“Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotion know what it means to want to escape from these” - Emily Dickinson

I once received an invitation to lecture at “The University of Excellence”. I forget where this particular academy was located — Jordan, I think — but I recall very clearly that the suggested subject of my talk was as incomprehensible to me as it would, no doubt, have been to any audience. Invitation rejected. Only this week I received another request, this time to join “ethics practitioners” to “share evidence-based practices on dealing with current ethical practices” around the world. What on earth does this mean? Why do people write like this?

The word “excellence”, of course, has long ago been devalued by the corporate world — its favourite expression has long been “Quality and Excellence”, invariably accompanied by a “mission statement”, that claim to self-importance dreamed up by Robin Cook when foreign secretary — swiftly ditched when he decided to go on selling jets to Indonesia — and thereafter by every export company and amateur newspaper in the world.

There is something repulsive about this vocabulary, an aggressive language of superiority in which “key players” can “interact” with each other, can “impact” society, “outsource” their business — or “downsize” the number of their employees. They need “feedback” and “input”. They think “outside the box” or “push the envelope”. They have a “work space”, not a desk. They need “personal space” — they need to be left alone — and sometimes they need “time and space”, a commodity much in demand when marriages are failing.

These lies and obfuscations are infuriating. “Downsizing” employees means firing them; “outsourcing” means hiring someone else to do your dirty work. “Feedback” means “reaction”, “input” means “advice”. Thinking “outside the box” means, does it not, to be “imaginative”?

Being a “key player” is a form of self-aggrandisement — which is why I never agree to be a “key speaker”, especially if this means participation in a “workshop”. To me a workshop means what it says. When I was at school, the workshop was a carpentry shop wherein generations of teachers vainly tried to teach Fisk how to make a wooden chair or table that did not collapse the moment it was completed. But today, a “workshop” — though we mustn’t say so — is a group of tiresome academics yakking in the secret language of anthropology or talking about “cultural sensitivity” or “core issues” or “tropes”.

Presumably these are the same folk who invented the UN’s own humanitarian-speak. Of the latter, my favourite is the label awarded to any desperate refugee who is prepared (for a pittance) to persuade their fellow victims to abide by the UN’s wishes — to abandon their tents and return to their dangerous, war-ravaged homes. These luckless advisers are referred to by the UN as “social animators”.

These lies and obfuscations are infuriating. “Downsizing” employees means firing them; … “Feedback” means “reaction”, “input” means “advice”. Thinking “outside the box” means, does it not, to be “imaginative”?

It is a disease, this language, caught by one of our own New Labour ministers on the BBC when he talked about “environmental externalities”. Presumably, this meant “the weather”. Similarly, an architect I know warned his client of the effect of the “aggressive saline environment” on a house built near the sea. If this advice seems obscure, we might be “conflicted” about it — who, I ask myself, invented the false reflexive verb? — or, worse still, “stressed”. In northern Iraq in 1991, I was once ordered by a humanitarian worker from the “International Rescue Committee” to leave the only room I could find in the wrecked town of Zakho because it had been booked for her fellow workers — who were very “stressed”. Poor souls, I thought. They were stressed, “stressed out”, trying — no doubt — to “come to terms” with their predicament, attempting to “cope”.

This is the language of therapy, in which frauds, liars and cheats are always trying to escape. Thus President Clinton’s spokesman claimed after his admission of his affair with Monica Lewinsky that he was “seeking closure”. Like so many mendacious politicians, Clinton felt — as Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara will no doubt feel about his bloodbath in Iraq once he leaves No 10 — the need to “move on”.

In the same way, our psycho-babble masters and mistresses — yes, there is a semantic problem there, too, isn’t there? — announce after wars that it is a time for “healing”, the same prescription doled out to families which are “dysfunctional”, who live in a “dystopian” world. Yes, dystopian is a perfectly good word — it is the opposite of utopian — but like “perceive” and “perception” (words once much loved by Jonathan Dimbleby) — they have become fashionable because they appear enigmatic.

Some newly popular phrases, such as “tipping point” — used about Middle East conflicts when the bad guys are about to lose — or “big picture” — when moralists have to be reminded of the greater good — are merely fashionable. Others are simply odd. I always mixed up “bonding” with “bondage” and “quality time” with a popular assortment of toffees. I used to think that “increase” was a perfectly acceptable word until I discovered that in the military sex-speak of the Pentagon, Iraq would endure a “spike” of violence until a “surge” of extra troops arrived in Baghdad.

All this is different, of course, from the non-sexual “no-brainers” with which we now have to “cope” — “author” for “authoress”, for example, “actor” for “actress” — or the fearful linguistic lengths we must go to in order to avoid offence to Londoners who speak Cockney: as we all know — though only those of us, of course, who come from the Home Counties — these people speak “Estuary” English. It’s like those poor Americans in Detroit who, in fear and trepidation, avoided wishing me a happy Christmas. “Happy Holiday!” they chorused until I roared “Happy Christmas” back. In Beirut, by the way, we all wish each other “Happy Christmas” and “Happy Eid”, whether our friends are Muslim or Christian. Is this really of “majorly importance”, as an Irish television producer once asked a colleague of a news event?

I fear it is. For we are not using words any more. We are utilising them, speaking for effect rather than meaning, for escape. We are becoming — as The New Yorker now describes children who don’t care if they watch films on the cinema screen or on their mobile phones —— “platform agnostic”. What, Polonius asked his lord, was he reading? “Words, words, words,” Hamlet replied. If only…

© The Independent

“If we don’t succeed, we run the risk of failure.”
- George W. Bush

“One word sums up probably the responsibility of any Governor, and that one word is ‘ to be prepared ‘.”
- George W. Bush

“I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future. ”
- George W. Bush

” The future will be better tomorrow.”
- George W. Bush

“We’re going to have the best educated American people in the world.”
- George W. Bush

“I stand by all the misstatements that I’ve made.”
- George W. Bush

“We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe We are a part of Europe.”
- George W. Bush

“Public speaking is very easy.”
- George W. Bush

“A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls.”
- George W. Bush

“We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur. ”
- George W. Bush

“For NASA, space is still a high priority.”
- George W. Bush

“Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children. ”
- George W. Bush

“It isn’t pollution that’s harming the environment. It’s the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.”
- George W. Bush

“It’s time for the human race to enter the solar system.”
- George W. Bush

A liberal arts education seeks to create a well-rounded and well-informed individual. It aims at widening the intellectual and factual limitations imposed on one’s thinking ability by exposing the person who studies it to a multi-disciplinary curriculum. It spans a broad spectrum of subjects that play an important part in our daily lives and social interactions. It is for this reason that in the modern world, archaic perceptions relating to the dominance of vocational training have given way to an acceptance of liberal arts as a better alternative. Thus to say that liberal arts has little to offer would be naove.

To the uninformed, the concept of a general enlightening may seem useless and too idealistic. The question that arises though is whether being idealistic is wrong. Idealism leads to the understanding that the world we live in is imperfect, and there exists a way to improve our lives. Liberal arts provide those who study it with a larger basis of reference, and therefore the ability to ‘think out of the box’. For people that consider education as a means to an end, liberal arts is a waste of time, but for those who hold the belief that the ultimate goal of higher education is the acquisition of ‘wisdom’, the pursuit of a liberal arts education should be an end in itself.

The pursuit of knowledge should not be reduced to its financial implications alone; rather it should be seen as a step towards becoming ‘well rounded’ and better informed. A subject such as philosophy, which lies strictly in the domain of liberal arts, has more to do with the search for knowledge rather than its practical application. In fact the word philosophy literally means ‘love of knowledge’. Subjects like literature, philosophy and other humanities fields can provide insightful mirrors to one’s inner self, and lead us to a better understanding of ourselves.

Research where those from underprivileged backgrounds have been exposed to a humanities education has shown that such exposure can empower such individuals. Students learn to relate their experiences with the teachings of great philosophers, and in doing so they manage to step out of the darkness in their lives.

Today’s class divided society has bred an atmosphere of insecurity and fear. For the rich, insecurity stems out of the fear of losing their wealth, and hence their power. The poor face the insecurity of whether they will be able at all to make ends meet. Therefore, for both the rich and the poor, the primary function of higher education is to provide the skills and knowledge to get a good job. There are many who think that knowledge should have some practical value or material benefit for people to seek it. Humans are greedy by nature and hence they will pursue only that kind of education which benefits them directly — those who subscribe to this view have a more immediate and material gain in mind.

Many students also tend to disregard what they think are ‘abstract’ subjects which may make them better people but will not get them a good job. Hence, such students will always prefer technical, professional or vocational fields. This is countered by the view that study of a liberal arts education can actually make the person who studies it a better person, and what can be more important a goal than that?

With the main purpose of education for many being a very selfish pursuit of anything that helps them gain lucrative employment, the concept of wisdom and of pursuing knowledge for itself has been completely sidelined. The idealist would choose to pursue wisdom, in an effort to better understand the world, and try and improve upon it. The realist on the other hand would pursue money and power, because he or she understands that the existing system that is based on greed and selfishness. In an idealistic world, wisdom will always prevail. However, in our own imperfect world, people are measured by their success, and hence, power proves to be much more useful.

In the current context, those who support study of liberal arts may appear to be in the minority, but given the rise in the popularity of this kind of education there may well be a sea change in the not-to-near future.

Interest in subjects like philosophy, history or anthropology among students today is increasing. Although they say that studying such subjects may be impractical, they still pursue them for the sake of seeking knowledge. Parents today are also becoming aware of this growing interest among their children in such subjects and should not see education only in terms of how much material benefit their children will receive.

The attempt at change based on a broadening of horizons is not entirely new. The Greeks managed to do it with the introduction of the arts and philosophy. It has been my experience that liberal arts, or social science subjects, are far more popular among students because of the interest that they generate. In fact, for on the most part, students often take specialization subjects only because they have to for fulfilment of certain degree requirements rather than out of any genuine interest.

Education should go beyond providing those who study it with bits of information — it should lead to an awakening in the minds of its students and encourage them to challenge the status quo. It is the first step towards reforming society. Our students are bred in an atmosphere of greed, and with the concept that power is supreme. A liberal arts education aim at reforming society towards a less selfish and better-connected whole.

This article was written for DAWN Newspaper by Sanam Z. Khawaja.