Amerika

What does this picture have to do with what follows?
Nothing! But it was too good to waste. So now to business…

Here’s something unusual…
Amerika.org is an unusual place, dealing in unusual fare, and, not surprisingly, it has unusual commenters.
If you think about this, is becomes apparent. What sort of people read these posts? Dummies? Dolts? Uninformed Oafs? There may be a few of those, but by and large, our readers are a curious kind of cutting-edge type, eager to both absorb and consider; then intelligently comment. This is well and good. But there is a chance here, that is not to be missed…

The comments, themselves, form a rather large – and vital – part of the entirety of the site. The feedback is, really, what makes the posts. Like a tsunami created by an earthquake. A bang makes the ripples, and the ripples carry the bang far and wide. Every sound, ever made, it is said, will echo into eternity. Fainter and fainter, perhaps, but eternally present. And so:

Commenters all too often treat their own input as throwaway lines, poorly formed, poorly delivered, and ambiguous. I scour the comments, here, searching for meaning, and often I know I miss it, hidden as it is, on so many occasions, behind layers of ambiguity. Double-meanings, misspellings, tumbling grammar and outright carelessness.

Commenters have the right to get it wrong, but also, they have the right to not get it wrong. Maybe even an obligation – a responsibility – to not get it wrong.
Imagine that what you have to say, really is important enough to say well. Because it may be. And even you may not know how important it is. If it is unclear, or garbled, then what may have been the great and history-changing missing-link, may speed by, unrecognized, and be gone, forever.

What a loss!

We live in an age where language has all but failed. How many times per day do you hear people ask: “You know what I mean?” Or: “You know where I’m coming from?”
And the one being asked always says: “Yeah”.
But do they know? Do they understand?
Is communication even happening – at all – any more?

It might be as well, if we are interested in what manner of new society might be born, or fashioned from the ruins – of the ruins – of the one we have, to give some thought to this.
If you have something to say, then say it. Boldly. Clearly. Accurately, so there can be no doubt as to its intended meaning, and purpose.

If you care for this site, then make your contribution. And make that contribution the best contribution you can make. Because the new, improved society we try so hard to imagine and describe, consists, in its entirety, of the sum of each of its individual parts. You, me, they and them. We really should try to get it right.