Eric Zuniga, Campus Carrier deputy news editor
I have never felt more like I know both so much and so little at the same time. It may be a trite thing to say, but college is a journey, one both intellectual and personal. Through all the classes taken, books read and people met, I have come to understand how much there is left for me to learn, and I wonder how much we can truly know at all. But there is one thing in which I have an abiding faith: the expressive and illuminating potential of words.
Though our ability to use language and communicate is one of the most fundamental things that makes us human, I think we’ve lost sight of the power well-chosen words can really hold. We live in a society that views communication as a cheap, disposable, trivial thing. Politicians and corporations often obscure the truth with language to escape scandals or sell more consumer products. Across the country, colleges are shuttering or downsizing their humanities and language departments, and journalists are facing layoffs at outlets both big and small.
I’ll admit that I may be a bit biased in my assessment of the sanctity of eloquent communication. I have always been enamored with words, and my major and my work demand a meticulous, almost obsessive, attention to their intricacies: their definitions, their histories and their myriad ambiguities. But I believe that we all appreciate the sweet poignancy and clarity the right words can bring, even if we don’t always consciously recognize it.
Think of your favorite song, one that you feel really speaks to you. You probably relish its groove and chords, but you just as likely find deep, singular meaning in its lyrics. The words speak to some deep-seated emotion, some precious memory, some invaluable truth within you. The song may comfort you in your lowest sorrow or exhilarate you in your highest thrill, but it does so in part through well-chosen words that get at something true and fundamental.
That is the real power we hold in the pen and in the tongue. The best writers and storytellers have a knack for making comprehensible what is real but elusive and inscrutable with their words. Our lives, viewed dispassionately, are a chaotic mix of baffling tragedies, inexplicable serendipities and perplexing emotions. Our only hope against the dispiriting darkness of incomprehension is our ability to articulate how we really feel and what we really yearn for in our thoughts, our conversations and our art.
The same goes for the words we say about the world and society outside of our own limited consciousness. The best journalists and literary authors cut through smokescreens to reveal the true workings of power, inequity and injustice in this world. The former executes their craft with painstaking precision, while the latter illuminates the truth metaphorically and symbolically, but both stand in opposition to the vapid statements those in power often use to elide responsibility. A political conscience begins with the ability to describe the world as it really is.
The writer Matthew Arnold in his poem “Dover Beach,” after reflecting on a world which seems to have neither “certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain,” implores his audience to “be true to one another” in the spirit of love. It is my belief that we should strive to be true to each other with our words, using them with care, appreciation and purpose. There is really nothing more human and transcendent than to say what we really mean.