list. I guess it was late when I did this last night. And YES, patriotism is a word I would like to hear less about, especially in this context.
Augmentation, add that to the don’t want to hear word.
Yes I am in southern ca. but we are having a real cold spell and my electric heater just cannot get it warm enough when temps. go down to under 40 as it did last night.
Yes, I’ll admit it – class of ’67.
Groovy and Right On!!
I’d love to hear the word “collaborate”, meaning working together, from the same side of the table, to solve mutual problems. I yearn to hear the words tolerance and acceptance (of differences). I dream of the day when I might hear the word “peace” used as often as I hear the word “war” and when the words “we and ours” are heard as much as “your’s and mine.”
I like “collaborate”. Can I throw in “empathy”, which we need to have to be able to understand and accept others’ differences?
Yes, yes, yes. Doesn’t it just demonstrate how far down the rabbit hole we’ve gone that it seems so far-fetched that we’d hear words like collaborate and empathy when discussing solutions in Iraq?
tolerance
embrace
inclusive
inquisitive
commonality
together
teamwork
integrity
accountability
fairness
justice
realism
…
…
…
Great additions!! Gotta love the “i” words:
inclusive
inquisitive
integrity
Just imagine where we would be going if those words were part of the conversation.
Well at least we seem to have gotten rid of the phrase ‘stay the course’ only to have it replaced by the phrase ‘ a new way forward’..same idea different day.
As for words I’d like never ever to hear again I think on the top of my list might be ‘Islamofacist’-a sorry ass excuse for a word only designed as shorthand to strike fear in your heart and imagine dirty hordes of brown people who want to kill you.
I’d like to see the phrase ‘culture of corruption’ give way to having people realize the ‘culture of diversity’ can be wonderful for everyone.