Society has suffered at the hands of smart men. And language is the medium which has been badly mauled and molested, by clever practitioners of guile.
- The most disastrous thing that has happened to modern times is that we are back to body language. Our language has failed us. We still believe in the power of the muscles
Dr. Jernail S. Anand | India
If language is the ultimate manifestation of the evolution of a society, which going beyond mere communication, becomes the mirror of a society’s personality, we are in for shocks because our language conveys disturbing messages about our evolution and brings into question the progression of which we feel so proud.
It all started with the body, when formal language symbols were not in existence. The body was the language of communication. Our gestures conveyed our agreement or disagreement. Sahir Ludhianvi, in one of his poems says: ‘Har tarah ke jazbaad ki pehchaan hain aankhen’. Eyes declare every emotion, every sentiment.
The development of the language, its signs, its acceptance across the continents, brought in visible advantages of mankind, and the circumference of human understanding expanded, leading to sympathy, understanding, a spirit of co-existence and a shared vision of world as we see it today, some threatening exceptions notwithstanding.
So far as body language is concerned, our idioms and proverbs are witness of the use of body parts to convey different emotions effectively. When people disagree, we rush to the eyes of man, and say: they do not see eye to eye. We walked ‘hand in hand’. They are ‘hand in glove’. He has an ‘oily tongue’. The victory was a ‘cake-walk’. He is a ‘loose foot’. So, we use our body to denote our emotional conditions.
But language has finally deserted us.
It has to be understood that we had left behind the body, and gone over to sophisticated linguistic patterns, as a result of the progress of the perceptive mind. By language, I mean words, arguments, debates. In the past, muscles and arms were the final arbiters. It was the most powerful who dictated what was just. But, as language progressed, people stopped believing in might is right, and gradually, came to believe that justice means much more than physical might. Men should have gone over to a state of existence where logic, reason, and wisdom mattered, and in this situation, the lettered men should have been considered the best of the tribe.
We can see it happening at several platforms, where people are engaged in debates and discussions, and justice is being debated and argued in the courts of law. It is a happy sign for humanity, that at least, the muscles and musclemen do not finally decide things. That there is the rule of law.
I would like to register a strong protest when people often call out: it is not the law of jungle. We have laws in our society. Of late, our society has become a jungle, and it is worse than the jungle because the law of the jungle is based on the innate wisdom of its denizens. We human beings cannot be taken for granted. We are not sure if we harbour any wisdom in the upper chamber.
The problem that now has cropped up, where language has suffered a great set back, is man’s overarching smartness, to put language into a trap. They speak the language of law, but enact unlawful deeds. More dangerous is the use of violent vocabulary for ordinary actions. A news item can be like this: Indian team bleeds England to death. This type of vocabulary to describe defeat is self-defeating. Then, there are WhatsApp groups in which language is molested. These days, there is a swag when people use mixed language such as Life4art. Now, it means Life for Art. What is bad if we use ‘for’ instead of 4. It is simply to attract attention, by indulging in oddities.
Some words which were highly respected in the past have now become a repository of fear. Truth is intolerable now. If you use this word with any piece of writing, the author can expect a call from some investigating agency. Goodness is highly suspect, so are godly men, because, those who are seen singing god’s praises, next day, are found behind the bars. In ‘The Merchant of Venice’, Antonio says that ‘The Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose’. The worst people are found to use religious texts extensively, and visit shrines, go for pilgrimages, turning these holy expressions hollow. The most hollow words today are love, affection, marriage, and commitment. Frailty thy name is woman, it was often said. Guile thy name is man, I insist.
Society has suffered at the hands of smart men. And language is the medium which has been badly mauled and molested, by clever practitioners of guile. The most disastrous thing that has happened to modern times is that we are back to body language. Our language has failed us. We still believe in the power of the muscles. We are back to arms. I wonder if in spite of education, philosophy and spirituality, we ever left the plane of physical power, violence and domination. What is our world now? Only one language. Arms. Bombs. Kill-Power. We have bombed all logic. Flattened all reason. We have sentenced to RI, all the holy texts, which preached truth, love, temperance, kindness and happiness.
We are back to our bare hands, with which we broke the twigs. Now we break heads. And then we have a fiery vocabulary to describe our actions. Education has trained us to put language to multiple uses, and use the one best suited to your particular situation. No text means anything now. Language has no loyalty. It is a harlot, which dances at the dictates of its customers.
Read: Nurturing Generations: Parents’ Duty to Society
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Hailing from Chandigarh, India, The author is Laureate of Seneca Award, Charter of Morava, Franz Kafka and Maxim Gorky Awards, and President, International Academy of Ethics
