I was very excited to read Jeff Goldstein’s post today about why conservatives MUST refuse to follow the Left’s self-serving (well, duh) “rules” about how we’re supposed to speak and debate.
I’ve been on this for years, slamming what I call the boring, old fashioned “rules of the rhetorical road.” Most recently, one of my most popular posts in a long time covered the same ground; there’s a reason I called it “Maybe I Should Just Leave This At the Top of the Page Forever”.
Jeff writes to tell me about his new “OUTLAW” movement. I hope you’ll check it out.
Here’s what he said in his email:
So far I’ve signed up several hundred folks, all willing to network and provide their expertise. The post that launched the “movement” is here — and I’ve since talked a bit about in on Breitbart TV and Hot Air.
The post is fairly self-explanatory. Ultimately, we’re working to form some sort of non-profit think tank-type deal that focuses on recapturing language and beating back the influence of Said, in particular.
You brush up against this very idea in your post: the current paradigm for how interpretation works INEVITABLE privileges group narrative, rewarding “intepretive communities” who not only get to decide upon a narrative’s meaning, but are then allowed to banish dissent by way of labeling dissenters either Other or inauthentic. It’s a perfect closed circle.
That needs to be exposed and destroyed — as does every bit of reader response theory, which is merely intentionalism that privileges the intent of the receiver rather than the intent of the author or speaker.
