Our housemate Aminah read this poem to us tonight (not without some difficulty, given the punctuation) and it struck me as particularly convicting in the context of our class. Enjoy...
Totally like whatever, you know?
By Taylor Mali
In case you hadn't noticed,
it has somehow become uncool
to sound like you know what you're talking about?
Or believe strongly in what you're saying?
Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)'s
have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences?
Even when those sentences aren't, like, questions? You know?
Declarative sentences - so-called
because they used to, like, DECLARE things to be true
as opposed to other things which were, like, not -
have been infected by a totally hip
and tragically cool interrogative tone? You know?
Like, don't think I'm uncool just because I've noticed this;
this is just like the word on the street, you know?
It's like what I've heard?
I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions, okay?
I'm just inviting you to join me in my uncertainty?
What has happened to our conviction?
Where are the limbs out on which we once walked?
Have they been, like, chopped down
with the rest of the rain forest?
Or do we have, like, nothing to say?
Has society become so, like, totally . . .
I mean absolutely . . . You know?
That we've just gotten to the point where it's just, like . . .
whatever!
And so actually our disarticulation . . . ness
is just a clever sort of . . . thing
to disguise the fact that we've become
the most aggressively inarticulate generation
to come along since . . .
you know, a long, long time ago!
I entreat you, I implore you, I exhort you,
I challenge you: To speak with conviction.
To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks
the determination with which you believe it.
Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker,
it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY.
You have to speak with it, too.
This post brings up an issue that i have been frustrated about for quite a long time. I was never able to put my finger on it or explain it as clearly as it is demonstrated here but I couldn't agree more with what is being said. The empire has disguised, broken, and twisted truth to the point where not only does it require taking a Interim class at a small liberal arts school in the mid west to find it, It is now considered "cool", by empirical standards, to be anti-opinionated about virtually everything. Therefore when I hear people using the words "like" or "whatever" more than a reasonable amount in a given sentence, I cant help but put a label on their forehead reading, hopelessly brain-washed, product of the empire.
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