We move but our words stand become responsible for more than we intended and this is verbal privilege
Interpretation
Our words have a lasting impact and carry responsibilities beyond our intentions.
This quote by Adrienne Rich emphasizes the idea that while we may change and evolve, the words we speak have a permanence that can outlast our intentions. It highlights the concept of 'verbal privilege,' suggesting that people should be mindful of the power of their words, as they can shape perceptions and realities for others, often in ways we do not foresee.
In practice
Using this quote during a public speaking event to highlight the importance of mindful language.
My children cause me the most exquisite suffering of which I have any experience. It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness. Sometimes I seem to myself, in my feelings toward these tiny guiltless beings, a monster of selfishness and intolerance.
The word revolution itself has become not only a dead relic of Leftism, but a key to the deadendedness of male politics: the revolution of a wheel which returns in the end to the same place; the revolving door of a politics which has liberated women only to use them, and only within the limits of male tolerance.
A president cannot meaningfully honor certain token artists while the people at large are so dishonored.'β
There is no 'the truth','a truth' - truth is not one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing complexity. the pattern of the carpet is a surface. When we look closely, or when we become weavers, we learn of the tiny multiple threads unseen in the overall pattern, the knots on the underside of the carpet
It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness
It's as if, in the mother's eyes, her smile, her stroking touch, the child first reads the message:'You are there!'
So much of what passes for conversation today is degraded. It's either about one-upmanship, or dreary trivia. Even the cut and thrust of wit and bons mots is a form of bedazzlement designed to stop conversations dead rather than broaden them.
We cannot be speakers who do not listen. But neither can we be listeners who do not speak.
In communications, familiarity breeds apathy.
A flourishing, morally credible media is a vital component in the maintenance of genuinely public talk, argument about common good.
There are some who speak well and write badly. For the place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think of without that warmth.
Human communication, 'as the saying goes, is a clash of symbols' it covers a multitude of signs. But it is more than media and messages, information and persuasion; it also meets a deeper need and serves a higher purpose. Whether clear or garbled, tumultuous or silent, deliberate or fatally inadvertent, communication is the ground of meeting and the foundation of community. It is, in short, the essential human connection.
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