{"id":4934,"date":"2023-03-31T21:00:28","date_gmt":"2023-03-31T21:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/?p=4934"},"modified":"2024-07-21T14:34:26","modified_gmt":"2024-07-21T14:34:26","slug":"flossing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/2023\/03\/31\/flossing\/","title":{"rendered":"Flossing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Once again, I planned to write on other things, and I did. It\u2019s just that I never finished those essays and ended up writing something else, which is this. Anyway, so I ended up focusing on what Deborah Cameron refers to as verbal hygiene<\/em> in her book that carries that as its name, \u2018Verbal Hygiene\u2019. Now, we might also call that semiotic hygiene<\/em>, if we want to avoid thinking only terms of language and expand that notion to other semiotic modes beside language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve mentioned her book in the past, but it was not picking up her book again that made me deal with this topic again. It was actually a couple of stories I read in the news. Right, to give this a bit of context, there were these news a couple of days ago of how a publisher has opted to publish new editions Agatha Christie\u2019s books. Note how these are considered to be new editions, not just new print runs. What\u2019s new about these editions then? Well, in short, they\u2019ve been sanitized<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, before I get on with this, I\u2019ll let Cameron do the talking. The point here is that language matters or, as she (xix) puts it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cLanguage is, notoriously, something which engenders strong feelings[.]\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In some cases you have some authority, like the Acad\u00e9mie fran\u00e7aise, telling you what\u2019s what, you pleb. We just can\u2019t have people do whatever they please with language, now can we? In Finland, there\u2019s the Institute for the Language of Finland, which doesn\u2019t really function the same way, but, growing up, I do remember it being referred to as the language authority concerning Finnish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It might just have been the education system, or some teachers, but, in my experience, in school people took Finnish very, very seriously. Oh, and did I hate that or what? It was dreadful. I felt that I already knew what\u2019s what, having no trouble expressing myself in speech, but, according to the red pens, not so in writing. Nothing was worse to teachers than an Anglicism or a Sweticism, i.e., something that has its origins in English or Swedish. Language had to be pure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Finnish language board of the institute, consisting of a rotating lineup of people, mainly academics, commented this in the early 1990s, right before first grade. Anyway, the board had been queried by a teacher what to think of Sweticisms and the reply was published in 1992. In summary, the board acknowledges that dealing with Anglicisms and Sweticisms is not a yes or no matter, but rather becomes an issue only when it blurs the meaning:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cOne should steer clear of foreign influences that blur the expression. Getting the message across is often prevented by slavish word for word translated expressions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Okay, fair enough, the members of the board have a point. But, following that, which is my translation of it, by the way, they add that instead of simply saying no in such cases, one should provide alternatives. Again, that makes sense, inasmuch as we are concerned with clarity, as emphasized by them. But they also add to that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cOne should also take linguistic pride, to learn to appreciate one\u2019s own expressions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

So, they are saying that not all influences are bad, but one should nonetheless resist them. I\u2019m just not buying this, no matter if it is in the Finnish original, or my translation of it. If you ask me, language just doesn\u2019t work this way. This is more about what\u2019s considered \u2018correct\u2019, which the key thing about verbal hygiene, and less about understanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have plenty of loanwords, which are isolates, yet we have little trouble understanding them. For example, people refer to a drone as a \u2018drone\u2019 in Finnish and people aren\u2019t left puzzled. They provide examples, such as the near word for word translation of \u2018vet\u00e4\u00e4 johtop\u00e4\u00e4t\u00f6s\u2019 as \u2018to draw a conclusion\u2019, and indicate that such expressions should be replaced with existing Finnish expressions, such as \u2018tehd\u00e4 johtop\u00e4\u00e4t\u00f6s\u2019, which could be translated as \u2018to conclude from\u2019. If someone uses the former expression, instead of the latter, I have no trouble understanding it. I get it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why aren\u2019t people puzzled by such? Why is it not a problem? Well, because what matters is that something makes sense<\/em>. Valentin Volo\u0161inov (85) explains this well in \u2018Marxism and the Philosophy of Language\u2019:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201c[F]rom whichever aspect we consider it, expression-utterance is determined by the actual conditions of the given utterance\u2014above all, by its immediate social situation<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Or, to put that even more concisely, as he (79) puts it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThe meaning of a word is determined entirely by its context.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Simply put, the text<\/em>, whatever it is that we are dealing with, be it spoken or written, or expressed in some other mode, let\u2019s say dance, is all about the context<\/em>. That\u2019s exactly why we have little trouble understanding what a drone is, even when we have no knowledge of the meaning of that word (OED, s.v. \u201cdrone\u201d, n.1<\/sup>), in any of its senses listed in dictionaries, such as the Oxford English Dictionary, be that about insects, namely bees, people who are dull or otherwise idle, or the most likely candidate, robot planes in military jargon, most likely piggy backing on the dullness of it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cA remotely piloted or autonomous unmanned aircraft, typically used for military reconnaissance or air strikes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Or, more broadly speaking (OED, s.v. \u201cdrone\u201d, n.1<\/sup>):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cA remote-controlled or autonomous vehicle or robotic device which operates in an environment or setting too dangerous or difficult for a human operator to work in[.]\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The concern expressed by the Finnish language board in the early 1990s is just misguided. If you have trouble understanding something, you can always express the same thing in different words, because like the word, phrase, sentence, or, more broadly speaking utterance<\/em> or expression<\/em>, is determined by its context<\/em>, in its entirety, as Volo\u0161inov (79, 85) points out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, he adds a further distinction between meaning<\/em> and theme<\/em>, which for him (101) are tied to one another, the former being the about how we come implement the latter:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThe most accurate way of formulating the interrelationship between them and meaning is in the following terms. Theme is the upper<\/em>, actual limit of linguistic significance<\/em>; in essence, only theme means something definite. Meaning is the lower limit<\/em> of linguistic significance. Meaning, in essence, means nothing; it only possesses potentiality\u2014the possibility of having a meaning withing a concrete theme.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I particularly like the way he (101) explains this as a matter of limits. There\u2019s the upper limit, which is the actual, concrete limit that appears in any context<\/em>. This is why, for him (79, 85) meaning (without invoking this distinction) is all about the context. Language appears in its actuality, concretely, when someone says or writes something. This is why the lower limit is nothing in itself, before it is actualized. That said, you do need the lower limit, because even the upper limit is, indeed, a limit. If you are not within some limits, it\u2019s going to come across as nonsensical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To put that in another way, the upper limit is about actual<\/em> meaning, how something is understood. In contrast, the lower limit is about virtual<\/em> meaning, how something could be understood in certain potential contexts that we envisage. There could, of course, be other potential contexts. We simply don\u2019t envisage them. The point about that is that it stays open ended, instead of there being these stock contexts, a fixed number of them, that we have access to, at all times, and simply apply in actual contexts. That might not be how he (101) explains it, but it\u2019s how I would put it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, I think there are better, easier to grasp terms for those limits, so I\u2019ll let him (101) continue:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cInvestigation of the meaning of one or another linguistic element can proceed, in terms of our definition, in one of two directions: either in the direction of the upper limit, toward theme, in which case it would be investigation of the contextual meaning of a given word within the conditions of a concrete utterance; or investigation can aim toward the lower limit, the limit of meaning, in which case it would be investigation of the meaning of a word in the system of language or, in other words, investigation of a dictionary word.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

To simplify that, with terms that you may have come across, even if you haven\u2019t studied linguistics, I\u2019d call the upper limit of understanding the contextual meaning<\/em> or the pragmatic meaning<\/em> and the lower limit of understanding the textual meaning<\/em> or the semantic meaning<\/em>. What\u2019s cool about this distinction, how he (101-102) is able to conceive this, how we make sense of the world, is that he is having his cake and eating it at the same time as, in actuality, it\u2019s all about the context<\/em>, there and then, but it is, at the same time, all tied to our prior experience of the world, so that it\u2019s individual and collective at all times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To exemplify this, how the upper limit is the actual or concrete limit of understanding and how the lower limit is the potential or abstract limit of understanding, he (102) warns us not to juxtapose them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201c[D]iscriminations as those between a word\u2019s usual<\/em> and occasional<\/em> meanings, between its central and lateral meanings, between its denotation and connotation, etc. are fundamentally unsatisfactory.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Why? Well, because if the lower limit, the semantic side of it, if you will, is all about potential, which is open ended, so that its certainly bounded, but we simply do not know them, for sure, and they keep shifting, inasmuch as they do, of course, we simply have an indefinite number of meanings that could be actualized. None of them are more central than others. I disagree with him on this a bit though. I\u2019d say that some meanings are more usual or more central than others, not in themselves, but because they are actualized more often others, because contexts are more frequent than others. I think he agrees with me on that, considering that he (102) goes on to add that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThe basic tendency underlying all such discriminations\u2014the tendency to ascribe greater value to the central, usual aspect of meaning, presupposing that that aspect really does exist and is stable\u2014is completely fallacious.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Pay attention to how he (102) emphasizes that we cannot give primacy to any of the potential meanings, just because we are in the habit of thinking that they some meaning is the<\/em> meaning, denotation<\/em>, whereas other meanings are not, being merely connotations<\/em>. He (102) also rejects for another reason:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cMoreover, it would leave theme unaccounted for, since theme, of course, can by no means be reduced to the status of the occasional or lateral meaning of words.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I reckon here he (102) objects to any fixed understanding, because understanding is, for him, a matter of actualizing<\/em> the virtual<\/em>, which could be anything, really. In other words, you can\u2019t hold on to an idea that some unexpected understanding is, in itself, wrong. It might be unlikely, sure, but even that depends on the context<\/em>. That\u2019s actually the problem expectations. We might think that something should be understood in a certain way, in a certain imagined context, but it might not be the case in the actual context that we find ourselves in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He (102) helps us to understand this by emphasizing that understanding is dialogic<\/em>. In other words, words are always by other<\/em> words, not the same<\/em> words. As he (102) points out, we only match the words of other with the, supposedly, same words, when we are trying to learn a language, when are unable to understand. In his (102) words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cAny genuine kind of understanding will be active and will constitute the germ of a response.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

To paraphrase, whatever we utter is bound to be countered with other words that will be uttered by someone else, in response to what we\u2019ve uttered. That applies to everyone, at any given time, so whatever we utter is therefore based on whatever has been uttered before, in response to it, in anticipation of what someone else will utter in response to it. That\u2019s language for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to Cameron (xix), who points out that while there aren\u2019t that many language authorities who seek to regulate what\u2019s what, we have a lot of people who are keen of doing that themselves, telling others what\u2019s what:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201c[T]here is no shortage of enthusiasts who take a proprietory interest in it, dedicating some portion of their leisure time to the collection of unusual linguistic specimens, tracking down of new or \u2018misused\u2019 expressions and the promotion of various language improvement schemes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

If you ask me, that\u2019s actually quite a nice way to put that, how it won\u2019t take long for some language maven<\/em>, as she (xix) calls such a person, to come out of the woodwork to start policing how other people express themselves. She (xx) provides some examples, but I\u2019ll use one of my own. It was quite a long time ago that I witnessed people arguing over whether one should use – (hyphen), \u2212 (minus), \u2013 (en dash) or \u2014 (em dash) in a certain context, with a certain font, because while correct, it is rendered in a way that it looks like the incorrect one. Yeah, what can I say\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, verbal hygiene<\/em> or, as I like to refer to it, sanitation<\/em>, is, of course, not new. This happens all the time and Cameron\u2019s book is full of good examples, some more obvious, others less so. We just don\u2019t hear or read about it that much, because in most cases it doesn\u2019t concern us personally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We may only hear or read about such when the works of known authors are altered. The previous time I remember seeing this make the news was when new editions of Mark Twain\u2019s books, \u2018The Adventures of Tom Sawyer\u2019 and \u2018Adventures of Huckleberry Finn\u2019, were released in sanitized form, because they include the word \u2018nigger\u2019, a total of nine times in the former and a whopping 212 times (assuming I counted that right, including the singular and plural forms of it), and that makes a lot of people so uneasy that it\u2019s no longer considered suitable as classroom reading in the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My own take is that it makes little sense for others to tamper with someone else\u2019s text, without indicating that it has been tampered with. In academic texts you typically indicate modifications within [square brackets] and omissions or ellipses as \u2026 , so the reader knows that it\u2019s been modified. It\u2019s just a matter of transparency, so that you aren\u2019t putting words into someone else\u2019s mouth, making others think that the person said or wrote such. For example, I try to avoid using sexed language, if possible, and thus also alter the originals accordingly in that way. For example, instead of man, I\u2019ll mark it as [human], if it is in reference people. Similarly, I\u2019ll try to pluralize the text, so that it\u2019d be [they] instead of a man or a woman, he or she, him or her, because even that\u2019s a bit dated, because, well it is sexed, there\u2019s no doubt about that. I won\u2019t go as far as to not refer to a woman as she, her or herself, or to a man as he, him, himself, because in most cases they would prefer to be referred to as such. My preferred way of handling this is to use the word one, because it isn\u2019t sexed and remains singular, as opposed to having to pluralize everything as that can be a bit confusing. There\u2019s no easy solution this though. Using one all the time is pretty clunky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to tampering with your own text, well, it\u2019s not like anyone can stop you. It\u2019s your text. You do as you please with it. No need to ask for anyone\u2019s permission. If Agatha Christie or Mark Twain were still around and they held all the rights to their works (instead of having signed them away for good or the rights hadn\u2019t been expired), they would be well within their rights to do anything they wish to with their own works. I certain think that they would be within their rights to do so, inasmuch as they\u2019d be the rights holders. They could do whatever they please with their own works. If they chose to sanitize their own works, that\u2019d be fine by me. If they opted to add something to them, again, fine by me. They could even add typos to the book or indicate each page with a random number and it would still be fine by me. They could do whatever they like with it and it would be fine by me. I\u2019ve certainly altered my own essays, not because I believe that they are offensive, although I think that some may certainly find them to be offensive (as, similarly to, just mentioning<\/em> the word \u2018nigger\u2019, to deal with the issue with its use<\/em>, will surely be thought to be out of question for some), but because I am at liberty to do so, to do whatever I please with them. I only correct myself, as I don\u2019t feel like changing the content (I\u2019m still not sure what would be the best way to deal with concepts, how often should italicize them, to highlight them as concepts\u2026), but I could anything with them, even delete them, like poof and it\u2019s gone, and there\u2019d be nothing that anyone could do to stop me. I think the only time I\u2019ve deleted an entry was years ago when I managed to delete something by accident and had to bring it back. I like to think that I\u2019m tech-savvy, that I definitely don\u2019t make mistakes with computers, having grown up with them, but no, I\u2019d be flattering myself if claimed that at this age. It may come to you as a surprise, but I don\u2019t even own a smartphone. I guess I could say that I\u2019ve owned one, like a very early one, but that\u2019s a bit of a stretch. I don\u2019t think the early ones count. I don\u2019t think they were proper smart phones. Why don\u2019t I own one? Well, because they aren\u2019t what I want. I\u2019m all about functionality, getting things done, whereas they are not. I want a phone to get a job done, without any hassle, without any tinkering, without messing up anything while I\u2019m at it, whereas what they want to sell you is like the exact opposite of that. I want tools, so I buy tools. If I wanted toys, I\u2019d buy toys. It\u2019s that simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, in summary, I don\u2019t mind if people edit their own texts or publish different editions of their texts. That\u2019s all fine by me. What I do mind is people editing other people\u2019s texts, without indicating what has been changed. That\u2019s not fine by me. The only exceptions to that are errors, like typos. No biggie. That happens all the time. You\u2019d be surprised how easy it is to have a typo within a quote. Then again, that\u2019s not intentional. It\u2019s not the same as altering someone else\u2019s text in order to, supposedly, make it more palatable to others, without clearly indicating having done so. That\u2019s intentional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why do I mind altering other people\u2019s texts without clearly indicating what\u2019s been changed? I guess I could say that it\u2019s all about transparency, and to certain extent it is, but my beef with it has more to do with how that infantilizes the reader. What do I mean by that? Well, simply put, by sanitizing<\/em> other people\u2019s texts, just in case someone might be offended by something in it, strips the reader the right to be offended by it. If you get offended by, let\u2019s say, Twain\u2019s use of the word \u2018nigger\u2019 in his books, at least you get to be offended by it. Let\u2019s assume that he was a racist (even though he was not). If we\u2019d sanitize his works on those grounds, we\u2019d be whitewashing. As a reader, you wouldn\u2019t be given the chance to come to that conclusion. Reading the book, without it being sanitized by others, regardless of whether you know that he wasn\u2019t a racist, the point of using that slur, so, so many times, is to convey how openly racist a lot of people were back then. If you replace it with a word that does not convey that open racism, nor how common it was, you end up missing the point. Reading it is like a slap in the face, but that\u2019s exactly the point, to make sure you understand not only the problem, but also how big it is, how widespread it was in his lifetime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think it\u2019s also worth noting that someone like Twain, writing mainly in the 1800s, didn\u2019t think ahead, as no one did, as no one does, as no one ever will, as no one is clairvoyant. Just imagining someone like him, there and then, writing a book, thinking, hmmm, I wonder what will people think of it a hundred years later, is just absurd. It\u2019s like should I write it like this, or like that, like what if this is going considered problematic a century later? Should I even write this book? Hmmm, maybe not, just to be on the safe side. I don\u2019t know about you, but something tells me that he wrote the book, there and then, for people to read, there and then, and not a hundred years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I realize that you could, of course, counter that by simply pointing out that times have changed, so that the books language is out of touch with the times, right here, right now. I agree. It is. But that\u2019s the deal. You should be reading it as having been written back then, depicting reality back then, and not now. If you think that it would be better to read something more contemporary, with the same message, I\u2019d agree with you, inasmuch people are made to read books, like they are in schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think you are focusing on the wrong thing if you want to sanitize<\/em> books like \u2018Huckleberry Finn\u2019, in hopes of having them read in schools. I think it would be more productive to start from why<\/em> certain books are part of the curriculum in the first place. To be clear, I\u2019m not saying that they shouldn\u2019t be part of some curriculum, just because they are dated, being out of touch with the times, or so to speak, nor am I saying that they should be part of some curriculum, just because they are considered important, just because they are considered a must read or something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the why<\/em> is to shock the reader, you also need to address who<\/em> the reader is. Something tells me that in the US context, a classroom with a black majority probably doesn\u2019t need to be told that the US was racist back in the day. They already know that because that\u2019s also how it still is. But, if you have a classroom full of white students, they may actually learn something from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If it were up to me, which it isn\u2019t, I wouldn\u2019t make people read classics, just because they are considered to be classics. I think it\u2019s just counterproductive. At least you’d think there’d be something more recent, yet equally, if not more fitting. I\u2019d rather let people read whatever they want to read. I\u2019ll explain why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was in school, I learned to hate literature. Why did that happen? Well, because we were told to read certain books and then write some essay that included the, supposedly, right views about it. They were these Finnish must read books, Aleksis Kivi\u2019s \u2018Seitsem\u00e4n veljest\u00e4\u2019 (\u2018The Brothers Seven\u2019), V\u00e4in\u00f6 Linna\u2019s \u2018Tuntematon sotilas\u2019 (\u2018The Unknown Soldier\u2019) and Mike Waltari\u2019s \u2018Sinuhe egyptil\u00e4inen\u2019 (\u2018The Egyptian\u2019), of which only the last one was something I really enjoyed reading. In contrast, in the English class we had the privilege to read just about anything, so I read \u2018Pyramids\u2019 by Terry Pratchett (if my memory serves me right). I think the idea of giving us the opportunity choose the book had to do with the teacher considering it more important for us to read anything, to just read, than to read something specific, which we then may or may not have finished. Now, I\u2019m not saying that \u2018Pyramids\u2019 is the best of the bunch, nor that I have anything against the first two books that I listed. What I am saying is that by allowing us to pick what we wanted to read made reading a pleasure, whereas being told to read something that you are supposed to read and to uncover something important in it totally killed it for me, even if I otherwise enjoyed the book, like I did with Waltari\u2019s book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t enjoy literature as an undergrad either. It was all very different. That was fine. I just had a poor attitude to literature, because I had learned to hate it. That\u2019s on me. The books that we were pushed to read weren\u2019t the problem. They were never the problem in school either. It was rather that we were told to read them, to appreciate them, and to have something to say about them, to uncover something important about them. The difference between the two was just that on university courses the expectations were higher than in school, which made it even worse, at least for someone like me who, for the most, didn\u2019t enjoy reading, nor understood what I was supposed to uncover in the texts. Whatever I wrote, it just sucked. To be fair, in retrospect, I\u2019m pretty sure that my essays did suck. I was clueless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I only learned to enjoy literature when I was able to do it on my own terms. That had always worked for me. I still don\u2019t read much literature, to be honest, but when I do, I do it because I enjoy doing it. It\u2019s just me and the book. That\u2019s it. No need to think of anything to say about it. It\u2019s like letting the book work on me, not me on the book. That\u2019s how I\u2019d put it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I\u2019m just me, some dude, writing essays, without much care \u2026 for anything, really, you\u2019ll probably want someone else who can explain that. You are in luck as Gilles Deleuze (7) puts this so nicely in \u2018Letter to a Harsh Critic\u2019, as I\u2019ve mentioned at least a couple of times in the past:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201c[Y]ou either see it as a box with something inside and start looking for what it signifies[.]\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Indeed. I\u2019d say this was how we were taught to read in school. You were always supposed to have something to say about the book you read and by that something I mean something smart, something supposedly meaningful<\/em>. Then there\u2019s the other way of reading a book, as he (7) goes on to add:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201c[Y]ou see the book as a little non-signifying machine, and the only question is \u2018Does it work, and how does it work?\u2019 How does it work for you? If it doesn\u2019t work, if nothing comes through, you try another book.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Exactly. This is what I mean by it being a pleasure to read. If you enjoy the book, you\u2019ll keep reading it. That\u2019s how you know something is coming through. It works for you. If you don\u2019t enjoy the book, you won\u2019t keep reading it and that\u2019s you cue to read something else instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be fair, I don\u2019t think I can blame my teachers for making me hate literature, at least not all of them. It might actually be the case that I was taught the typical way, early on, and then later on had teachers who would have wanted me to read the other way. That\u2019s entirely possible and then that\u2019s on me. Then again, that\u2019s the thing. I\u2019d say that it takes very little for you to end up taking it for granted that you are supposed to read books in a way that you\u2019ll uncover something profound in them, which then ruins the experience of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plus, I\u2019m pretty sure we had the opportunity to read some book or books that we got to choose. There\u2019s that. I can\u2019t ignore that. It\u2019s rather that even though we had some say in that matter, for me, those good experiences were ruined by all the bad experiences, so I can\u2019t even name the books that I got to choose, whereas I can name the books that I didn\u2019t get to choose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right, so, to get back on track here, I\u2019d say that the most important thing about reading is reading, not what you are reading. What you read is, of course, also important, it\u2019s not at all important if you don\u2019t read. So, if you are pushed to read \u2018Huckleberry Finn\u2019, for example, and you just couldn\u2019t care less, because it just seems so dated, because it just doesn\u2019t work for you, because nothing comes through, as Deleuze (8) puts it, and you\u2019d rather read something more contemporary, I\u2019d say it would make a lot of sense to let you read something more contemporary. That said, it should be the other way around either. If something contemporary doesn\u2019t work for you, but, for some reason, \u2018Huckleberry Finn\u2019 works for you, then it makes little sense to let you read it, instead of whatever it is, something more contemporary, that you are supposed to read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, to address the topic of this essay, what it is that I wanted to focus on in this essay, this also applies to other semiotic modes. There was also this other news story not long ago. There was an art exhibit, which was deemed to be pornographic, because, apparently, there were, heaven forbid, some photos depicting boobs and even pubic hair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think Cameron makes a good point when she (121) notes that this is not about what<\/em>, that what\u2019s what, but about who<\/em> gets to define what\u2019s what. I believe Friedrich Nietzsche would agree. It\u2019s typically the case that people in high places get to define what\u2019s what and this also applies to language. As he (132) points out, you have editors and copy editors who typically dictate this for you or, well, you don\u2019t get published. Now the tables have turned, at least somewhat, so that this practice of verbal hygiene<\/em> or, more broadly speaking, semiotic hygiene<\/em>, is not, merely, a matter of a bunch of old racist and sexist men in offices defining what passes and what does not. Now it\u2019s the anti-racists and anti-sexists who utilize the very same structure of gatekeeping that they used to oppose, probably not because they wanted it to end up that way, but because that\u2019s a very efficient way of achieving your goals, compelling people to act in a certain way, as she (132) points out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, her (132) take is that such movements are clearly political, which differentiates them from the old guard who keep insisting that there\u2019s nothing racist, nor sexist, or the like, just neutral and universal language. I agree. However, I think that the way things work, as it\u2019s all about the money, the intentions may have been good, but it has been appropriated to serve corporate interests. So, for example, instead of getting brand new books, with brand new content, we get some sanitized<\/em> old classics. The publishers get to sell whatever they already have instead of having to support something which may or may not work for their interests. If someone challenges this practice, the continued use of some books, let\u2019s say questionable classics, the publisher can ensure the public that, having consulted language experts, everything is a-ok.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, that\u2019s not even a hot take. It\u2019s even worse, when you check out what the people involved have to say about the publishers. Zoe Dubno points out in her opinion piece, \u2018Publishers are cynically using \u2018sensitivity readers\u2019 to protect their bottom lines\u2019, that appeared on the \u2018The Guardian\u2019 earlier this month, that, as indicated in her article title, it\u2019s a racket. Her previous article, \u2018The rise of the \u2018sensitivity reader\u2019\u2019, published a couple of years ago in \u2018The Spectator\u2019, also covers this issue and I think her depiction of it as the introduction of \u201cfiction\u2019s new moral gatekeepers\u201d, as well as \u201ca seductively cheap way to cancel-proof your book\u201d is exactly what it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, that may seem like she is blaming the people involved, the sensitivity readers, but that\u2019s not what she is after. She doesn\u2019t want to sensationalize this. In the earlier article, she points out that some of this is actually beneficial for the writer. It\u2019s basically getting a second opinion. It can help you to iron out all kinds of wrinkles, ranging from all kinds goofs that, I\u2019d say, ruin the immersion, to issues where the writer might be saying something genuinely insensitive, like how it is a really, really bad idea to have a black character who turns into a monkey. I think those are what a good editor should point out to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thing is, however, like I pointed out, that it\u2019s a racket. That\u2019s the point about it being seductive and cheap, a way to make sure something that\u2019s deemed toxic is detoxified. It\u2019s about making sure that the publisher doesn\u2019t look like it\u2019s sitting on thousands of pages of questionable intellectual property, or IP, as it\u2019s commonly referred to as these days, and making a profit from it, even though, that\u2019s exactly what it is doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think this it is helpful to put this another way. There\u2019s two ways of going about this. Think of the sensitivity reader as an editor, someone who looks after you, going through and through your work, sentence by sentence, to make sure that you are doing your best and, for sure, aren\u2019t saying something really, really stupid, because you didn\u2019t think it through. That sounds good to me. That can\u2019t be cheap. Like I\u2019d pay good money for a good editor. As it is the publisher who handles that, you\u2019d at least think that they are people who get paid well. Now, the thing is that it\u2019s not the case. The sensitivity reader is someone who competes with others for the same job, being paid so little that it\u2019s a rip-off. As she points out in her earlier article, these people are what I\u2019d call \u2018contractors\u2019. They get paid next to nothing and there\u2019s no sense of security that comes with being an \u2018employee\u2019. You\u2019d think that people who are \u2018contractors\u2019 would get paid a lot, being experts at something, like mercenaries of the corporate world, you know, \u2018consultants\u2019, but that\u2019s the exact opposite of how it all works in the so called \u2018gig economy\u2019, as she points out. You earn very little from what you do and if you don\u2019t like it, there\u2019s always someone else to replace you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does this mean for an author then? Well, as she points out in her more recent text, it helps to deflect criticism. If someone finds it questionable, it\u2019s now not on you, but whoever was paid to check your work. It then has that stamp of approval, as she puts it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think she makes good points in both of her texts, noting how silly it is to outsource one\u2019s responsibility like this. From a more philosophical viewpoint, I think she explains this well when she points out that there\u2019s this obsession with verisimilitude. If you ask me, the charm of fiction is that it is as if were actually real, but it isn\u2019t. That\u2019s immersion for you. If you want it to be actual reality, why are you reading a book? Why not experience things, instead of reading a book about someone experiencing things, if you are so afraid that the you aren\u2019t getting the real deal?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s not one of her examples, but let\u2019s take someone like Marcel Proust. \u2018In Search of Lost Time\u2019 the protagonist is a heterosexual, yet Proust was known to be a homosexual. He deals with a lot of homosexuality, but we could flaw him for not knowing a thing about heterosexuality, just because that wasn\u2019t his thing. Do I flaw him for that? No. I couldn\u2019t care less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you ask me, I think that Deleuze explain this issue of verisimilitude well in ‘Letter to a Harsh Critic’. He (11) first acknowledges the criticism:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“[Y]ou say I’m someone who’s always just tagged along behind, taking it easy, capitalizing upon other people’s experiements, on gays, drug users, alcoholics, masochists, lunatics, and so on, vaguely savoring their transports and poisings without ever taking any risks.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

If you look at his works, and those of his close friend, F\u00e9lix Guattari, he indeed deals with a lot of ways of experiencing the world, without ever having been experienced such. To my knowledge, he was not gay, a drug user, an alcoholic, a masochist, nor a lunatic. But that’s the deal, he doesn’t even believe in such or, rather, he thinks that treating people as such, as being a homosexual, a drug user, an alcoholic, a masochist, a lunatic, or the like, as having this and\/or that identity<\/em>, is exactly the problem, as he (11) goes on to add:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“But what do you know about me, given that I believe in secrecy, that is, in the power of falsity, rather than in representing things in a way that manifests a lamentable faith in accuracy and truth.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Which he (11) then specifices:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“We have to counter people who think ‘I’m this, I’m that,’ and who do so, moreover, in psychoanalytic terms (relating everything to their childhood or fate), by thinking in strange, fluid, unusual terms: I don’t know what I am\u2014I’d have to investigage and experiement with so many things in a non-narcissistic, non-oedipal way\u2014no gay can ever definitely say ‘I’m gay’.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In other words, let people, including yourself, be the way they are, here and now. Don’t put them into little boxes. It’s that simple. He (11) then summarizes this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“It’s not a question of being this or that sort of human, but of becoming inhuman, of a universal animal becoming\u2014not seeing yourself as some dumb animal, but unraveling your body’s human organization, exploring this or that zone of bodily intensity, with everyone discovering their own particular zones, and the groups, populations, species that inhabit them.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

He (11-12) gives us some examples:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“Who’s to say I can’t talk about medicine unless I’m a doctor, if I talk about it like a dog? What’s to stop me talking about drugs without being an addict, if I talk about them like a little bird? And why shouldn’t I invent some way, however fantastic and contrived, of talking about something, without someone having to ask whether I’m qualified to talk like that?”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

To make sense of that, and the other passages, the problem is that we are, in fact, in the habit of thinking about things in terms of identities<\/em>, essentializing <\/em>who we are, so that, only a drug user can know about drugs (as if no one else, but a drug user knows about drugs), or that only an alcoholic knows about alcohol (as if no one else, but an alcoholic knows about alcohol), and so on and so forth. He (12) summarizes his rejection of such a view:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“Why does your particular version of ‘reality’ have to come into it? You’re a pretty unimaginative realist.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

And if that doesn’t work for you, he (12) states that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“My favorite sentence in Anti-Oedipus<\/em> is: ‘No, we’ve never seen a schizophrenic.\u2019”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

So, yeah, that’s the problem of verisimilitude. We might also call that mimesis. This or that label, it’s not that important. The gist of this issue is that we’d be far happier in our lives if we stopped thinking in terms of identities<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, to end this essay, what I particularly like about Dubno’s take on the issue is the matter of responsibility or, rather, integrity. I think the best way to put it is that it feels really cheap to make someone, yes make, give your work their stamp of approval, paying them as little as possible, just because that\u2019s possible, just because there\u2019s always someone else who\u2019ll do it if that person won\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  • Cameron, D. (1995). Verbal Hygiene<\/em>. London, United Kingdom: Routledge.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Deleuze, G. ([1990] 1995). Letter to a Harsh Critic. In G. Deleuze, Negotiations, 1972\u20131990<\/em> (M. Joughin, Trans.) (pp. 4\u201312). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Dubno, Z. (2021). The rise of the <\/em>\u2018sensitivity reader<\/em>\u2019. London, United Kingdom: The Spectator. https:\/\/www.spectator.co.uk\/article\/the-rise-of-the-sensitivity-reader\/<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Dubno, Z. (2023). Publishers are cynically using \u2018sensitivity readers\u2019 to protect their bottom lines<\/em>. London, United Kingdom: The Guardian. https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/commentisfree\/2023\/mar\/09\/roald-dahl-censorship-sensitivity-readers-books<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Finnish language board (1992). “Svetisismit<\/em>“. Kielikello, 4.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Kivi, A. (1870). Seitsem\u00e4n veljest\u00e4<\/em>. Helsinki, Finland: Suomalainen Kirjallisuuden Seura.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Kivi, A. ([1870] 2017). The Brothers Seven<\/em> (D. Robinson, Trans.). Bucharest, Romania: Zeta Books.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Linna, V. (1954). Tuntematon sotilas<\/em>. Helsinki, Finland: WSOY.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Linna, V. ([1954] 1957). Unknown Soldier<\/em> (A. Matson, Trans.). Glasgow, United Kingdom: William Collins Sons and Co.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Oxford English Dictionary<\/em> Online<\/em> (n. d.). Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Pratchett, T. (1989). Pyramids<\/em>. London, United Kingdom: Gollancz.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Twain, M. (1876). The Adventures of Tom Sawyer<\/em>. Hartford, CT: The American Publishing Company.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Twain, M. ([1884] 1885). Adventures of Huckleberry Finn<\/em>. New York, NY: Charles L. Webster and Company. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Volo\u0161inov, V. N. ([1930] 1973). Marxism and the Philosophy of Language<\/em> (L. Matejka and I. R. Titunik, Trans.). New York, NY: Seminar Press.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Waltari, M. (1945). Sinuhe egyptil\u00e4inen<\/em>. Helsinki, Finland: WSOY.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Waltari, M. ([1945] 1949). The Egyptian<\/em> (N. Walford, Trans.). New York, NY: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Once again, I planned to write on other things, and I did. It\u2019s just that I never finished those essays and ended up writing something else, which is this. Anyway, so I ended up focusing on what Deborah Cameron refers to as verbal hygiene in her book that carries that as its name, \u2018Verbal Hygiene\u2019. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3554,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1220,71,1625,742,1626,1627,1624,1069,1628],"class_list":["post-4934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","tag-cameron","tag-deleuze","tag-dubno","tag-kivi","tag-linna","tag-pratchett","tag-twain","tag-voloshinov","tag-waltari"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3554"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4934"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5497,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4934\/revisions\/5497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/landd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}