[Download] "Mr Watson's Bad Language (Language, Action and Meaning) (Don Watson)" by Arena Journal # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Mr Watson's Bad Language (Language, Action and Meaning) (Don Watson)
- Author : Arena Journal
- Release Date : January 01, 2003
- Genre: Religion & Spirituality,Books,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 176 KB
Description
Don Watson's Death Sentence 1 pursues a theory of cultural decline premised on the idea that any reduction in the quality of public discourse reveals ethical deficiencies in the practice of government and political culture. In examining public language, Watson aims to show that power is maintained and extended in ways that threaten to turn democratic politics into a rhetorical fiction. He argues that under the conditions of managerial-style government--where authority can be claimed through bureaucratic expertise, not by justifying itself before the informed public--questions of legitimacy may be, and are, effectively bypassed. A modern public language completely abstracted from human interaction (in the form of mission statements, for instance) is both an inanimate substitute for, and a symptom of the failure of, the central and difficult project of civic life: honest communication, truth-seeking and truth-telling as the basis of collective decision making and dignity in ordinary life. For this self-interested system to be made morally accountable, public institutions must acknowledge truth independently of attempts to validate their own principles as truth. Only then will citizens find in civic life and social experience enough meaning in their terms to feel enfranchised, motivated and determined to act.