Words

You are a carpenter, and you are banging away with your trusty hammer. The hammer is your friend, your ally. Without that hammer, you could not do your job. You could not be a carpenter. You would be helpless.

And then someone taps you on your shoulder and you turn around. And it’s Mister Rogers.

“Hello, Mister Rogers!” you say. “What are you doing here?”

He points and says, in that polite way he has, “That hammer you have there…you know that can be used as a weapon, don’t you?”

You look at the hammer. “This? This isn’t a weapon. It’s my primary tool.”

“But it’s a weapon just the same. You can hit someone by accident with it if you aren’t paying attention. Or you can break someone’s skull open with it deliberately.”

You look at the hammer. “Yeah? So? What’s your point?”

“You have to take responsibility for that, you know. You must only use that weapon for nice, polite, constructive purposes. You have to do only nice things with it?” He smiles. “Okay? So we can all be neighbors? Will you be careful with that hammer?”

“Yeah, sure. Fine. It can be used as a weapon, okay? I’ll be careful.”

“That’s good,” smiles Mister Rogers. “We all have to be polite to each other. No matter what we’re actually thinking, we should be nice, and say nice things, and not offend anyone by hitting them with hammers. Okay?”

And you realize the truth of Mister Rogers’ words, because at the moment you’re contemplating what it would be like to crush his skull with your hammer. But that wouldn’t be nice. Not at all…

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Bet you think I’m going to beat up on the lady in Philadelphia who wants everyone to be nice to each other, huh? Nah. After all, all she’s doing is stating the obvious about how words can cut both ways, but adding to it a “Miss Manners” wounded air. Too easy.

No, no, I’m going after Don and Maggie.

In the pages of “Oh So,” Daggie states that they’re amazed at the “large number of professionals…who denigrate the power of words…while simultaneously boasting of their power and influence. You cannot have it both ways.”

Silly Don! Silly Maggie! Of course you can. Short answer and long answer coming up:

Long answer first.

Let us contemplate the loaded revolver. A marvelous instrument of destruction. Something that, unlike a hammer…or words…has one use and one use only: To kill. Oh, you can say that it’s also used to practice marksmanship. But what is marksmanship except honing your ability to hit your target and facilitate killing? (Great, now I just hacked off the NRA. The lady in Philly may not have to worry about me much longer at that.)

If Murray takes a loaded revolver, aims it at Solly’s heart and squeezes the trigger, the bullet will strike Solly, penetrate Solly’s heart, and kill him. It doesn’t matter if Solly is in favor of gun control. It doesn’t matter if Solly doesn’t believe he will die. It doesn’t matter if Solly thinks the gun is not loaded. In short, it doesn’t matter how receptive Solly is to the entire concept of being shot and killed–if Murray shoots and kills him, Solly is shot and dead.

Loaded guns have that power. It is incontrovertible. It cannot be argued with or debated. They always, always have the power to kill or wound.

Words don’t.

Because words are tools–friends, as I called them in one column, although, y’know, there’s all kinds of friends–and what they are tools of is communication. Just as a hammer depends on the skill of the carpenter, so too do words depend upon the skill of the writer (or speaker) to use in conveying ideas. But just as important–even more important–is the willingness of the people who are receiving those ideas to believe, understand, and contemplate the ideas being conveyed.

That is where both the power and impotence of words come into play, and why saying that they can both accomplish great things and are lightweight is not at all contradictory. Because if the communicator and the audience do not connect, then the words have no power.

When you look at great moments in history that are connected with famous words or speeches, you cannot simply say, “Oh, these words and these words alone caused it to happen.” You cannot separate the societal forces that caused those words to be spoken or written from the actual speaking or writing of them.

When words or speeches spurred on great achievements, it was to some degree because there was an audience who was ready and willing to listen to what the communicator had to say. Abraham Lincoln could credit Harriet Beecher Stowe all he wanted, but that ignores the fact that if the president of the United States had been vehemently pro-slavery, matters might not have proceeded as they did and Stowe might have ended up strung up somewhere. (See, there’s another one–a rope. It’s your friend if you’re hanging from a mountain, but it can also be used against you if you’re hanging from your neck…ahhh, skip it.)

How many times have writers and philosophers and artists been considered “ahead of their time?” That’s because the audience wasn’t there for them, despite all the skill those communicators may have had. It’s “only make-believe” if the audience will not take it as anything more than that.

For that matter, what about scientists or men of medicine who made great and wonderful discoveries–and all their words couldn’t sway their contemporaries. Hëll, some of them were burned as heretics. Talk about your tough audiences.

Words, in and of themselves, mean absolutely nothing. They have no power. Period. What matters is who says them, how they’re said, and who they’re said to. (Am I splitting hairs here? Of course I am.)

For example: “I hate you.”

Very strong statement? Powerful statement? Nonsense. Means nothing. Three impotent words strung together. It’s the context that’s important.

Two people getting divorced, sitting across a table. One of the torn couple, with burning in his/her eyes, says “I hate you!” It speaks volumes. It speaks of a love gone sour, of two people who once shared their bodies unable now to even share a room. It has meaning, punch, pathos. Tragedy.

My daughter has just been told that she is to clean her room or there will be no television. She spins and, with her full fury, howls, “I hate you, daddy!” I sigh. Yeah, right. Now go clean your room. There is no punch or pathos or tragedy, and the only meaning it has is that the kid is angry. And that, too, is evaporated a half-hour later when dad comes up stairs with freshly baked brownies.

The words mean everything. The words mean nothing.

Let’s be more vicious with the following words: “Boy, you’re a butt-ugly ņìggër.”

I say it to a large black gentleman in the streets of Harlem. Chances are I’m going to be leaving with a few less teeth–if I’m ever seen again, that is.

Eddie Murphy says it to Richard Pryor, who responds, “You’re not looking so hot yourself.” No punches exchanged. No shots fired. Teeth all intact.

The words mean everything. The words mean nothing.

Words, words, words. You’ll say things that are crystal clear to you and people just won’t get it. When someone says, “It’s not being politically correct to say that you don’t want labels on anything or anyone,” and you respond, “But that is the essence of politically correct–to have everything mean the same, to have nothing with any distinct meaning, to bland out society and stir it into one gelatinous mass of nothingness. And the guy will respond to you, “No it isn’t,” and you say, “Yes it is,” and suddenly it’s like having an argument with John Cleese.

Even intent doesn’t matter, because people will make of words what they will. I’m reminded of when Mel Brooks caught flack from an organization on behalf of sufferers from Downs Syndrome, stating that the lummox character of “Mongo” in Blazing Saddles was clearly named that to make fun of so-called “Mongoloid idiots.” An appalled Brooks explained that the character was named Mongo so that another character, upon hearing of the brute’s arrival, could shout in alarm, “Mongo! Santa Maria!”, thereby making a joking reference to the noted musician with that name. Brooks made clear that no such insult was intended–but I’ll guarantee there are still people who take offense for that very reason.

Or there’s the column I wrote some time back stating that I felt that the Vietnam War had had a developmental effect on Star Trek, discussing the humor content of original Trek versus Next Generation, and the impact humor had had on my own Trek work. So what did I hear from my sources at Paramount? That Gene Roddenberry was upset because “Peter David was saying he could write Star Trek better than Gene.” I was stunned. I pulled out the column to double-check, and no. Gene hadn’t been mentioned anywhere. Nor had my relative writing prowess, for good or ill, been discussed. But someone, somewhere, had interpreted my piece to be some sort of self-aggrandizement at the expense of Trek’s creator, and relayed word back to Gene of that.

Be nice to each other, Mister Rogers? Don’t wound people, Miss Manners? How about a couple of years back when that major earthquake hit San Francisco? I did a posting on a computer board asking whether regular board participants in the Bay area were all right. I was concerned. I was worried. And as a sign- off, I quoted the William Thomas Cummings remark about “There are no atheists in the foxholes”–referring to the idea that, in times of stress, even skeptics–myself not excluded–might be inclined to offer up a prayer of hope on the chance that…if there is a higher power…then He might listen and help out.

That was polite, right? That was using words out of concern and consideration, correct? Who could fault me for that, right?

Well, there were a couple of people in San Francisco who replied to my message of concern by posting a series of vitriolic responses saying, in essence, how dare I challenge their right to be atheists and who did I think I was, and what a cretin I was, etc., etc. Like I cared that they were atheists.

See? Sure, I might offend someone when I do satire. On the other hand, people can get hacked off at me when I try to offer genuine words of concern. Hëll, the very existence of this column offends some people.

So you see, how can anything as erratic and unreliable as words have any power? They can’t. Unless, of course, you’re lucky enough to hit the right audience in the right way, and get their minds thinking along the right track to lead to something…well…right. Then words can have power.

So you can have it both ways.

That’s the long answer.

The short answer is from words–of course–written by Walt Whitman in Song of Myself:

“Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”

And you know what I bet? I bet that somewhere, some fat guy is going to read that and say, “Ah hah! He’s saying that people who are large always contradict themselves! How insensitive to the difficulties of the fat–sorry, Sustenance Challenged–he is!”

Mister Rogers wouldn’t approve.

Peter David, writer of stuff, has it on reliable authority that the eight people who voted in the CBG poll stating that this column was their least favorite part of the paper, were the same eight hard-line Communists who endeavored to overthrow Gorbachev. Commie pinko creeps…got what they deserved, I say. Shows you what happens when you mess with me…