Words

 

“It is my belief that there are absolutes in our Bill of Rights, and that they were put there on purpose by men who knew what words meant, and meant their prohibitions to be absolutes.”  

- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black

 

This is one of those quotations that I think upon often.

I believe that that study of the Constitution is part of the duty of every U.S. citizen, and that current conditions in U.S. politics are to some degree the result of the mass dereliction of that duty by the vast majority of my fellow citizens (a dereliction summed up in another great quote from Justice Black: “The layman's constitutional view is that which he likes is constitutional and that which he doesn't like is unconstitutional”).

But more often than not, when I find myself contemplating Justice Black’s words it is in a far broader and yet more personal context than that of Constitutional law. That phrase in the middle – “put there on purpose by men who knew what words meant” – has had much to say to me, as I’ve contemplated it over the years, about good communication, about morality, about what kind of person I am and wish to be.

Good communication is all about paying attention – attention to others and attention to one’s own style and process of communication. In addition to taking care to choose words and syntax that clearly and precisely express whatever it is I mean to say, I listen carefully to what others say, or read with care what others have written, and consider the precise meanings of the specific words and syntax that they have chosen, seeking clarification if the meaning seems unclear to me (as Paolo Freire says, “The act of study, in sum, is an attitude toward the world”).

I regard this continual effort toward maximum attentiveness, clarity, and precision in communication – this knowing what words mean, and using them on purpose – not merely as a good communication strategy or an exercise of the intellect, but as a moral virtue and a moral duty.