>
>What are you talking about? At the moment I only have what Nate quoted,
>but isn't it clear that Prynne is talking about the *human use* of language
>and not *words themselves*?
That may be true, but I was objecting to the way it was phrased - portentously
opposing a concept of innocent language with a concept of language tainted
by its historical usage. As if words themselves were guilty by association.
It's a sort of poetical concept. I called it medieval because it reminded
me of anthropomorphic allegorizing (Sin is a big ugly oaf, Beauty is a
lovely goddess, Language is a guilty actor, etc...).
I'm saying words have neither consciousness nor free will in themselves.
They are tools, neither guilty nor innocent. People are guilty & innocent.
Prynne's phrases reminded me of all the rest of the mountain of stylized
rhetorical blarney written in the name of "Language" from Heidegger through
Derrida & the language poets etc. and so on. That's what I meant by
extremely tiresome. They are platonic projections or idealizations of
language which sometimes sound almost allegorical.
Henry
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