Sunday, March 26, 2006

roll up the disRIMination to win

the echelon is swinging back round to drop the indignation: what the hell's going on with discrimination. as a concept of common usage, it's contradictory. look at this def'n (dictionary.reference.com) =

dis·crim·i·na·tion ( P ) Pronunciation Key (d-skrm-nshn)n.
1. The act of discriminating.
2. The ability or power to see or make fine distinctions; discernment.
3. Treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit; partiality or prejudice: racial discrimination; discrimination against foreigners.

where, from our swampy tongue, did the 3rd usage emerge? wouldn't that indicate a LACK of discrimination? prejudice is INdiscrimination, no? what warped this concept so? upon thinking about the racial problems, historical and current, perhaps one thread of 'discrimination' stems from the POWER to do so. the authority to have created these divides in the first place. in which case, discrimination, in its radicalized (and i propose, fallacious) usage still fails to illustrate this. so stop criminalizing a word, a word that is more good than bad (basis of all thought and dictinction of virtue), and get to the damned root. poor usage is indiscrimination.

2 comments:

Isabel said...

put your hands on the wheel
let the golden age begin
let the window down
feel the moonlight on your skin
let the desert wind cool your aching head
let the weight of the world drift away instead

these days i barely get by
i dont even try

its a treacherous road with a desolated view
there's distant lights but here they're far and few
and the sun dont shine even when its day
you gotta drive all night just to feel like you're okay

these days i barely get by
i dont even try
i dont even try

Anonymous said...

goddamn isabel's hot (if that really is isabel). but this is besides the point. the point of course is that you're absolutely wrong that discrimination and indiscrimination are equivalent (I'm having trouble concentrating with isabel looking at me...and this is affecting the sensibility of my comments) concepts, but you raise an excellent point that the definition of discrimination is based on what it is the discriminator is discriminating against. what i believe you are getting at is that indiscrimination is a impossible task for humans, and does not truly exist as a sociable action. it can only exist mechanically, and even then it's a stretch...as indiscrimination has to be programmed by discriminating code.