Words of Power

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Sorry for being so late — this actually is germane — but I’m still recovering from stupid infection and also not sleeping very well.

Why is this germane? Because words are still not flowing easily — in case you haven’t noticed the blog has been relatively sparse — but I got “poetry” or in this case song lyrics first. This is fascinating to me, at least from a “how my brain works” perspective, since I originally started in writing with poetry, and it’s the family disease, even more so than for normal Portuguese. (I’m totally going to blame the Irish contribution to my DNA.)

Anyway, as you guys know — well, I don’t remember if I wrote it on a post or in comments, so you might not — we had a mini-family-reunion (Because we’re a mini-family) over the weekend, and therefore time to sit at the keyboard was low, but I managed nine songs, seven of which have music and three of which have videos (but not published on youtube yet due to not sleeping much and have to do some house stuff.))

While I was setting one to music I realized there were some words that kick me in the… well, that seem hard wired to the core of my being. Take the line (from the song about the duel at the Troz clan reunion, for those who have read the book) “Instead, he drank his shattered honor/And spent it on his rage.“

I used those words advisedly, because “shattered honor” isn’t even an image in my mind. it’s just a kick to a very ancient part of my being that brings up an immediate emotional reaction.

I won’t pretend this is innate. I know exactly what implanted that button in me. To wit, I almost called this post “words my father taught me.” Words like honor and dignity, like ancestral, like ancient, like duty reverberated through my father’s voice like a bell, imbuing them with qualities to which Western Civilization (all human civilization to be fair, but Western for sure and with certain resonance) aspires, and which made it what it is.

Words like that go back. All the way back to the dawn of civilization. They call each of us to things outside ourselves, things that make the individual act and work for things greater than our very short lifespan.

To an extent — understand — they are very strong for me because my father is MADE of them. I don’t know what he would be without those, but judging by myself, nothing good.

Yes the words can be weaponized for evil too. Of course they can. The strongest things in human nature can. But when properly employed, and particularly when combined with the values of Judeo Christianity, they are why men (and some women) will stand between their beloved home and war’s desolation, why a mother will voluntarily starve to death to feed her kids, why men and women will subsume their own desires and needs for those of the people in their keeping and under their care, why a naturally dishonorable person will bear up and act honorable so not as to dishonor those who raised him/her and who taught her/him better.

Properly employed they are the very building blocks of civilized behavior, of what raises us above the appetites we share with dogs (to quote Rex Stout) and the common greed we share with roving nomads who despoil settled communities.

And the words themselves have weight and — as I said — bypass all rational thought to get us to do the right thing in situations when there is not much time to think. As I said, for me, it seems to reach back, ALL THE WAY BACK to the pineal gland, the oldest structure in our brain.

But they are not genetic. Civilization isn’t genetic. It might seem like that, because culture almost acts like it. The things we learned very early, before we consciously could learn anything are almost ineradicable. But they are not. The weight needs to be installed, and it normally is. Through songs and lullabies, through stories told in early childhood, through your father reading you Roman poetry (pfui), through conversations overheard amid adults.

Where that’s missing, where the expedient and the “smartness” of despoiling and tricking others is most admired, civilized culture unravels. And not all the modern appliances, not all the lighting, not all the buildings will save you from ruin and barbarism.

We’re in the fourth generation largely raised by strangers, as women have been told their highest calling is as corporate drones, and men have been convinced their highest call is as tom cats and consumers and only a fool raises his own kids.

Honestly, it’s puzzling — particularly for a time-capsule woman like me — to contemplate how well civilization has held when the words of power have been ridiculed and destroyed.

It’s like for over a hundred years people have been running around chopping at the columns holding up the roof. I’m amazed so much of the roof still stands.

Culture is very difficult to eradicate. Particularly culture that deeply implanted and that old.

But when my generation, the grandparent-age, largely doesn’t remember, the roof starts buckling.

It doesn’t help that the left keeps attacking words, though honestly at this point they’re just silly. They think meritocracy means “group merit” aka head counting of “under-represented minorities.” And of course the utterly despicable Maureen Galindo has tried to claim that Zionists are somehow “anti-Semites.”

But more importantly, we LET them take the words, by not installing them early and often. In our defense few of us had them installed.

It’s time to bring them back. Not by just so stories, no. But by making sure the stories we tell are seen through the lens of civilization. And by raising our own kids (or other people’s kids who need it) and by taking an interest in making sure that civilization goes on.

As always, it won’t be easy, and I’m not pretending it is. But in the long term, if we want civilization to go on we must rescue history, all the way back, and make sure it’s known. And we must make sure those of us with worst impulses have reason to behave in the best way. Because the nature of humans is what it is, and some will always be born despicable. The more of those we raise to be good people the more secure civilization is.

Do, please try, to snatch brands from the fire. Lest the world burn.

COMPLETELY UNAVOIDABLE SELF PROMOTION:

I have a bunch of books on the Based Book Sale. Three of them are NML’s three volumes, which if you buy them now will cost you $3 total. I don’t intend to do this often because, well, it’s expensive (I get about 33c.) But I felt compelled to do it now, so… I’d take advantage of it if I were on the other side of the screen.

No Man’s Land: Volume 1 (Chronicles of Lost Elly)
No Man’s Land: Volume 2 (Chronicles of Lost Elly)
No Man’s Land: Volume 3 (Chronicles of Lost Elly)
Draw One In The Dark (The Shifter Series Book 1)
Death of a Musketeer (The Musketeers Mysteries Book 1)
Done With Mirrors: A Collection of Short Stories (Sarah A. Hoyt’s Short Story Collections)

38 thoughts on “Words of Power”

  2. We’ve got lots of obstacles in the way of us even getting married anytime soon, but my fiancee and I are determined to raise kids, hopefully more than two, and home-school if at all possible. Make sure they know how to be good people, and good citizens.

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  4. This is why dictionaries were invented and why people need to actually read them. Vocab is NOT a worthless course! It’s the best way to arm the kids and show them what words MEAN, so when they see them used and hear them used they know when they are used wrongly and when they are used rightly…and hopefully it will help them to use words rightly themselves.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  5. Yes indeed, the vile corruption of word meanings by the Left is truly evil. As Orwell noted, once they control language fully, we won’t even be able to conceive of the truth.

    Substituting “honor” for “reputation” is a particular bugaboo, but sometimes it’s hijacking part of a word to render it meaningless like “social justice” which is the antithesis of actual “justice.”

    “Down boy, down! No point in straining at your leash.” Go through. Go around.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

    1. They tend to pick things that are a threat to them to hijack– for example, the philosophy of social justice?

      That’s designing the laws to make it easier to be good.

      Like “recognize private property” and “banning corruption of blood.”

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

  6. The natural state of Man (and Woman) is that of an animal — an unreasoning, violent creature driven entirely by primitive emotions and impulses, constantly seeking immediate self-gratification. In order to overcome that bestial nature, all Men (and Women) have to be taught to think rationally, and carefully inculcated with the values and principles of civilization, a process of education which must be started in infancy and maintained consistently until (at least) early adulthood. If such teaching is not applied, or is not effective, though they may walk upright and ape the words created by civilized folk, they will remain feral brutes and threats to all around them.

    Over the course of some three hundred thousand years, we have raised ourselves up from that savage condition. We have invented the concepts of right, and wrong, and the notion that life is better when the biggest, meanest asshole can’t just beat everybody up and take all the food and wimmins. We decided that living in cooperative societies is far better than violent anarchy. We formulated rules and laws to make such societies work, and refined those laws to make societies work better.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  7. The corruption of things like honor, duty, dignity, respect, patriotism, nationalism, faith and all is not a thing new. Not in ye olde grand history of such things over the many generations that lived them.

    The foolish in their cupidity grasp at them because they are powerful, those ideas. They do so thinking that, having the Words of Power themselves, they can become powerful. They do so in contravention of what the words actually are. The only power the words have is their connection to an idea far more powerful than the symbols and syllogisms that communicate the idea itself.

    The true meaning of language is to effectively communicate. That this is largely a by-blow committed by bimbos and faux accredited bums, highly trained and inculcated from a young age into a false setting that mimics but does not supplant hard-nosed reality. They are pygmies of puny historicity, callow paws clutching at things beyond their demonstrated capacity.

    Their lack of logic stems from the systematic suffocation of any true curiosity. When the environment is this hostile to genuine thought it is no wonder they come out stunted and ignorant. No wonder that they toy with purpose and meaning the way a puppy toys with a squeaky rubber chicken.

    And no wonder that they first become confused, then defensive, then angry when one attempts to speak sense to them. Their unknown unknowns are many. The things they think they know are such obvious tortured travesties that it hardly takes an intellectual to dissemble them.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  8. Largely, but likely not completely, off topic: SpaceX’s new-model (version 3) Starship is set for its first flight this evening between 6:30 (EDT) and 8:00. Weather is not 100%, but maybe better than 50%. Both stages are scheduled for water landings, since it is a new version with many changes.

    See spacex dot com, or (say) Everyday Astronaut or NASA Spaceflight on U-tube.

    It can indeed be argued that the urge to explore is one of those “civilizational instincts” — and one of the best of those arguments is how much a blessing and a relief such events are to so many of us. For a very, very long time, decades post-Apollo, it was “the itch we couldn’t scratch.”

    No more. The future (or one big brick of it) comes to us (fairly) regularly scheduled now, even in glorious live high-definition video. (Even through re-entry, which used to be impossible. Higher RF frequencies and bigger vehicles seem to be the critical ingredients.)

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      1. Space X’s Web site (as above) now showing next try same time tomorrow. Their X-Twitter stream (x dot com slash spacex, which does not require an X account to view recent posts) also quotes Elon Musk as saying a few hours ago:

        “The hydraulic pin holding the tower arm in place did not retract. If that can be fixed tonight, there will be another launch attempt tomorrow at 5:30 CT”

        So, more detail (though I’m still not quite sure if the “tower arm” there is the propellant feed to the Starship upper stage) on it; and I guess we should all stay tuned.

        Weather for tomorrow is looking good.

        Like

        Reply

  9. Interesting. In the WIP, I just finished working on a scene where the protagonist has lost everything but honor. He’s given everything he has [he thinks], but now has to face one of the consequences of his actions, right though they may have been.

    Honor, proper honor, duty, responsibility, they all seem to show up in my stuff. Strange that …

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  10. I listened to this interview yesterday. As a poetry, King Arthur, Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis enthusiast, I was charmed by the discussion.

    It is a rare treat to listen in on a discussion between two intelligent men who remember the “old stories”.

    I am blessed more than I can say to have found the old stories, though by the time I was a little girl they were no longer taught. I homeschooled largely to give my children the chance to learn them.

    And by old stories, I don’t mean, necessarily, publication dates.

    There are those who carry on the tradition of our elders in “new stories”. You know who you are.

    Like

    Reply

      1. Of course you are. Weird is the tell.

        After all it doesn’t get weirder than watery tarts handing out swords to randos to name the true king.

        Stories that are TRUE rarely get past the gatekeepers these days. Which is why there’s indy publishing. The hunger for truth surpasses the Ministry of Truth’s ability to suppress it.

        “You can’t stop the signal, Mal.”

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

  11. “But when my generation, the grandparent-age, largely doesn’t remember, the roof starts buckling.”

    I remember. I remember.

    Your invocation of those words of power brought unbidden tears to my eyes. It all really is worth fighting and dying for. To my shame, I can’t say that I managed to inculcate that instinctive understanding in my own kids. (Although they are kind, intelligent, and willing and able to engage their brains, which in this age may be a small victory in itself.)

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  13. ‘“words my father taught me.” Words like honor and dignity, like ancestral, ‘

    —————-

    It’s like Schwarzkopf in his autobiography talking about how the first time his father caught him lying, his Dad took him outside and very carefully explained to him that Schwarzkopfs never lie. Stuff like that gets passed down from father to kids. Mom can probably make a go at it if there’s no Dad around. But it seems to make a bigger impact if Dad is the one saying it.

    On another note…

    This comes up the day after I watched a video that touched on – among other things – the trend of taking words that are technical jargon with emotional weight, such as “abuse”, and injecting them into the popular culture in a way that both popularizes them, and also reduces the requirements that are part of the technical definition. The end result can be trivial things given emotional weight that they don’t deserve. It isn’t a new trend. But social media has likely made it much more widespread than it would otherwise be.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  14. I want to say that I think this is a major theme of A Kiss for Damocles, one of this year’s Prometheus Award finalists. Not so much in the conduct of the characters as in the things they remember and praise in their predecessors. It may be that the ongoing denigration of all historical figures is one of the things that destroys this sense of honor, and is meant to.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      2. And one of the leading reasons why they need that “great forgetting” (etc. etc.), is that in “the marketplace of ideas” (another thing we’re all supposed to forget), especially of practical ideas, theirs just can’t compete; seldom or never even coming close.

        One of the things that’s always struck me, about myself, is how much more unconfined by, or unattached to, time I seem to be than so many others. It’s as natural for me to think and speak in the language of the 1700s or 1800s or the early 1900s as our 20-somethings; I was brought up listening to my parents’ big-band music (and so forth). The “duty and honor” codes of the 1800s make perfect, just about instinctive inner sense to me. While the “reformers” and “Generation this or that” people have such amazingly, almost incredibly, narrow time horizons — or so it seems.

        Which actually connects well with my post from much earlier today. The future might be another country, “undiscover’d” yet indeed; but it also is not completely foreign to me, never has been.

        Somewhere up there, just around the figurative next bend, Mars awaits us.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

  16. The biggest disadvantage conservatives have is that they won’t fight over words. Conservatives believe in actions, not words. But words embody ideas. And ideas are the most powerful things that humans have.

    We have to preserve the good ideas and flush out the bad ones. A large part of how you preserve them is by inculcating them in the young. Humans, modern humans, are humans + civilization. There is a lot of awareness now about the “population crisis”, as in, humans not reproducing. But it isn’t just our bodies that we aren’t reproducing at a replacement rate, the same is true for our civilization itself. We have to reproduce it via implanting it in our young, and we don’t. Indeed, the reason we have the problems we do today is precisely because we let the wrong people implant the wrong ideas into our young people. The fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment