Newspeak is ravaging America, not merely disregarding reality, but reducing discourse to a pandemonium of self-loathing ideological blather devoid of meaning. A love letter to fallen language.
Wokism is a religion, and wokusts are engaged in a moral jihad against objective reality. So I believe the most basic, most essential response to any wokust attack begins with, "Who are you to judge me?"
Trygve. Your words made ME cry. I wish I could hug you, for many reasons. I will try to convey how deeply this essay has touched me and why, but my use of words, and vocabulary, aren't as masterful as yours, only my critique of them. This will be long, and you need a bit of history, but I will get back to you and your writing as the subject matter.
In my former life, I was an editor. I edited them all: books, periodicals, websites, but mostly periodicals. And because of that, I learned how to write *other people's words* more succinctly, and more simply, dumbing it down for the "average" reader of fifth grade material, and shortening it for space. I learned how to correct their mistakes. I learned to LOOK FOR their mistakes. Which can ruin reading for a person. It can ruin reading resplendent writing.
These days, for obvious reasons, I am not reading (or watching) mainstream journalism. You did not touch on their own destruction of their own profession in this essay, but to me it is absolutely implied in your writing. The Wokism they embrace is hurting their own art, talent, and crowning achievements.
And it also hurts me to read many independent "journalists." I appreciate their efforts of investigation, their uncovering of the truth, the time it takes to write about it. But most of them abso-fucking-lutely suck at writing. Their punctuation is atrocious, their/there/they're spelling and grammar pains me deep in my soul. How did we let these people graduate when they don't even know the difference between "your" and "you're?" They serve a great purpose here and now. But they are NOT journalists.
(I do all of my own writing and commenting on a phone. I have typos and accidental autocorrects galore and do not count those against people, but I also don't call myself a professional journo or writer. I absolutely judge people who call for us to not make "judgements" against them when they can't spell that word. There is a place in a mall with a giant sign that says "No Judgement Zone." I cannot stay there because I am judging them immediately.)
And people who have called themselves professional journalists and were educated as such but have bowed to the Wokism you so beautifully outlined here shall not be called journalists anymore in my book. They deny the truth, they deny reality, and they deny their true selves. They no longer investigate Truth and Knowledge. They concoct and lie to dupe us. And we willingly swallow their concoctions.
The fucking AP, Strunk and White, Chicago Style Manuals -- all should be damned to journalism hell, every award stripped from them for changing the definitions of words like mother and woman.
Sadly, I lost this career because I got a disease that now makes me forget simple and common words. I have difficulty retelling stories, communicating verbally. Like a pro ball player losing a leg or an arm, I have lost my ability to dance and play, parry and riposte with words on the tongue. I am "disabled" in that sense, and suffer from what is known as "the suicide disease." But I am hopeful and happy in my new life, as well, creating beauty and art, not destroying it.
When I was a child, I was always in the library reading. I read in the car everywhere we went. I entertained myself reading. I didn't play with dolls, or with many other kids. I read. When I got my driver's license, I got lost in our small town of 400 people because I always had my nose in a book and never really looked outside the vehicle. It was tough to find a pay phone to call my mom and dad, and my parents laughed their asses off.
I worked in the school library when I was in middle and high school, which enabled me to get office jobs while I went to college to be a children's book writer. Never had to do the fast food or other jobs like that because I loved books so damned much.
So, without knowing me at all, you correctly inferred that I am a logophile, and a bibliophile. And I wanted you to know how much of one I have been since the moment I read my first book.
And then, I found you. Or rather, you found me. The dark clouds have parted, the sun shining brilliantly down on you, birds singing, the air crisp and sweet and fresh. You are sitting there, sometimes smiling, sometimes surly, you're the one who saves me from this journalistic hell.
Oh, what a joy to read, absorb and just take it in. To know that I can trust that your spelling, grammar, and punctuation will actually be not just be correct, but an immense pleasure to read! To let my eyes and brain rest upon your words in the knowledge that I will gain more of that, I will learn something new, be entertained, witness and experience your art, challenged and pushed to action and prayer, to have the exhilaration of discovering new words and new ways to string them together. So many other writers attempt to write the way you do, but it is so often forced. Every other word is a new one, heady, and heavy, highfalutin and haughty. But your words do not come across like that at all. It is your clear love of the words and crafting of them that draws me in.
Ahhhhh..... The relief is palpable.
To be able to read such thoughtful and striking commentary about the world today, often mixed with perfectly pertinent passages from previous pontificators, restores my hope for humanity.
Your passage about being homeless such a "tender" age brought me to tears, and they just continued to flow when you expressed your joy at finding solace in the sea of stories, histories, theories, reasonings and the soothing tidal wave of words that is that residence of tomes.
My heart surged and soared even more when you quoted Robert Pirosh, bringing even more tears flowing, for I feel EXACTLY the same. I've never read him, and wish to now.
I had such a strange feeling and thought, that I dare to lay bare here, something I never wished for myself nor anyone else, yet there it is: How I wish to be homeless and not have a care about all the stresses of life and be able to just drown in books! A horrible and wonderful thought.
More eyeball waterfalls with your commentary on our society today mixed with the tears of the other subjects. I fear for our world in many ways, and yes, loathe it as well. So many before us warned that spotting what the evil ones do with language is how we know when we are losing in our society. I'm guessing you could quote dozens, at least.
A couple of weeks ago, I attended a presentation given by another Substack writer, author of dozens of books and movies, Hollywood refugee, Michael Ashley. He told of how he tutors junior and high school kids and teaches them to write. He has expressed the fact that none of them know how. Not anymore. He suggests that we start our own universities to bring back the classic books, and teach people how to write, paint, how to build and make beauty, and learn homesteading skills.
Language is the key to our existence as a society. To be alive today to witness the downfall of it is devastating to those of us who cherish it so.
Thank you for this essay. Thank you for choosing to share your mind, your way with words, with the world. Those of us who have found you, or you, us, are blessed beyond compare. You're one of the best writers I have ever read. In history.
To describe your writing in a word.... I was thinking, "frabjous," but I believe a different one is more appropriate. I've heard it's quite magical.
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
With much love and gratitude and happiness happy to read you, I am
Thank you, truly, although I don't deserve such high praise.
Your comment is also an essay, packing even more punch than mine. These travels and travails you describe made your kindness almost a painful, yet glorious, reminder of how exceptional human beings can be. Unless you explicitly forbid me to use it, I will steal—meaning paraphrase without attribution—your "I have lost my ability to dance and play, parry and riposte with words" in an essay about journalistic cowardice I hope to write.
My own essay was a rare moment of divine madness, inspired by our conversation over at Taibbi's joint. What can I add to: "They deny the truth, they deny reality, and they deny their true selves. They no longer investigate Truth and Knowledge. They concoct and lie to dupe us. And we willingly swallow their concoctions?" Nothing. I feel the same, only that my reaction to their cowardice is even more visceral. I despise them with every fiber of my being, given my own past as a journalist. Schmoozing with the powerful was never a part of that profession, and that's all they do—craven bastards.
But, ahhhh... you wrote "relief is palpable," and what am I to do now, unworthy as I am? Your praise warms the heart but also feels like a Sword of Damocles. I feel like taking the money and running, like hiding behind smileys—they even have an "emoji translator" job—or use Jack Nicholson's "noodle soup" speech from "As Good As It Gets" for the same purpose, lest I want the Sword to fall on my head once I reveal my true, illiterate face.
HA! In this word, "face," as an image flashed in front of my eyes, I found a way out. I'll explain in a bit, but I need a sec for this conversation from "Casablanca":
Rick: I congratulate you.
Victor Laszlo: What for?
Rick: Your work.
Victor Laszlo: I try.
Rick: We all try. You succeed.
Without Ingrid Bergman's presence, no one can really hope to succeed ["Instead, strive to be useful," said Albert Einstein], but two other great writers have shown me a way. In his "Under the Volcano," Malcolm Lowry quotes Goethe: "Whoever strives always to the utmost, him can we save."
So yes, to hell with that sycophant Damocles; I will try. And once I "yet again fail gloriously," I will always have Ingrid Bergman and her frabjous face to blame. After all, in all her smiles and all her tears alike, humanity lies.
Damn Trygve!! That was awesome! Bravo! I’m doing everything I can to turn the tide down at street level. It’s working. Keep fighting the good fight brother!!
I don’t understand the constant linking of communism to these ideological disasters. But then, I never met an American who truly and wholly acknowledged full responsibility for their crap. It always ends up being the fault of some foreigner, preferably a communist. This writer seems to suffers from the same malady.
I also have a problem understanding how this "love letter to fallen language" is linked to communists' fault or how it links to communism.
Luckily for me, I am a foreigner—only a resident of the U.S. who grew up in a communist country—and I do understand ideological disasters of any kind without blaming anyone but the Cabal on power in the U.S., something I've done in this Substack so many times.
Just reading the intro gave me chills and had to thank you even before reading. I cannot wait to immerse myself in the beauty of your words as they dance around in my brain, each one wishing it gets to land on my tongue and be heard out loud. No one has ever dedicated anything to me, let alone art. I must do one thing, then I can focus entirely on your masterpiece. My heart is full already. More comments to come! 😍
I doff my hat off for you, Ma'am; it's a gutsy move to praise someone even before the praise might be due. But, what if I mucked it up somehow? Who knows what awaits you - a parade of raging unicorns or a herd of mean-spirited Tex Avery's squirrels plotting your downfall?
Wokism is a religion, and wokusts are engaged in a moral jihad against objective reality. So I believe the most basic, most essential response to any wokust attack begins with, "Who are you to judge me?"
The rest follows from there.
Trygve. Your words made ME cry. I wish I could hug you, for many reasons. I will try to convey how deeply this essay has touched me and why, but my use of words, and vocabulary, aren't as masterful as yours, only my critique of them. This will be long, and you need a bit of history, but I will get back to you and your writing as the subject matter.
In my former life, I was an editor. I edited them all: books, periodicals, websites, but mostly periodicals. And because of that, I learned how to write *other people's words* more succinctly, and more simply, dumbing it down for the "average" reader of fifth grade material, and shortening it for space. I learned how to correct their mistakes. I learned to LOOK FOR their mistakes. Which can ruin reading for a person. It can ruin reading resplendent writing.
These days, for obvious reasons, I am not reading (or watching) mainstream journalism. You did not touch on their own destruction of their own profession in this essay, but to me it is absolutely implied in your writing. The Wokism they embrace is hurting their own art, talent, and crowning achievements.
And it also hurts me to read many independent "journalists." I appreciate their efforts of investigation, their uncovering of the truth, the time it takes to write about it. But most of them abso-fucking-lutely suck at writing. Their punctuation is atrocious, their/there/they're spelling and grammar pains me deep in my soul. How did we let these people graduate when they don't even know the difference between "your" and "you're?" They serve a great purpose here and now. But they are NOT journalists.
(I do all of my own writing and commenting on a phone. I have typos and accidental autocorrects galore and do not count those against people, but I also don't call myself a professional journo or writer. I absolutely judge people who call for us to not make "judgements" against them when they can't spell that word. There is a place in a mall with a giant sign that says "No Judgement Zone." I cannot stay there because I am judging them immediately.)
And people who have called themselves professional journalists and were educated as such but have bowed to the Wokism you so beautifully outlined here shall not be called journalists anymore in my book. They deny the truth, they deny reality, and they deny their true selves. They no longer investigate Truth and Knowledge. They concoct and lie to dupe us. And we willingly swallow their concoctions.
The fucking AP, Strunk and White, Chicago Style Manuals -- all should be damned to journalism hell, every award stripped from them for changing the definitions of words like mother and woman.
Sadly, I lost this career because I got a disease that now makes me forget simple and common words. I have difficulty retelling stories, communicating verbally. Like a pro ball player losing a leg or an arm, I have lost my ability to dance and play, parry and riposte with words on the tongue. I am "disabled" in that sense, and suffer from what is known as "the suicide disease." But I am hopeful and happy in my new life, as well, creating beauty and art, not destroying it.
When I was a child, I was always in the library reading. I read in the car everywhere we went. I entertained myself reading. I didn't play with dolls, or with many other kids. I read. When I got my driver's license, I got lost in our small town of 400 people because I always had my nose in a book and never really looked outside the vehicle. It was tough to find a pay phone to call my mom and dad, and my parents laughed their asses off.
I worked in the school library when I was in middle and high school, which enabled me to get office jobs while I went to college to be a children's book writer. Never had to do the fast food or other jobs like that because I loved books so damned much.
So, without knowing me at all, you correctly inferred that I am a logophile, and a bibliophile. And I wanted you to know how much of one I have been since the moment I read my first book.
And then, I found you. Or rather, you found me. The dark clouds have parted, the sun shining brilliantly down on you, birds singing, the air crisp and sweet and fresh. You are sitting there, sometimes smiling, sometimes surly, you're the one who saves me from this journalistic hell.
Oh, what a joy to read, absorb and just take it in. To know that I can trust that your spelling, grammar, and punctuation will actually be not just be correct, but an immense pleasure to read! To let my eyes and brain rest upon your words in the knowledge that I will gain more of that, I will learn something new, be entertained, witness and experience your art, challenged and pushed to action and prayer, to have the exhilaration of discovering new words and new ways to string them together. So many other writers attempt to write the way you do, but it is so often forced. Every other word is a new one, heady, and heavy, highfalutin and haughty. But your words do not come across like that at all. It is your clear love of the words and crafting of them that draws me in.
Ahhhhh..... The relief is palpable.
To be able to read such thoughtful and striking commentary about the world today, often mixed with perfectly pertinent passages from previous pontificators, restores my hope for humanity.
Your passage about being homeless such a "tender" age brought me to tears, and they just continued to flow when you expressed your joy at finding solace in the sea of stories, histories, theories, reasonings and the soothing tidal wave of words that is that residence of tomes.
My heart surged and soared even more when you quoted Robert Pirosh, bringing even more tears flowing, for I feel EXACTLY the same. I've never read him, and wish to now.
I had such a strange feeling and thought, that I dare to lay bare here, something I never wished for myself nor anyone else, yet there it is: How I wish to be homeless and not have a care about all the stresses of life and be able to just drown in books! A horrible and wonderful thought.
More eyeball waterfalls with your commentary on our society today mixed with the tears of the other subjects. I fear for our world in many ways, and yes, loathe it as well. So many before us warned that spotting what the evil ones do with language is how we know when we are losing in our society. I'm guessing you could quote dozens, at least.
A couple of weeks ago, I attended a presentation given by another Substack writer, author of dozens of books and movies, Hollywood refugee, Michael Ashley. He told of how he tutors junior and high school kids and teaches them to write. He has expressed the fact that none of them know how. Not anymore. He suggests that we start our own universities to bring back the classic books, and teach people how to write, paint, how to build and make beauty, and learn homesteading skills.
Language is the key to our existence as a society. To be alive today to witness the downfall of it is devastating to those of us who cherish it so.
Thank you for this essay. Thank you for choosing to share your mind, your way with words, with the world. Those of us who have found you, or you, us, are blessed beyond compare. You're one of the best writers I have ever read. In history.
To describe your writing in a word.... I was thinking, "frabjous," but I believe a different one is more appropriate. I've heard it's quite magical.
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
With much love and gratitude and happiness happy to read you, I am
Wyllamizer ❤️
Thank you, truly, although I don't deserve such high praise.
Your comment is also an essay, packing even more punch than mine. These travels and travails you describe made your kindness almost a painful, yet glorious, reminder of how exceptional human beings can be. Unless you explicitly forbid me to use it, I will steal—meaning paraphrase without attribution—your "I have lost my ability to dance and play, parry and riposte with words" in an essay about journalistic cowardice I hope to write.
My own essay was a rare moment of divine madness, inspired by our conversation over at Taibbi's joint. What can I add to: "They deny the truth, they deny reality, and they deny their true selves. They no longer investigate Truth and Knowledge. They concoct and lie to dupe us. And we willingly swallow their concoctions?" Nothing. I feel the same, only that my reaction to their cowardice is even more visceral. I despise them with every fiber of my being, given my own past as a journalist. Schmoozing with the powerful was never a part of that profession, and that's all they do—craven bastards.
But, ahhhh... you wrote "relief is palpable," and what am I to do now, unworthy as I am? Your praise warms the heart but also feels like a Sword of Damocles. I feel like taking the money and running, like hiding behind smileys—they even have an "emoji translator" job—or use Jack Nicholson's "noodle soup" speech from "As Good As It Gets" for the same purpose, lest I want the Sword to fall on my head once I reveal my true, illiterate face.
HA! In this word, "face," as an image flashed in front of my eyes, I found a way out. I'll explain in a bit, but I need a sec for this conversation from "Casablanca":
Rick: I congratulate you.
Victor Laszlo: What for?
Rick: Your work.
Victor Laszlo: I try.
Rick: We all try. You succeed.
Without Ingrid Bergman's presence, no one can really hope to succeed ["Instead, strive to be useful," said Albert Einstein], but two other great writers have shown me a way. In his "Under the Volcano," Malcolm Lowry quotes Goethe: "Whoever strives always to the utmost, him can we save."
So yes, to hell with that sycophant Damocles; I will try. And once I "yet again fail gloriously," I will always have Ingrid Bergman and her frabjous face to blame. After all, in all her smiles and all her tears alike, humanity lies.
Damn Trygve!! That was awesome! Bravo! I’m doing everything I can to turn the tide down at street level. It’s working. Keep fighting the good fight brother!!
Thanks! You too, keep up the street fight. I am certain that woke ideology is ultimately a destructive, murderous force, and it must be defeated.
You'll appreciate:
https://www.crashoutmedia.com/p/how-the-cia-promoted-magic-mushrooms
https://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/
I don’t understand the constant linking of communism to these ideological disasters. But then, I never met an American who truly and wholly acknowledged full responsibility for their crap. It always ends up being the fault of some foreigner, preferably a communist. This writer seems to suffers from the same malady.
I also have a problem understanding how this "love letter to fallen language" is linked to communists' fault or how it links to communism.
Luckily for me, I am a foreigner—only a resident of the U.S. who grew up in a communist country—and I do understand ideological disasters of any kind without blaming anyone but the Cabal on power in the U.S., something I've done in this Substack so many times.
Just reading the intro gave me chills and had to thank you even before reading. I cannot wait to immerse myself in the beauty of your words as they dance around in my brain, each one wishing it gets to land on my tongue and be heard out loud. No one has ever dedicated anything to me, let alone art. I must do one thing, then I can focus entirely on your masterpiece. My heart is full already. More comments to come! 😍
I doff my hat off for you, Ma'am; it's a gutsy move to praise someone even before the praise might be due. But, what if I mucked it up somehow? Who knows what awaits you - a parade of raging unicorns or a herd of mean-spirited Tex Avery's squirrels plotting your downfall?
Ps, you can putchyo hat back on. 😉
I had an implicit trust in you. And I was right to do so. I read it. It blew me away. Currently crafting a long, thoughtful response.