Daddy Days: The one where words had meaning
Words have meaning. This is a self-sustaining assertion because to make the opposing argument (i.e, words do not have meaning) you would have to use words…which have meaning. For millennia we knew this and yet in the past 15 minutes it’s become controversial.
Words have to have meaning for language to function. When you teach a child to speak and read words you have to have a structure. A is for apple, etc. You can’t just decide an apple is a garbage truck or that an apple is whatever they feel like it is.
This is common sense and readily observable. Kids need things to be tethered to reality. This choose-your-own-reality moment in history, where children are being blasted with ideology from Hollywood, social media and academia to the lowest level of education and encouraged to create their own truth, their own unreality is damaging. It isn’t a harmless social experiment.
In a Western culture that esteems reason, unreasonable ideas shouldn’t hold sway. And parents have the absolute right to speak clearly and freely to protect their children from unreasonable and dangerous ideas.
The modern day error of veering off into relativism isn’t new. I blame Protagoras. His assertion that man is the measure of all things, despite being dismantled by Plato, Socrates and Aristotle, is still wreaking havoc where it takes root. External objectivity matters. Communication ceases to exist without it. And sometimes I think we’re getting pretty close to that resulting chaos.
I could probably fire off a list of buzzwords that will get people screaming at me from all sides of the political spectrum. It happens to politicians and celebrities all the time. What happened to calm disagreement, defining our terms and reasonable debate? I think we’ve just about lost the capacity to communicate in that way.
Whether you agree, disagree or are screaming at the screen you’re reading this on you may be asking, why is this dad writing about this now? Because parents need to heed the wakeup call of what an erring culture is teaching their kids. In a society where the vast majority of child-raising and educating is outsourced, parents need to re-engage.
Hollywood, Disney, Google, Facebook, TikTok and K-12 academia have an outsized influence on our children. Especially when it comes to language. I have my personal opinions on these influences, but instead of telling you what I think, I'm going to ask you what you think. Do you agree with what these various companies, industries and public educational institutions are teaching your kids? Do you think their agendas for your children are in line with yours as a parent? Either way, do you expect them to be?
Ideas have consequences and so does action or inaction.
Parents have the duty to protect their children and the right to be involved in their media use, entertainment consumption and education. Use it.
Harris and his wife live in Pflugerville with their six sons. Please email comments or suggestions for future columns to thoughtsforcaleb@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Daddy Days: The one where words had meaning
