On the role of language 8.1: My perspicacity satiates a myriad of nascent intellects…

Continuing our discussion, we have ascertained that language can have a profound effect on natural rights; existence occupying a place of primacy, consider the implications of a last-minute phone call from the governor that halts an execution: by the mere employment of sequenced letters, one human being may decide the fate of another. While the illustration is undoubtedly club-like, the twin scalpels of syntax and diction fashion a much clearer image: words have power.

Having said as much, we find ourselves in the unenviable position of the audience at a particularly bad play: half-wits and pseudo-intellectuals (the buffoons and charlatans were in the first act) are using language to explain to us the need to curtail our own in the vaguely defined hope of bringing offense to none and lack of meaning to all. To over-extend the metaphor, we are fast becoming actors whose lines are written by hacks and whose scenes are envisioned by incompetents. There is, however, a solution:

Leave the theater.

When we begin to doubt the cause and content of our expressions solely out of nebular respect for the sensibilities of ill-defined cognoscenti, we abrogate our right to freedom of expression. Such surrender is unconscionable; flying in the face of our basic identities as free-thinking individuals, our self-betrayal is precursor to a much darker scenario: a Kafka-esque world in which we are on virtual trial for words we had no idea were verboten. Admittedly, this is perhaps a gross exaggeration of the current state of affairs, but it is not an entirely unforeseeable future (consider the words you used as a child which would now draw stares of shock and indignation). 

 Words are letters placed in series in order to foster effective communication; strictly speaking, they have no power in and of themselves (save the few examples illustrated earlier). Instead, it is their impact on the listener that grants them power. This puts said listener in a distinctly grandiose position…

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