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| Dancer from Kettle's Yard |
I was listening to a podcast where Krista Tippet interviewed Ocean Vuong. Vuong's answers were incredibly perspicacious, but one conversation struck me in particular given this moment.
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Vuong: We often tell our students, “The future’s in your hands.” But I think the future is actually in your mouth.
[laughter]
Vuong: You have to articulate the world you want to live in first. […] we have strong, good sciences, good schools; very advanced weaponry, for sure — but I think we’re still very primitive in the way we use language and speak, particularly in how we celebrate ourselves. “You’re killing it.”
Tippett: You’re so acute about the violence of the American lexicon …
Vuong: We have to ask. I’m not saying it’s wrong, per se; I use it, too, being a product of this country. But one has to wonder, what is it about a culture that can only value itself through the lexicon of death? I grew up in New England, and I heard boys talk about pleasure as conquest. “I bagged her. She’s in the bag. I owned it. I owned that place. I knocked it out of the park. I went in there, guns blazing. Go knock ‘em dead. Drop dead gorgeous. Slay — I slayed them. I slew them.” What happens to our imagination when we can only celebrate ourselves through our very vanishing?
Tippett: I mean, even you, as a poet, have said people will say to you, “You’re killing it.”
Vuong: What does it do to the brain? We know language matters. […] And so I think, what happens if we alter our language? Where would our future be? Where will we grow towards if we start to think differently about how the world is?
(Full interview and transcript available here)
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Already, there is a conversation around the language we use regarding the virus, such as the difference between saying physical distancing instead of social distancing. I've personally been observing the range of words used for the measures put in place by governments to reduce the spread of the virus - lockdown, shelter in place, circuit-breaker. (I think shelter-in-place sounds the most beautiful, reminding me of Pslam 91. But I mostly been using lockdown because that is what is feels like and what most of the world understands. No one intuitively undertands circuit-breaker.) But something more troubling I've noticed is how the language used around the virus is laced with the lexicon of war or violence.
'frontliners'
'zoombombing'
'we will beat this virus'
Politicians, especially, use the language of violence. Boris Johnson stated that: 'This enemy can be deadly, but it is also beatable.' Donald Trump, Emanuel Macron, Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping have all referred to their response to the virus as fighting a 'war'.
South Asian University Senior Assistant Professor Prabhash Ranjan suggests that war metaphors are being used to galvanise people, to explain the gravity of the situation, to raise support for the governments measures and to create a sense of unity. He goes on to list the ways in which government could use such language for their own benefit, for instance to heighten surveillance and other authoritarian actions, create a cult of personality, or as a convenient excuse for mistakes. Yet his own article employs military diction: 'marshal resources and galvanise people fighting the pandemic'.
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When I get voice messages from Naomi and Anais, often they begin with word of safety and love. 'Dear', 'my love', 'sweet', 'dearest'. I feel safe, cocooned in my earphones and their words of trust and confidence. Wrapped in their words, I am in a bubble and filled with peace. Again, I think of that passage in John and the disciples in the locked room. 'Peace be with you,' Jesus says, 'Do not be afraid.'
These words cannot, and should not, give a false sense of security. We do need a healthy respect of the virus, and we do need to respond with compassion and love for other people (wearing a mask outside, I've come to think, is a wordless way for me to tell someone I care about you, an intention I've found is best accompanied by a eye-crinkle smile above the line of your mask.) But these words can remind us that while this virus has taken away a lot and changed so much, there is a gentle strength in being able to love and communicate love and peace while we walk through this. Instead of a people 'besieged by an enemy', we can begin to sow the words of love and safety that will birth a more considerate world.
There are words of safety and there are words of fear - how comforting, when Jacinda Ardern said that you could see people in your 'bubble'. That image of a glistening sphere, source of childhood delight, is powerful. There is so much fear at the moment - people take pains to walk on the other side of the pavement to avoid other people, shelves empty, WhatsApp messages about the latest news and fake news fly from phone to phone. We could use more words of safety.
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