Gary? writes:
> One of the problems with you intellectuals is this preoccupation
with dissecting every fucking sentence and giving greater import
to a word than necessary.
While not one to shy away from criticsm of intellectuals, in this case criticism is misplaced. In Buddhism there is the concept of mindful speech which I believe to be very useful. If we regard speech as a tool to convey information to others, then the use of words or syntax that offends and raises barriers is counterproductive and should be avoided. Those who fetish speech an expression of their individual being are too concerned with the maintenance of their personal illusion of self to pay much attention to effective communication.
> We end up with offense where there is none and a waste of emotion,
in Europe swearing rarely has gender, I can call a woman a stupid prick
and a man a stupid twat, it would rarely be taken in offense, the context
hold the power not the word.
To say that all power is in context and not in words is senseless. Egg runs red desk from visible train.
Within the context of this thread and my email what does the last sentence mean?
> You can hold your body labels sacred and take umbrage with casual usage.
One of the unfortunate by-products of the Enlightenment project is that when someone wants to denigrate another person's actions, they refer to these actions as "sacred,' "sacrosanct," or some other term that imputes a sense of religiousity to them. This religiousity is then used to discredit the action without an attempt to engage the action on its consequential terms.
Brian Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister