The guy pictured above is Rod Dreher. He lives in Hungary (by choice), and he always has lots of nice things to say about Viktor Orban. Dreher is "conservative," and "religious," and he writes a blog called Rod Dreher's Diary. If you click that link, that should take you to his September 2, 2024, edition, which is headed up by the following picture:
Viktor Orban is the guy on the left. You know the guy on the right.
In the column I have linked, Dreher opines that, "Criminalizing Dissent Is Coming." Click the link to see whether or not you think that Dreher makes a good case. I don't.
My purpose with this blog posting today, however, is not to debate the issue implicitly raised by Dreher's September 2nd blog posting. It is not to debate the question whether or not a criminalization of dissent is coming to the United States.
Instead of debating that possibility, I want to highlight the grammatical structure that Dreher has used for his title. Saying that something "is coming...." indicates that whatever it is that "is coming" is definitely going to come - that it is "inevitable."
Think about it. The "is" word is the word we use to identify a reality, a "truth."
Gary Patton "is" a former County Supervisor. Gary Patton "is" a resident of Santa Cruz, California. The sky "is" blue. These "is" statements describe things that are "true." Because usisng the "is" word is how we talk about something that is true, we end up, without even thinking about it, "believing" the truth of any statement that comes to us in one of those "is" sentences.
Saying that something "is coming," when it hasn't come yet, is to eliminate the sense that we have any real ability to decide what happens in the future. It is also a way of putting whoever accepts such an "is" statement in the position of an "observer," as opposed to putting the person in the position of an "actor."
If you are at a train station, and you look to your left, and you can see the train approaching, you might say, "the train is coming." That would be a statement about a present reality. But if you say that "a stock market crash "is coming," you are making a prediction, or issuing a warning. You aren't, actually, describing a present reality, and you shouldn't, really, say, "is...."
Does this really matter? I think it does! We tend to "believe" what we "tell ourselves" (and often, of course, we believe what others tell us, too). If someone - say Donald Trump - says that something "is coming" (and he predicts that terrible things are "coming" practically every time he speaks, in exactly those terms), then many assume that he knows what he is talking about, and that what he says is "true," and that whatever is claimed, in one of those "is" sentences, is a statetment about an existing "reality."
Of course, this phenomenon is not true only with respect to former presidents who are running for office once again. It really is true that we usually believe what we "tell ourselves."
So, let's not tell ourselves things that aren't true. If we are worried about the possibility that political "dissent" might be criminalized, then let's tell it like it really "is." For instance, we might properly say: "Recent events raise the possibility that political dissent might be criminalized in the future." And if you, or I, or Rod Dreher were to say that, the person making that assertion should provide some reasons that we ought to be worried - some evidence in support of the statement.
Does this really matter? I think it does!
We are "actors," not just "observers." All of us are "actors," and this means, as I have said in an earlier blog posting, we are all "free to change the world."
We can change the world, you know! We do it all the time. We should be very careful not to get in the habit of using language that convinces us that the contrary is the case.
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