B5 - Voices of Authority

[RobbyB1982]

George Carlin had a whole bit about how language gets softened and changed over time to hide the bad stuff.

I don't like words that hide the truth. I don't like words that conceal reality. I don't like euphemisms, or euphemistic language. And American English is loaded with euphemisms. Because Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. Americans have trouble facing the truth. So they invent the kind of a soft language to protect themselves from it. And it gets worse with every generation. For some reason, it just keeps getting worse. I'll give you an example of that.

There's a condition in combat, most people know about it, it's when a fighting person's nervous system has been stressed to its absolute peak and maximum, can't take any more input. The nervous system has either snapped, or is about to snap. In the first World War, that condition was called "shell shock."

Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables. Shell shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was seventy years ago. Then a whole generation went by, and the second World War came along. And the very same combat condition was called "battle fatigue." Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say, doesn't seem to hurt as much. "Fatigue" is a nicer word than "shock." Shell shock. Battle fatigue. Then we had the war in Korea in 1950. Madison Avenue was riding high by that time. And the very same combat condition was called "operational exhaustion."

Hey, we're up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been completely squeezed out of the phrase, it's totally sterile now. Operational exhaustion, sounds like something that might happen to your car!

Then, of course, came the war in Vietnam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years. And thanks to the lies and deceit surrounding that war, I guess it's no surprise that the very same condition was called "post-traumatic stress disorder."

Still eight syllables, but we've added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. "Post-traumatic stress disorder." I'll bet you if we'd have still been calling it shell shock, some of those Vietnam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I'll bet you that.

[bguy]

I disagree that Musante is dumb or thinks Sheridan is. Her demeanor seems to indicate "yes, I know that this is B.S., but I am perfectly fine with it and if you know what is good for you, you will be too."

Agreed. When Sheridan asked her when all these positive changes happened on Earth, and Musante answered, "when we rewrote the dictionary" that made it clear she knew she was talking BS and that she knew Sheridan wasn't buying it either.

[Scififan]

With all due respect to Mr. Carlin, (who is one of my favorite comedians) for a long time this kind of condition was basically ignored for a long time. You were expected to suck it up and be a man after being done with military service. In fact, Patrick Steward's father was an alcoholic because he was coping with his time in WW2 as a combat paratrooper. He was forced to kill civilians at the time and was haunted by the things he did.

[Scififan]

I really liked the pseudo Star Trek reference that Ivanova gave.
"Good luck Captain, looks like you're going where everyone's gone before".

[FaxModem1]

The one thing I never bought was Ivanova's exposure of President Clark leading to the Political officer being recalled. Either Nightwatch/Ministry of Peace is stretched unbelievably thin, or they jumped the gun on deploying someone on B5 before they were ready for any sort of problems happening politically.

The other thing, of course, is having a politician confessing something on-air and that damaging his political career, rather than his supporters just disregarding it and supporting that person anyway. Ah, the innocence of the 1990s.

[Fianna]

I really hate that Carlin quote.

"Shell shock" sounds like, "Oh, they're just in shock; they'll snap out of it in a bit." And "battle fatigue" sounds even worse, since it just sounds like the person's tired rather than going through something serious.

"Post-traumatic stress disorder", though? That makes it sound like a legit medical condition, and there's the word "traumatic" right there in it. Plus it doesn't limit itself to just the experiences of soldiers, either.

[bguy]

The other thing, of course, is having a politician confessing something on-air and that damaging his political career, rather than his supporters just disregarding it and supporting that person anyway. Ah, the innocence of the 1990s.

Did the recording even really damage Clark's support? He was subsequently able to declare martial law, order the arrest of the Senate, and the bombing of civilians and his supporters (along with most of the Earth military) still stayed loyal to him.

[Beastro]

Even so, it's oddly skippable.

Cept it's got Shari Shattuck.

Made me sad her character didn't become a reoccurring guest. I have a soft spot for feisty bitches and her reoccurring could have allowed her more time to come on less strongly, but more insidiously.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

The other thing, of course, is having a politician confessing something on-air and that damaging his political career, rather than his supporters just disregarding it and supporting that person anyway. Ah, the innocence of the 1990s.

He he he, yeah,...I...I...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag1o3koTLWM&list=PLB1xCzX416Dob2rJCSwumE_wJ5wQKEMGP&index=6

[Beastro]

George Carlin had a whole bit about how language gets softened and changed over time to hide the bad stuff.

Carlin always annoyed the hell out of me.

Pinker's "euphemism treadmill" is a better thing to look at.

Controlling language can only do so much. You cannot control that within people which fights to find words to use as symbols to express itself. With the treadmill, enough people look down upon mental retardation enough that simply creating new words to free the retarded of that stigma will only result in those words taking on the same stigma.

This isn't even something limited to people. Anyone with a chatty pet knows how animals have the same expressive desire as well. I locked my cat outside by accident for hours once, and upon realizing my error and letting her back in, was on the receiving end of a furious lecture as she marched inside. The only difference from a person berating me was the absence of words used, but the use of meows was the exact same ending with a drawn out, frustrated trill to wrap it all up with.