I think these language questions show us how difficult and puzzling the situation is. When a violent act is committed and you try to figure out who did it, try to assemble evidence, and try to catch the people, then that is the realm of crime and law. But here catching and punishing a few people will clearly not solve the problem for the future. When a violent act is committed and you asssemble armed forces and head toward another country and fight that country until they surrender, that is the realm of war. But that doesn't fit here either because there is no country and the notion that an enemy government here could formally "surrender" doesn't make sense. When you go to another part of the world and try to convert people to your way of believing and punish them if they don't convert, that, at least in a general way, is a crusade. But that concept doesn't fit either, in part because I don't think we even want to convert the mid-east; we just want terrorists to stop being terrorists. I think these terms fail to work partly because the conflict is larger than just America vs. terrorists. The best description I have read about is in Benjamin Barber's book a few years ago, "Jihad vs. McWorld." The growing conflict between traditional, religious, local cultures with a violent potential to them on the one hand, and modern international corporatism, epitomized by but not limited to America. We don't have the term for methodically violent conflict between these two aspects of global culture. Brock Haussamen -----Original Message----- From: Bob Yates [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 8:12 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Issues of language The events of the past week provide all kinds of interesting examples of how important it is to use the right words. I just saw Bush in a joint interview with Chirac, President of France. Chirac said clearly that he would not use the word "war" to describe the conflict we are now in. It is interesting that Bush didn't use it either. Why might some people avoid the term war? The best example of word choice is crusade. Apparently, Bush recently talked about the need for a "crusade" against those how carried out the events of September 11. Almost immediately Muslim countries in the Middle East reacted against that formulation. If I were teaching the right course, I might want to bring up whether "crusade" is the appropriate word to describe the struggle we are in. What is its original meaning? Is the avoidance of crusade in these circumstances a kind of "political correctness"? Can Americans use the word crusade to describe the campaign against terrorism? It might be interesting to consider whether it is appropriate for the leader of the US to say we want Ben Ladin "dead or alive." Of course, there are wonderful examples of speeches and interviews with Bush, Powell, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Guiliani, etc. to consider. What did these people say about the events? Which of these people seemed to inspire the most confidence? Why? All these people have been saying about the same things, but some seemed more successful than others. What were the characteristics of the language that was used which seemed to inspire more confidence? All of these are wonderful question about language which the tragic events of the past week raise. Bob Yates, Central Missouri State University To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/