Not long ago, we had a Swedish schoolgirl explaining to us, in very stylish English, about Climate Change.
Stylish ... but one word grabbed my attention. She said the dangers were "existential".
That word has been around quite a time now; at first, it frightened me. When a new term becomes all the rage, and one doesn't know what it means, one somehow ... at least I do ... feels excluded from a national discourse in which everybody else is apparently comfortable. I was young when Existentialism was a philosophical fad of a French gentleman called Sartre. His theories seemed not to take the doctrine of Original Sin very seriously. But I don't think that's relevant to this new use of the word 'existential'.
Suddenly the penny dropped as to what the term means. I think (e contextu) that it means "It really is real". "It really does exist". "If you don't take this seriously I shall spit on you from my loftier moral higher ground."
So now I no longer feel excluded. I've got it sussed. It is just another example of the modern dodge of choosing a fancy, upmarket-sounding, word to say something that was previously said rather more simply and prosaically, so that the speaker sounds either more like an Intellectual or more like a member of Society's elite. It's like 'locate'. The other morning I heard on the Home Service a pompous rambling old bore called John Humphries asking somebody whom he "had on the line" what his location was. Not "Where are you?" That would not have been consequential enough for the PROB. A year or two ago, I heard an announcement on a train to the effect that the safety information was "located adjacent to the door". Gosh, what an important person the announcer must have been. Only inferior individuals like that seedy old clergyman snuffling inexplicably in the corner of the carriage would say something as downmarket as "by the door". One has to maintain standards. Or do I mean status?
"Issue" is another case which, I think, illustrates several things. We used to have 'problems'. But if I admit that I have a problem, that puts me in the moral low ground. Aggessive people say things like "I'm a practising werewolf. Do you have a problem with that?" To which the only permitted reply is "Er ... um ... no; of course not".
So, instead, we have 'issues'. 'Issues' enable me to be lofty and disdainful, without admitting that something really has got to me .
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was for nearly three decades at Lancing College; where he taught Latin and Greek language and literature, was Head of Theology, and Assistant Chaplain. He has served three curacies, been a Parish Priest, and Senior Research Fellow at Pusey House in Oxford. Since 2011, he has been in full communion with the See of S Peter. The opinions expressed on this Blog are not asserted as being those of the Magisterium of the Church, but as the writer's opinions as a private individual. Nevertheless, the writer strives, hopes, and prays that the views he expresses are conformable with and supportive of the Magisterium. In this blog, the letters PF stand for Pope Francis. On this blog, 'Argumentum ad hominem' refers solely to the Lockean definition, Pressing a man with the consequences of his own concessions'.
... once graced the high altar of the church of Sancta Maria in Ara Coeli on the Capitoline Hill.
Fr John Hunwicke
was for nearly three decades at Lancing College; where he taught Latin and Greek language and literature, was Head of Theology, and Assistant Chaplain. He has served three curacies, been a Parish Priest, and Senior Research Fellow at Pusey House in Oxford. Since 2011, he has been in full communion with the See of S Peter. The opinions expressed on this Blog are not asserted as being those of the Magisterium of the Church, but as the writer's opinions as a private individual. Nevertheless, the writer strives, hopes, and prays that the views he expresses are conformable with and supportive of the Magisterium. In this blog, the letters PF stand for Pope Francis. On this blog, 'Argumentum ad hominem' refers solely to the Lockean definition, Pressing a man with the consequences of his own concessions'.
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11 comments:
I suspect a loy of users of existential in this context take it to mean 'threat to existence' or somesuch.
Words like quantitative easing are used to mention printing of notes and dumping them in the market; recapitalisation of banks to print notes and give them to banks on the verge of bankruptcy. Blind is visually challenged. Black is African American.
Another strange fashion I have noticed among cricket commentators is to call a piece of batting, bowling or fielding 'ordinary' when they mean 'bad'.
I dear we shall never see again the like of Richie Benaud, whom I recall a few years before his death producing, unscripted, a beautifully modulated sentence with 'whomever' in the middle of it.
If you really want to be Modern, Father, you should write "'Issues' enable myself to be lofty and disdainful..."
If you work as I do for a large American business one receives daily electronic mails extolling the latest merger or acquisition usually in the most jargon laden pompous prose. For example a recent missive breathlessly announced that we had "decided to enter the mortgage space" due to the fact that it was a "very paper heavy process in dire need of modernization and transparency". One would hope that the resulting transparency will be more than what the company's emails contain, but I suspect not.
Perhaps the problem is, to use another piece of current jargon, that we haven't "evolved" sufficiently. As our former President did when he went from being against same sex "marriage" to being for it. We obviously have an existential need to evolve so that our dialogue can be modernized and transparent.
Culture is a dynamic reality which a people constantly recreates; each generation passes on a whole series of ways of approaching different existential situations to the next generation, which must in turn reformulate it as it confronts its own challenges. (Evangelii Gaudium)
I had no idea that lycanthropy was once again rearing it's ugly head in the UK. Stock up on your Silver utensils!
Father, I share your irritation at academic sounding words being used merely to inflate the perceived authority of the speaker and what is being said. But in my experience the phrase "existential threat" is commonly used to indicate something which threatens the very existence of a person or group. It is part of both military and political jargon these days. It seems that this phrase is being reduced to just "existential". So I think the Swedish teen was saying that climate change and environmental damage threaten to wipe out humanity as a whole and possibly all life on earth.
I do think that there are real problems we are creating for ourselves and future generations by our collective and individual greed and self-indulgence. But the answer to the problems surely lies in the total reform of human beings through the grace and wisdom of Christ. There are many human behaviours that contribute to the destruction of Gods's beautiful creation and of a truly loving and just community. The old name for such self-destructive evils is "sin", and it includes things that many of the hipster 'environmentalist' protesters would howl with anger or derision if they were told were also an "existential" threat to their individual and collective well being. For example, the poisoning of our rivers and even its microscopic life with harmful levels of oestrogen from our widespread use of chemical contraceptives, for example.
Of course, if one thinks that human existence does not terminate with the death of the body, then, it would be more accurate to speak of a "mortal" threat to human life and happiness. St. Francis, at the end of his lyrical hymn in praise of the Creator mirrored in His Creation, was not afraid to sing out loud:
"Praised be You, my Lord through Sister Death,from whom no-one living can escape. Woe to those who die in mortal sin! Blessed are they She finds doing Your Will. No second death can do them harm. Praise and bless my Lord and give Him thanks, and serve Him with great humility."
Now that would be a truly radical environmental rallying cry!
do you suppose she means 'existentiell' or 'existential'? perhaps she regards herself as an ongoing 'Entwurf'. "Always define your terms, dear" we were taught...
I rather think she's applying the very loose German conversational usage of 'existentiell', meaning 'threatening survival'. The real German definition is entirely different (i.e. 'betr. Dasein' or 'concerning existence' - also in a philosophical sense.) But since the 1970s it's been used as a code for losing one's job/wife/accommodation/investments.
At least our Swedish Madame Sosostris seems to be predicting a general wiping out of the human race, rather than an inability to pay the rent. How savvy, to finally grasp that the eco-thingy will not catch on as long as we are told the Alabama cavefish might die out, the oryx,the hairy-nosed wombat, or the Siamese crocodile. Many of us have imperfect sympathy with such species and views their demise with heartless indifference (shared, one assumes, with the Siamese). But human beings, yes, we know how easily they die out - 56 million of them every year...at abortion clinics.
Language changes. Get used to it like the rest of us.
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