The Language War

Lakoff calls herself a linguist, and through the reading I couldn't really tell that at all. I just saw her as a debator of rhetorical situation more than language itself. She really gets into the issue of gendered discourse and I think you really had to read between the lines to get her ideas and controversies about the topic. She discusses language choices and the use of metaphors in writing that can persuade us as readers, or get us to think in a certain way. One part of the reading she talks about how we cannot let word associations and word meaning interfere with our general understanding of issues or products. This is basically what I wrote about in my first paper. I discussed the fact that the media has a code for us as individuals and it plays on our weaknesses and our fears in order to get us to buy. Government does this as well when they want us to agree on a particular issue or when they want us to understand what they're saying, without really understanding it at all. They try to manipulate us so that they we are on their side. In my paper I stated that the media makes us feel good about ourselves at first, but always keeps us needing them in the end. "They create a situation where we create our own fear, and therefore we need their products to feel safe again." I think that this is basically what Lakoff is trying to convey to us in her book.
One specific part of the reading that I thought was pretty confusing as I read it was the apolgy section. The phrase, "I'm sorry I stepped on your cat," as opposed to, "I'm sorry your cat got stepped on," or, "Why'd you leave the cat in this room?!," or, "Can't the stupid animal watch where it's going?" all shift the blame of the issue itself. When you say that you're sorry the cat got stepped on, your not actually taking blame or accountability for doing the act, itself. When you ask why did you leave the cat here in the first place, you're actually shifting blame to the innocent party completely. When you say can't the stupid animal watch where it's going you're shifting blame to the cat, the innocent animal whom you stepped on. I now see how government officials use this technique to get out of certain situations. Apologizing is humbling and a lot of people have a very hard time doing this, especially if they know they are wrong in the situation. Certain government officials will sometimes shift blame entirely, or apologize without taking responsibility. This is kind of an art, if you think about it. Because they have the power to say that they apologized for something that they never even held themselves accountable for.
In class we discussed this in firther detail about history in general. I would not have felt comfortable apologizing for acts of the past that I was not even around for. Plus, the issues weren't even things that I agreed with in my life today. But some students pointed out that if I had lived back then, my whole mindet would definitely be different, so really, who am I to say what I would have agreed with or been against? Things that I never even really thought about was that fact that history repeats itself and the past affects the present. We also discussed practical reasoning for apologizing for past issues like trade with countries and the direct link of the wealth that Americans now have with the past. I now would agree that there is significance in apologizing for certain things, even if I had no direct coorelation to them to begin with. It actually helps the whole cause in general. I now kind of see that I was pretty ignorant to this logical kind of thinking before.