Talking with Authority

It is Not Enough to Question Authority – You Must Speak With it!

Taylor Mali has written a poem wondering about what is happening to speech. He dissects an interesting tone in the linguistic patterns of today's young people.

Students! You have come to this world with the power to reason and communicate. Each one of you has the ability to think critically about whether you agree or disagree with ideas, and can have logical reasons for agreeing or disagreeing about ideas. So Speak with authority and do not be afraid of questioning authority.

Don't become like those people in Plato's allegory! Media, modern mass media which surround your lives are using language to create a shadow world of unreality. They use words to manipulate, to deceive, or to win an argument in a self-serving way.

Do not let them do that.

Neil Postman, quotes Bertrand Russell, saying
"That the purpose of education was to teach each of us to defend ourselves against the seductions of eloquence. In the realm of the world, we learn the specific techniques used to resist these seductions: logic, rhetoric, and literary criticism."

Slick media packaging, news, and political discourse has "altered and trivialized perceptions of serious topics."

They become Plato's shadows, containing only fragments of truth.