Kort Explores conundrums of the human condition

"On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
Thomas Jefferson

Contrary to current political correctness, words do have real meanings. Words are important. Human languages tend to be as fluid and variable as the societies that use them, and "living" languages do tend to evolve and change over time. But we must not allow our understanding of the past to change as our current use of language changes. The principles expressed in words do not change just because we've changed the way we now use those words.

In the 400 years since the great man wrote them, Shakespeare's literary masterpieces have become almost unreadable for the marginally literate videophiles of today - at least in their original form. Shakespeare's words still possess all of their original power and glory for those who make the effort to read them in the context and meaning they held when penned, but few today are willing to make the effort. And without the proper context and meaning, Shakespeare's prose becomes at best profoundly different than the Bard intended, and at worst unintelligible gibberish beyond the appreciation of most readers.

Not that Shakespeare's name and reputation have disappeared along with the ability to understand and appreciate his actual words. To the contrary, we are treated to endless modern interpretations and adaptations of the Bard's works, each claiming authenticity and consistency with the intentions of the original author. To those who can still understand the Bard's original words, many of the modern works seeking to leverage a measure of unearned public acceptance off the great man's name are perverse distortions of the original works. But how can those for whom the Bard's actual words are now beyond reach know that they are being deceived - that the profound lessons of human nature embedded in Shakespeare's original works are being perverted into something entirely different by those claiming to produce "authentic" modern interpretations?

While Shakespeare provides a useful example, words are far more than a delivery system for entertainment. Words are also our primary means of communication and indispensable tools in commerce. The meanings of the words in our founding documents define and defend the principles that have made our modern world possible, and continue to define the very fabric of our modern industrial civilization.

Just as many of our principles are under attack, so too are the words with which we attempt to express them. In the same way that the history on which our civilization was built is being assaulted by revisionists, so too are the words that are so important to defining the principles by which we live. Claiming they are just "evolving" our common language, these revisionists seek to apply their altered meanings to the critical words and phrases that protect our most precious rights and liberties, attempting to turn the very words intended to recognize and guarantee our rights into the means of eliminating them.

The almost comical spectacle of President Clinton's attempts to use legalisms and novel distortions of language in a vain attempt to confuse the public and conceal the truth, might seem on the surface just yet another excursion into the absurd in what has become a sad little carnival of fools. While Clinton has proven more than willing to compromise the basis of meaningful communications in his short sighted self-interested attempts to deny the reality of his actions, words are far too valuable to the rest of us to allow them to be despoiled so cheaply and cavalierly.

The truly great men of the past earned their places in history by living lives of principle and integrity, and by their desire to do what they believed to be good and righteous. While pretending greatness, Clinton has been guided not by respect for truth and principle, but rather by a childish desire to get away with as much as possible through the use of crude belligerent denials, arbitrarily distorting the meanings of words that have long defined our society, or by the sort of legalistic hair splitting by which the legal profession has made it increasingly difficult to hold anyone accountable for his actions.

Clinton has schemed and connived his way through life, ignoring principle and treating the legal limits of acceptable behavior as minor obstacles to be skirted or overcome. Rather than controlling his base impulses and regulating his life in accord with society's standards, Clinton has attempted to redefine his violations of the public trust as right and proper behavior. While claiming to honor the truth, Clinton both lives a lie and lies about his life.

Clinton's legalistic attempts to avoid the truth - to claim there is a way to "legally" lie without lying and "legally" steal without stealing - extend far beyond the White House. His self-serving abuse of truth and the basic tools of communication are just some of the more blatant examples of an erosion of reason that has become pervasive in our modern world. While he's hardly the only deeply flawed individual twisting and distorting the fabric of society for their own short term benefit, Clinton does make a distressingly appropriate poster child for our current politically correct parody of civilized society.

One of the most disturbing developments to emerge from the efforts to justify Clinton's wrongdoings has been the claim that the well founded public expectation of corruption in government is itself a justification for continued official dishonesty. Those attempting to defend Clinton's lies have attempted to turn basic principles on their heads by claiming that lying by government officials is such an expected and normal practice that it has somehow become improper to expect anything else.

The pervasive atmosphere of dishonesty eroding the very foundations of our society has so completely compromised the ability of some people to understand the difference between right and wrong that they are no longer able to perceive why corruption and dishonesty are bad things. The principles of ethics and honesty have been replaced by situational ethics and plausible deniability as the only standards against which it is politically correct to judge those who claim to represent us.

While novel for a President, Clinton's legalistic maneuvers have become the norm for a legal system that is rewarded primarily by the degree of injustice it can deliver for its paying customers. Words have become the playthings of lawyers, with the outcome of a case often far more dependent on the lawyer's ability to twist and manipulate words than the actual guilt or innocence of the accused.

Fame and riches await both defense lawyers who can protect the guilty from responsibility for their crimes, and prosecutors who can find someone to hold accountable for crimes that enrage the public even when they must manufacture damning evidence themselves or conceal the proof of their victim's innocence. In an environment where reality is meaningless and only honesty and integrity are punished, those who attempt to retain an old fashioned respect for truth and justice are crippled by limitations not shared by their opponents, and become increasingly ineffective at serving their clients. And in the process any semblance of justice that would be recognizable as such by the wise men of the past is lost.

Bald faced denials, backed by belligerence and character assassination of the accuser, have become a near automatic response to any attempt to hold individuals or even nations accountable for their actions. When it isn't possible to entirely reverse the public's understanding of the principles behind inconvenient words, just creating artificial confusion is often just as effective at blurring the public consciousness and obstructing rational consideration of inconvenient questions.

Of course, we're not all entirely unwilling victims of this insidious manipulation. Too many of us are all too ready to embrace "new" definitions of "antiquated" concepts and principles when the "revised" definitions appear to support our own prejudges and superstitions. Lacking an understanding of history, too many of us are all too willing to embrace changes and discard all those annoying obstacles to our illusions of short term advantage. Of course, having abandoned the hard won knowledge of mankind's past mistakes, we've set ourselves up to yet again fall for the same old simplistic solutions that have always appealed to our fears, greed and superstitions.

We're increasingly told we should discard any memory of the original reasons for the principles and constraints that stand as inconvenient obstructions to the poorly considered quick fixes so many of us now find attractive. All that matters is what is convenient in the short term. All that matters is whatever serves the immediate purposes of those we have foolishly allowed to steal the rights and powers purchased for us at such high cost by the great men of the past. All that matters is that we abandon the treasure left to us in trust for the future.

The powerful messages that wise men of the past assumed would remain clear and obvious into the future, have been whittled away by revisionists until their meanings are largely lost on the poorly educated self absorbed citizens of today. What we're not told is that by allowing the revisionists to distort and manipulate the words and principles that define our society, we're also abandoning the residual wisdom of a more enlightened past that has protected our liberty, wealth, and personal safety for over two centuries. The hollow lies and deceptions we're offered in exchange for the quaint antiquated principles of the past will prove to be a sorry substitute for what we're giving up to serve the perceived convenience of the moment.