A single word killed thousands. In 1945 the
difference between 'ignore' and 'consider' was not translated appropriately.
The Japanese mokusatsu, which can mean either word, was incorrectly
interpreted, delivered to the Allies, and so, with Truman, Churchill, and
Stalin's ultimatum 'ignored', the great bomb fell. Had the translator but
understood mokusatsu to mean 'we are considering
your ultimatum', much of history would be different. Words. Does not a person
living, and some dead, have so much impact on others? Do we not all want a
win-win?
We are buoyed by words. We float or sink by
them. We wrestle with the poet's meanings. We find ourselves smiling, or
frowning, or turned off. Chaucer and Shakespeare, or Marlow and Bacon can still
seem dreadful to some. (Yes, even those who like bacon can be confused). Much
of the wordsmith’s meanings rely on the listener, the reader, the interpreter,
and the interpretation to be accurate. Or as Romeo said, we can “jest at scars
that bear no wounds.”
So we can find ourselves discombobulated. There
grows a great plethora of multiple meanings and double-speak, of
double-entendres and metaphor and symbolism. Accuracy and precision are not the
purview of most politicians. They certainly are not the tools of the poet.
Hemingway would call a spade a spade. But Tolstoy, that inimitable interpreter
of the human condition, as well as Wordsworth, or Jung, make much of the
ontological differential. We prefer a clear stage direction, as in the final
imperative of 'Waiting for Godot’: (They
do not move.) Yes, the esoteric can be upstaging, off-putting, frustrating.
Knowledge relies on the connections we have made with another's contentions.
With what else might we prick the consciousness into yet more light?
Responsibility relies on ethics. Contracts
ensure a measure of obligatory actions; promises can otherwise too easily be
forgotten. In the clouds of obscurity o'erwhelming the margins and the vocalizations
of intent, there lies many a broken promise along the waysides; what else is a
divorce, a betrayal, an obfuscation, an outright lie? We are brutalized by the
actions that gainsay our words. We are eroded. We are bereft of character, of
compliance, of honour. The desperation of hara-kiri,
that Japanese extreme of doing away with the self, is indeed a tragedy.
Ethics has it that there be a win-win. Ethics
does not imply absolute truth. One knows when the truth will hurt or betray.
Just because a question is asked, does not mean it deserves the whole truth and
nothing but the truth. Many a priest has to swallow the confessions of others;
and so the identity of even a murderer can remain concealed. We humans make
much of the words we parlay. Phrases sew up the tapestry of our lives, give
meaning to the confabulation, and wend their way into our psyches such that we
become variously religious, variously spiritual, and variously aptitudinal.
Yes, neologisms create new words. Language itself entwines the frayed edges of
our collages and evolves new meanings, new morphemes, new invigoration in order
to adapt to the changing paradigms not only of our meaning makings, but of our
evolution itself. Still, we do not easily seek a win-win. We remain rather keen
on getting the best end of a deal.
That our world is shrinking, in terms of natural
resources, forests, clean water, and arable land is no longer in dispute.
Steve, the bush-pilot said, just today, "You'd hardly recognize Northern
Ontario. The Kimberly Clark logging has decimated it. Pristine places I visited
as a child when my father and I flew all over this land, British Columbia, have
dwindled down to logging roads. The effect is dramatic. There are fewer and
fewer places now to take the tourist for a visit." And yes, the oceans are
absorbing our toxins. And yes, the miasma of despondency pervades. We are not
making careful choices. The latest news of the daily toxins into the seas of
Japan confirms it. With what then, as a single individual, is one to respond?
There is but ethics, each for each, or are we but a collection of rock faces,
frozen into petroglyphs; a passive record of our passing? Mokusatsu, to be considered rather than ignored, indeed.
Blue North (1976) by Richard M-Pentelbury