"In a world in which so many powerful persons and institutions have a vested interest in making us lose faith in language's power to respond to and reveal reality, precise and attentive use of words is an act of resistance....
.... Every imaginatively crafted sentence, every perceptive reflection, every clear formulation, every accurate description is a small victory."
Indeed, these are words that give strength, thank you!
At present, everything seems to be shattering, as if we're living through an era of destruction. Toril Moi is surely right.
Yet even these words will likely be stolen from us and thrown to AI as fodder - yes, the more precisely we formulate, the better for their future output.
The quotation gives courage, true, but it also stirs a kind of despair - or rather: the need to protect oneself, to return to campfires with kindred spirits. Not to let our treasures be plundered, but to forge sentences with and for humans, to create music, theatre, and art for human beings, and to withdraw them from the rapacious greed of the voracious and their machines.
"In a world in which so many powerful persons and institutions have a vested interest in making us lose faith in language's power to respond to and reveal reality, precise and attentive use of words is an act of resistance....
.... Every imaginatively crafted sentence, every perceptive reflection, every clear formulation, every accurate description is a small victory."
Toril Moi; Revolution of the Ordinary; 2017
Indeed, these are words that give strength, thank you!
At present, everything seems to be shattering, as if we're living through an era of destruction. Toril Moi is surely right.
Yet even these words will likely be stolen from us and thrown to AI as fodder - yes, the more precisely we formulate, the better for their future output.
The quotation gives courage, true, but it also stirs a kind of despair - or rather: the need to protect oneself, to return to campfires with kindred spirits. Not to let our treasures be plundered, but to forge sentences with and for humans, to create music, theatre, and art for human beings, and to withdraw them from the rapacious greed of the voracious and their machines.