is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished

I recognize that I am a day late with this, but yesterday I did not have a spare moment to get down my thoughts on the day. I apologize for the delay.

My Guy Fawkes Day, as is my custom, culminated in a viewing of V for Vendetta. I know I mentioned the movie in last year's post for the day, but on this viewing something very different struck me. While there is plenty of violence in the film (as is to be expected I guess, in a movie by the Wachowski Brothers based off an Alan More comic book), V never recommends violence as a widespread social panacea and in fact never recommends that anyone beside himself, whom he seems outside of the system and as not full part of the world, use violence. For your reflection here is part of his television address to London, I realize it is a little long, but it is fascinating:

Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. Last night I sought to end that silence. Last night I destroyed the Old Bailey, to remind this country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives. So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you then I would suggest you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament, and together we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot.

V makes two points here; first, injustice demands action or we are complicit with it. But his other point which underlies the first one is that, we cannot recognize justice, we cannot stand up for truth without deep contemplation. The authors here have spoken repeatedly about the power of words but it is a point worth repeating--we must be constantly intellectually engaged with the world. In 1984 one of the government's primary tactics in controlling the populace is redefining words--a practice which goes on both intentionally and unintentionally in our world. As Alan More says, "…Text-messaging or The Sun, these are perfect Orwellian ways of limiting the vocabulary and thus limiting the consciousness…" The real revolution is not V blowing up a building. That, as he says, is a symbol. The real revolution, what V is in fact urging the people of London to do and what hopefully follows the action of the film, is the people once again begin to think, to question, to challenge and thus to rediscover the Truth.

- 'Stand up and say your name!'

Why is it that we as persons are inclined to give out names as if on a whim? It can be said that one does not really know another until that others name is known. And, in the knowing of a name is power. But why, why do we have names at all, are we not content to be simply called man, as a lion is simply called a lion. But even onto lions, even onto animals we bestow names. If one has a pet usually a name is given, most of us do not simply say 'dog'. Are we so possessed that we name even inanimate objects? We are. We give names, we have names because we are different. One does not simply say man because that man is not the same as the previous one. They look different and the only way to differentiate between the two is with words.

One of our greatest freedoms is the power of speech. The power to articulate, the power to voice our thoughts and dreams, and the power to inspire others to dream. So great is the power of words that I am unable to adequately express them, so I will take a passage from one who is, G.K. Chesterton.

"Well, we won't quarrel about a word," said the other pleasantly.
"Why on earth not?" said MacIan, with a sudden asperity. "Why shouldn't we
quarrel about a word? What is the good of words if they aren't important enough
to quarrel over? Why do we choose one word over another if there isn't any
difference between them? If you call a women a chimpanzee instead of an angel,
wouldn't there be a quarrel about a word? If you're not going to argue about
words, what are you going to argue about? Are you going to convey your meaning to
me by moving your ears ? The Church and the heresies always used to fight about
words, because they are the only things worth fighting about. I say that murder
is a sin, and bloodshed is not, and that there is as much difference between
those two words as there is between the word 'yes' and the word 'no'; or rather
more difference, for 'yes' and 'no', at least, belong to the same category.
Murder is a spiritual incident. Bloodshed is a physical incident. A surgeon
commits bloodshed."

Such is the power of words. And so great is their power that we use them even when there is no one but us to hear. We talk to ourselves. "It may indeed been said that the word is never a more splendid mystery than when it travels in a man's mind from thought to conscience and then back again to thought."