Thoughts about words

An activist is any person with a platform who makes it a habit to be offended and then to seek revenge on behalf of another person. This has more impact on society than those who act offended on behalf of another just to do some virtue signaling. In the latter case, it’s a matter of showing off for friends and family. In the former, it’s trying to use one's influence or celebrity to get the offender fired, chastised or cancelled in some other way. 

An example comes from the TV show America’s Got Talent. Gabriel Union, a judge at the time, along with the host “were upset with how...offensive issues were not addressed, including reports of an offensive joke made when [Jay] Leno made a guest appearance on the show.” One of his jokes referred to serving dog meat at a Korean restaurant. “She demanded that Leno be reported and wanted to increase the ratio of Asian staffers working there."

Having never seen her (or heard of her), I wondered what part of Korea she came from that she was so offended. Wikipedia lists her as American, born in Omaha. But it also lists her as an activist, which explains the outrage. You can’t maintain activist credentials unless you are prepared to seek out and try to remedy every possible case of apparent injustice. What used to be considered humor, perhaps in bad taste, is now cause for condemnation and reparations. Any ill-advised wise crack can brand you as a racist – apology expected, but it won’t do you any good, as a vocal minority demand that you be fired anyway.

Notice how these activists are all so well off that they have the luxury of indulging in this hobby – a kind of self-righteous bullying.

On another subject, notice how in the first paragraph I used “impact” as a noun. Notice also in day-to-day life how often people use impact as a verb. In the weather report the cold front will impact the temperatures or the snow will impact driving conditions. In sports the number of players on injured reserve impacted the performance of the team. In health news: “CMV impacts Newborns.” In an insurance notice: “This change does not impact any benefits.”

I have a theory of why every situation seems to be impacted (as if they were all wisdom teeth). The confusion in usage between the words effect and affect is often listed among the most common errors in English. So people have found an easy solution to the problem by avoiding them not only in writing, but also speaking. The snow may affect something – or will it effect something? – Who cares, just say impact. It sounds more forceful anyway.

Finally, what is an artist? An artist is anyone who calls himself an artist. Duct tape a banana to a wall and you are an artist. Take the banana down and eat it and you are also an artist. When something is so subjective as art, visual or performance, does the word really have any meaning anymore?

Perhaps it means that any time we make a mistake or violate a norm, we can claim as a defense that we are artists practicing our art. Tell your questionable joke and when people object, just say it was art. You were only trying, through irony, to elicit a teachable moment and to positively impact society.