Imlisanen Jamir
Gibberish is everywhere. It’s everywhere!
There is very little in life that we encounter which is not infused with gibberish. And not all of it is all bad. Your general every-day, organic free range pile of manure is often necessary. Or at the very least innocuous.
Case in point—“Oh, what a beautiful baby! I’m sure it’ll grow into that head.” That kind of gibberish provides important social contract fertiliser. It keeps people from making each other cry all day every day.
But then there is the more pernicious gibberish. Your premeditated institutional gibberish designed to obscure and distract. Designed by whom? The gibberish talkers. It comes in three basic flavours.
One is making bad things sound like good things. “Organic all natural cupcakes.” Because factory made sugar oatmeal balls doesn’t sell. So whenever something is titled patriotic, freedom, fair, family, wellness? Take a good long sniff at it. Chances are they were manufactured in a facility that may contain traces of gibberish.
Number two—hiding the bad things under mountains of gibberish and complexity. “You know I would love to download Post Malone’s Rockstar, but I’m not really interested right now in reading Tolstoy’s ITunes agreement so I’ll just click agree even if it grants Apple prima nocta with my spouse.”
Now here’s another one of the same flavour. “We all want empowerment of our women. But hey look, there are so many different things to discuss here. To ensure that any such law respects and doesn’t dilute our traditions, our history; the epistemological discourse of our complicated social structure that has evolved from our unique culture; while not forgetting the rights guaranteed to us the constitution of a definitely foreign power under Article Sub Section…Pssst…I think they are asleep now, we can sneak out.”
And finally, it’s the gibberish of infinite possibility. These institutions and people hide their unwillingness to act under the guise of unending inquiry. “We can’t do anything because we don’t yet know everything. We cannot take action on climate change until everyone in the world agrees that gay marriage vaccines won’t make our children marry goats who are going to come for our land.”
Now, the good news is this.
These people have become pretty lazy and their work is easily detected. And looking for it is kind of a pleasant way to pass the time—likean ‘I Spy’ for horse manure.
So I say this to you friends: the best defence against gibberish is vigilance. So if you smell something, say something.
Comments can be sent to imlisanenjamir@gmail.com
