It can be hard to maintain a sense of and be faithful to the complexities of any issue that matters. Serving on a committee at one point to review a piece of publicity material for a local organization, I registered strenuous objections to the cliches and vapid abstractions that seemed to bury the main points (such as they were) in wet cotton. “This is what works,” was the reply. “This is what PR writing looks like. It reassures people.” I will not record here the umbrage I took at this bland pragmatism. I left the committee meeting darkly convinced that people who buy (and buy into) prose with no sinews, atrophied syntax, emaciated metaphors, and calculated imprecision deserve what they get. Recent political rhetoric, empty but dangerous, from high places has compounded the distress I felt then.
From “Caring for Words In A Culture of Lies” by Marilyn McEntyre – Eerdmans Publishing
