April 24th 2022
Ok a word of note about this blog before I start. The last few weeks it’s been really hard for me to create anything I feel worth putting up on this blog. I talked about this emotion with my friend and therapist Felix Scardino, who himself is writing his own book, and we both realized I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to be authoritative. I wanted so badly to have some opinion that was worth reading, some narrative that was publishable, that it hindered the creative process and point of this blog.
I think the point of this blog is not to write with fevor and arguments, but rather to open myself up to people and through that process hopefully gain some support for the issues and complexities of my life. Felix used the word “support group,” and I started to love that idea in a very vague way – support groups are by their nature collaborative, inspiring, and vulnerable, something that the modern internet is not. So, if you’re reading this, welcome! I’m super honored that you would want to be here, and I’d love to invite you formally to what I’m now calling “A Support Group”.
Anyway, I wanted to share some thoughts as they pertain to “language as resistance,” the infamous sticky note that resides temporarily at the center of my post-it wall. Language, and specifically good words, have immense power in loosening and strengthening the relationships of power that exist between every human and non-human species. Only when people can describe oppression do they have the ability to resist against their oppressors. For power can be defined as the ability to create conceptual categories, and so words are the tools we use to shape those battles.
I was reading this article this morning by Timothy Snider in the NYT about a new word the Ukrainians are using to describe Russia/Russians/The Russian ideology. Its “рашизм,” a word whos significance and meaning doesn’t translate to English or Russian well (obviously) because its built for Ukrainian resistance. It’s a mix of “Russia” and “facism,” spoken with the intonation of an American saying “Ruhshuh,” and can be thought of succinctly as “ruscism”. The word carries the idea that Russian and fascism are something intertwined, old as time, yet uniquely persistent and bone headed. The word, as far as I could tell, serves as an inspiration for the cruelty and brain-washed idiocy that Ukraine is determined to fight against.
Snyder makes the point that a country like Ukraine whose population is constantly context switching between two languages (Russian and Ukrainian), maintains something of a cultural advantage because of the words they can draw from to create new ideas and concepts. “Pашизм” for example draws from both languages, as do many other tongue-in-cheek expressions that the Ukrainans have been using to describe their new existence.
I’m so up for making up new words – for making little mutations in the contexts for cultural evolution. One musical artist that I’m really into right now, Yeat, does this all the time, for no reason other than he thinks the shit sounds cool. “Twizzy”, “Luh Geeky,” – these all have meaning but those meanings are hard to conceptualize outside of the context of the Yeat Fanbase. It’s a big reason in my opinion why so many people really hate Yeat – everything he raps sounds like nonsense. But what he’s done is reconceptualize the incantations and tempo shifts that define rap music, much like Young Thug did years before him. They each are creating resistance with new language.
Speaking of Young Thug and words, every time I see a new interview with that man, I’m even more astounded by the confidence with which he knows himself and creates his own life. But on the subject of words – I was watching a long interview last night where thug trails off a number of his sentences with noises that I, as a white man from Menlo Park, could only write as gibberish. They felt like raw emotions on the back end of a sentence that spoke to the unarticulated portion of his sentiment. But I could still understand and feel them occasionally (or so I think) - “Yea, but you may never know,” or “You should watch where you’re going with those questions,” were examples of sentiments I felt like I’d gleaned.
I think the miraculous part about what Young Thug does is that he’s incorporated vocal sounds that are orthogonal to western music (you probably couldn’t put them in sheet music) and built his musical sentiments on both these planes. Thug’s sentences don’t just rhyme, they have these textured components to them, something I can only think of as auditory haptics, which ebb and flow in their own ways to contribute to the feeling of the song. The way Thug weaves a new language with both melodic and haptic languages feels much like the way Ukrainians can pull from both Ukrainian and Russian to create their new words. The extra axis enables both these players to make “words” that more succinctly and effectively create conceptual categories – whether for the unique emotion in a piece of art, or the idea behind a resistance.
Now, I should clarify, to say that the way Thug was expressing his feelings was based outside of language is at most, very racist, and at least, expressly demeaning to the culture in which Thug exists in. Words obviously don’t need the express consent of White America or the Oxford Dictionary to effectively communicate info, and to deny a language as legitimate is… well its horrible obviously – you’re subjugating those individuals and seizing their means of resistance.
In fact, if we go back to the idea of resistance, it’s extremely important in a fight against climate change and the extinction of many non-human species, that we stay attuned to the languages and words of humans and non-humans alike. If I’m a bird and people are consistently taking my nests out of trees for some reason, best believe I’m using some form of language to express my displeasure and frustration. And if there’s one thing I believe wholeheartedly after birdwatching, it’s that it’s not beyond any human to notice that with the right amount of intention. (Excuse my anthropomorphizing of the unknowable conscious of a lovely bird). Maybe there are many different planes on which birds express themselves (moving sticks, digging holes, calling out) idk! But I’m down to try to listen.
Alrighty in the spirit of this newly formed support group, thanks for listening to my lil rant. I’m curious your thoughts!
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