Let’s play a game, shall we? It’s a simple game, one you may probably remember from childhood. It involves basic language skills and manipulating grammatical components in order to make a sentence that can be amusing, insightful, true, false, or anything in between. It can be fun, but I hope that it is also illuminating. First, a practice round. The [u]ADJECTIVE[/u] dog was running so fast that it ran straight into the pile of [u]NOUN[/u]. Some examples of words to insert into the empty spots are below. [u]Adjective[/u] Silly Stupid Young Enthusiastic Blind Drooling Rabid [u]Noun[/u] Leaves Snow Corpses Bricks Feathers Ducklings Burning Tar All done? Pretty amusing isn’t it? By choosing different adjectives to describe the dog and different nouns to say what they ran into, you can have a funny, cute, silly, tragic, disgusting, or horrific sentence. This sort of thing has been the source of laughter between children learning languages for a very long time. They love inserting silly or creative words and delight in the various images and scenes that their imaginations combined with the structure of language then create. Okay, practice is over. On to the real game. It’s only one line, so I promise that you won’t get bored. [u]ADJECTIVE[/u] people are [u]DESCRIPTIVE TERM.[/u] Take a moment, remember the two words in the middle. It will make it easier when you see the selections below. ”blank PEOPLE ARE blank” This one is a little more tricky. Since we’re using the first adjective to describe the people the sentence is talking about, we need an adjective that separates or identifies them as unlike another group of people. And then, let’s use terms and labels that aren’t…. nice. Things that people don’t like to be, or don’t like/want others to be. Here’s a list of some examples, but as you read down the list, you’ll see the idea and can add any of your own. Here’s the additional twist. Instead of how children would do this, using random selections and then be childishly amused by the outrageousness of the result, let’s approach this as adults. Using the selections below or ones of your own creation, attempt to find words of the correct type (one that describes as subset of people and the other that is not flattering) until you have a sentence that you are “comfortable” with. A sentence that you would say to your friends, your family, to strangers and say with the confidence of your convictions. A statement that while it may not be “true” in the sense that everyone agrees that it is true, however, based on your experiences, your perspective and your views, it is “true to you”. Here’s the list, and good luck. We’ll talk more after you come up with a sentence. Remember, there are no “wrong answers”, but we’re looking for a sentence that you can say “You know? That sentence is something that I agree with.” [u]Specifying or Separating Adjective[/u] Male Female Young Asexual Old Middle Aged Tall Short Little Hetero Gay Lesbian Transgendered Agendered White Black Brown European Asian African Middle-Eastern Indigenous Tribal Northern American Southern American Bald Hairy Fat Thin Christian Jewish Muslim Hindu Buddhist Unfamiliar, [i]or use any term that you commonly use to group people together, either people with whom you identify, or who you don’t identify with. You get the idea.[/i] [u]Unpleasant, Negative or Unflattering Term[/u] Stupid Lazy Hateful Greedy Racist Petty Manipulative Liars Dirty Perverse Creepy Ugly Violent Unethical Cheaters Judgmental Ignorant Molesters Bigoted Undisciplined Criminals Oppressors Murderers Retarded Drunken Abusive Snobbish Thieves Self-Entitled Insular Exclusive Unnatural Delusional [i]Here too, you can get the idea and most likely come up with uncomplimentary terms to use as you see fit.[/i] So? All done? Did you come up with one (or more than one) that for you, “feels right”? Good. Or did you have trouble? Did the sound of any of the sentences just give you an awkward and uncomfortable feeling? That’s fine too! Because here is where I think it gets really interesting. If someone can come up with such a phrase, feel comfortable and confident in it, and even find others who agree and reinforce their satisfaction with the validity of the sentence, that sentence is just a collection of words. It’s a collection of words that says a great deal about someone who can agree with it, who can speak it, who considers it to be fair, accurate or truthful. If it is a statement that the individual finds “like minds” who share that comfort with the statement, the statement still is a collection of words, but the agreement with it speaks to and illuminates how those individuals and the group thinks. So, some people were able to make sentences they agree with, others may not have been able to find a sentence with which they were comfortable. There is an alternative way to look at the game, and it suddenly becomes easier. A few of you may have discovered it. By NOT choosing the first adjective that identifies a subset of human beings and leaving that part blank, it is then possible to use nearly any of the uncomplimentary terms and because that sort of sentence is a uniform statement about humanity as a whole (or at least a significant portion), the sentence is less focused on its judgment and more of a sad statement about how human beings are capable of less than nice things. If you didn’t think about “dropping the first word”, give it a moment and try it. [i]People are greedy. People are petty. People are liars. People are bigoted. People are violent.[/i] Much easier to swallow or to say, isn’t it? Do you agree that it’s a lot harder to say with conviction when you’re singling out a particular group of people to label them all (or most of them) as something bad? So, for those of you who couldn’t come up with a full sentence? The words just felt sour in your mouth? The idea of saying “this group of people are inherently bad”? Thank you. You’re the ones who give hope to others. That help people to understand and realize that negative aspects are not linked to genetics, or gender, or religion, or place of birth, heritage, and so on. People are capable of being something extraordinary (positive or negative), but it is not something that anyone can determine just by looking at the individual and using one of many superficial measuring sticks. And those of you who did come up with a full sentence. I am not about to scold you, scowl at you, shake my head or cluck my tongue. No not me. I have no room to judge. My house is made of glass and I throw no stones in this matter. If you were being honest enough to go through this little game and honestly did have a sentence that you feel is right, accurate or true? I am glad that you were honest enough with yourself and with me to make that determination. However, if you could do me (and perhaps even yourself) one little favor? Consider how you speaking that phrase, which you feel to be valid, makes you appear to others. What does it say to them about you? Again, there’s no wrong answer to that either. If you’re unconcerned with what someone else thinks about what you consider to be true? I am not capable of changing your mind and it is not my intent to try. But, if there is a twinge of “Oh, so that’s how it makes me look, just like anyone else who came up with a different sentence, but they feel just as strongly about it, and I think they are wrong. What does that mean about how right I think that my sentence is?” If you are one of the few people who can ask themselves that question and try to answer it as honestly as you came up with the sentence in the first place? You have my gratitude no matter what your final outcome is. So, what do I think about this game and the sentence? I defer to a fictional learning computer named Joshua who discovered that some games? Games such as tic-tack-toe, global thermonuclear war and questions that force you to make blanket statements about other people? With those games, the winning move is not to play at all.