Oh no. I'm a warmonger.
After my last post about militarism and peaceful protest, this is a really ironic thing that I'm writing about.
For the past few weeks I have often caught myself using militaristic language. When I'm in a situation requiring me to be large and in charge, my language changes. Examples of recent turns of phrase that I've used -- "I'll just blow it out of the water", "subtle as a hand grenade", "pinging off problems one by one like ducks in a shooting gallery".
Hardly peacemaking and gentle words. I am trying to notice when I do this because it does reflect when I'm preparing to go to battle over something. They're very little battles, mind you. But my language shows when I am in a "power over" , rather than a "power with" mindset (these are phrases used by Starhawk , who is a really wonderful witch (pardon me, that's "Wiccan") from California who does really great social change work)
Fascinating. Good example of personal change through linguistic awareness. Goes to show how our mind affects our words and our words affect our mind ..
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