Those big words

"Those big words" comes from Ulysses: " I fear those big words, Stephen said, which make us so unhappy". For me those are the big words which make us lose sight of the individual. It happens in politics and it happens in economics and it happens in a lot of other places as well. They are not all long words: some of them are not words at all: but they are slogans or phrases which reduce people to components, or to tools, without proper respect for the implications. There are those who are "stoic in the face of others' misfortunes". I do not think they are indifferent, nor that they are wicked: but they are blinkered, very often. So are we all.

I am hoping that this board can approach the subjects discussed, keeping the individual to the fore. That seems to me to be often lacking. There are premises which pass unrecognised and unchallenged, and it seems to me that this is because they are the "water we swim in". I would like to explore the "water," if that is possible.

I have my particular interests, but over time I have found that much of what I experience in my work is common to other fields: the same processes seem to be applied across a lot of public service, and with much the same result. Then, in talking to others from different countries I find that there is an astonishing overlap in what is said and done in the politics and social policies in different places. Globalisation is the word for that I think: but it is taken to mean free trade and open markets: and it is very much more than that, in my view. I want to consider that as a "big word" because much of what it means seems to rest on the idea that it will bring benefit "in the long run": As Keynes said, "in the long run we are all dead". I want to know what it means in the short run: for you and for me and for all the other people in the world who have never been asked how it affects them.

You may think this is "touchy/feely" but I do not think so. In fact I think that the dismissal of the individual is part of the "water". If we must hurt some "for the greater good" then we had better know who, and how much; and we better be able to justify that "greater good" as a good for them and not for us, or for some big word like "posterity" or "the next generation".

I would like to talk about those kinds of things: and I would like to do so in a pleasant atmosphere. Civility is important because it furthers debate, and so I want this place to be civil in the broadest sense. That does not preclude robust discussion, it enhances it, IMO.

Edited by FionaK - 18/5/2011, 00:47

Sustainability, global warming, freedom, change.... there are probably a lot more BIG words. I think it would be fun to make a topic in which all those big words are edited into the first entry with their dictionary meaning. And I think to keep a good overview every word can be discussed in a new topic. The link to that topic can be added to the list behind the word and the dictionary meaning.