The Clue is in the Words

The senseless mass killing at Sandy Hook has sent the world into a tailspin. Virtually every cable News provider has been giving wall to wall coverage. Lots of questions have been raised in respect of "why". Are there too many guns in the hands of the public? Is America becoming more evil as God is marginalised in their society? Should we be paying more attention to warning signs sent out by our mentally disturbed citizens? And so the questions are tumbling out of the mouths of everyone prepared to offer an opinion. Lots of questions. Very few answers.

Yesterday I was listening to a cleric trying to make some sense of the tragedy. He used the phrase "dead centre" to describe the essence of the problem. These words jumped out at me. Here was a cleric, using mild, soothing language to assure us that God has not deserted us and yet he used words which describe a target. The sort of target that a shooter might use to practice on to make sure he/she can hit "dead centre" when aiming at a target, whether that target be an ever decreasing set of circles or, God forbid, another human being.

How much of our language has an underlying violence to it? Quite a bit. Just consider these few examples.

"I was under the whip"
"I whipped them into shape"
"I got burnt in the financial crisis"
"That exam was torture"
"We shot that idea to pieces"
"I had him in my sights"
"I ate him for breakfast"
"My point hit him right between the eyes"

I think you get the picture and that picture is not pretty. Even the meekest and mildest of us has no qualms in describing life in the most horrible of violent images (my example above of the mild mannered cleric for instance). Is a propensity toward violence endemic in our make-up? Is the language we use indicative of that violent nature or just colourful descriptions? If we controlled our language would we even need to control guns?

The problem, of course, is that in order to change our language we would have to fundamentally change our society. Violence in movies, literature, video games etc., etc., would have to be removed so as to remove access to violent language. I guess the whole notion is stupid. Yet look at how easily the "normal" human being can veer into violence. Just look at football hooligans, road rage perpetrators, political demonstrators. These are the men and woman you live next door to, work with. These are you and me not just deranged lunatics sending out warning signals.

I believe the problem to be a lot simpler than I am making it out to be. In essence we are animals. Without the trappings of a civilised society it would be a "man eat man" world out there. If that be true then perhaps softer words might just soothe the savage beast.

This week the questions. Next week? More questions!

'Til next post...