Buyin' The Lingo

We all fall prey to it. Every last one of us has had our guard down for a minute or two and let certain shades of meaning slip into our brains that weren't there before someone decided to change it.

That was convuluted. Let me start over.

When I was 10, Feminism was a positive thing. Liberal was just a way of looking at the world, it wasn't a threat to morality or our childrens' health and well being. Cappucino was a little known coffee drink. Christianity was a fairly quiet religion of choice. Soccer was just a sport you were forced to play in P.E. and Mom was simply someone who was supposed to love you no matter what.

Somewhere along the line, Feminism became unpalatable and Liberal became synonymous with evil, stupid and whiny. Cappucino became a symbol of effete, liberal elitism and Christianity became something too overbearing and scary to even admit an interest in beyond "I think Jesus was an excellent philosopher but (insert complaint about organized religion here)". Then when Soccer was paired with Mom, a monolithic mini-van driving she-monster was born.

In and of themselves, there is nothing wrong with any of these things. They have simply become (in some circles more than others, but for the sake of argument let's agree that we are talking about MY circle here) rudely unfashionable. And what gets me is how a lot of thinking people will easily buy in to the simplistic notion of "If one is like so then ALL must be similar to the one!" It just isn't true. And, I'd like to argue, that just because a bunch of people have sullied the word with bad behavior it doesn't mean that the concept is, in and of itself, faulty or bad.

I'm getting convuluted again.

Let's be a bit more specific. Feminism started out as a bunch of ladies who did not want to be bound by convention and wanted opportunity. As a stay at home mom I can relate. I have a brain, too and I should be supported and encouraged to use it. But somewhere along the line Feminist thought was coopted by women who believed that all men are rapists. I'm not going to argue this one here, that's a whole other post, but I have experiences to the contrary and I refuse to promote any thought that would doom my beautiful boy to such a dark destiny. But do you see what just happened? I felt the need to justify my defense of feminism by distancing myself from what has become a popular view of what feminism actually is. But does it matter? I mean, that view is what killed feminism.

I could go on, and at some point I probably will, but I think it is funny how quick we all are to spit out words with no inherent negative value as insults.

I remember during the first Gulf War that some kid at school spat at me as I walked down the hallway.

"PEACE LOVER!" he screamed.

Is this bad?

I'm not stupid. I know what he meant. He meant to strip me down and hurt me with the foul accusation that I am soft on despots. What he didn't have then was the proper vocabulary to really rip into my soul. He should have just called me a liberal.

I could just as easily have yelled back.

"CHRISTIAN!"

Funny. There once was a time when the two meant the same thing.