Blah-blah

Illustrated by Andrea Tonkinson

“Blah, blah, blah” the kid on the playground said. My siblings and I had just devastated all of his arguments on a matter that we had considerably more knowledge than he had. The kid’s pride just wouldn’t let him concede defeat though so meaningless negative noises were his best response. I thought of that interchange from my childhood recently while at work. “The Milwaukee Journal says that this candidate is weird” a job colleague recently called out. “See, here it says (name intentionally not added) is weird.” The entire fifteen person, professional team that I was part of, looked up from what we were doing.  Obviously my colleague was going to vote for that candidate’s political opposition. “So this has degraded to the level of a middle school name calling session” was the thought that passed through my head. I said nothing though because I judged it as not the place nor the time to respond to such idiocy. “Weird,” what actually did that mean?

Later that day I looked out of a window over the splendid Milwaukee harbor where the Milwaukee, Kinnickinnic and Menomonee Rivers poured into Lake Michigan and the Hoan Bridge acted like a giant gateway arch. I reviewed if I should have loudly responded to my colleague’s childish utterings. I had done that in other settings before. Though some may object, I decided that I was correct by not lowering myself to an adolescent spat among people that I need to work with. Perhaps I could talk to the coworker directly on the matter in the correct time and place. We then at least had a much better chance of learning from each other and not degrading to teenage locker room tactics.

I call the exchange of meaningless negative words “the Blah-blahs.” Let me explain with a question. What is a slur? We find the answer quoting Oxford Languages in Google: “an insinuation or allegation about someone that is likely to insult them or damage their reputation.” My point, as meaningless as a slur is, it still is often used as a classic straw man argument tactic. Since I am referring to Google much today, I will do it one more time via Google AI: “A straw man argument is a logical fallacy where someone misrepresents or distorts an opponent's argument to make it easier to attack or refute, essentially arguing against a weaker, fabricated   version of the original position.” As pathetic as a straw man tactic is, using a slur as its’ major tool particularly shows idiocy but the phenomena still seems to be a growing thing in our living language.

Important words like “fascist, racist, phobia,” even words like “genocide” seem to be losing their dictionary meanings to simply becoming slurs. I have been called a racist by people making the judgement based simply on my skin color and knowing nothing else about me. This is puzzling when thinking of most dictionary meanings of the word. Complete strangers have speculated on any phobias I may have as if they were psychoanalysts with years of studying my thought life. I have been called a fascist which if anyone reads anything that I write will see quickly that I distinctly disagree with the fascist primary doctrines of 1) centralization of governmental power, 2) the suppression of all opposition whether social, religious, political or governmental, 3) demand opaqueness of governmental finances essentially for an elite’s wellbeing and 4) can commit even genocide to achieve points one through three above. I pray for the end of such practices in humanity. Clearly all these examples were the enactment of “Blah-blah.”

For the record, I come from a long line of serfs and cannon fodder. I cannot prove a single drop of blue blood in me. I am a child of eastern European immigrants to the United States who came from where someone living eighty years in the same house, may have been the citizen of four different countries during their lifetime and not have a shred of authority over the matter. The constantly changing borders usually also had ethnic connotations so that makes my ethnicity highly questionable. These roots possibly have made me noncompliant with the United States social norms of expecting fear responses from me when a slur is used. My response when someone calls me a (slur intentionally not added) is always, “OK, what is the actual debate that we are having here?”

I have found out in life that sometimes I can be raucously wrong. Therefore I need to refrain from the negative use of words simply to be negative. Instead I need to listen to an objecting person with the knowledge that if a matter appears crucial, my contender may get frantic and begin name calling. Emotions aside, my debater still could be correct and I could be in error. However, while listening to them I do not need to regress to fear or uncertainty but rather line up with facts. I need to remember that my objecting confronter may also just have had an inkling on how preposterous that their political, social, religious, or moral position is. For most people, pride won’t allow them to acknowledge defeat so now they resort to “Blah-blah.” If we cannot come to an agreement I hope that we can agree to disagree and be respectful though “Blah-blah” may make that difficult. In the end freedom does include people that I eventually conclude are fools or worse, being able to practice their idiocies. This, even if they resort to slurs. Unfortunately we all often must suffer if they come to power over us. My late, eastern European parents certainly can attest to that.