We use the term “peasant gourmet” around here...but then if we examine that too closely “peasant”probably presents some issues. I’ll just go ahead growing food, cooking it as close to harvesting as I can, and enjoying both the process and the end result.
Thanks for sharing the other articles. After years of thought and questions and discussion, I still dont feel qualified to even offer an opinion. Those are big, deep, sensitive topics. So important that they aren’t swept under the rug, but so hard to engage in productive discourse about them.
RE the redefining of words: your piece made me remember "doublethink" from 1984. I dug up this quote: "All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory." Yes. I too am annoyed when something is redefined as something that might even mean the opposite but it's sort of inevitable I think. The horse of proper usage has left the barn. Everything is fluid in language and with the internet we find ourselves more and more in a cultural beehive. Poke it one spot and the bees will get excited on the other end. I don't really hang out with academics or intellectuals who are the ones who've made an industry of launching freighted terms. "Heteronormative" is one that when I first heard it I found particularly patronizing. But people who use terms like that do not live in the same world I do. (I say this in spite of my beehive analogy.) All this stuff is completely outside my control and in my own writing I'm kind of moving in the direction of style over strict meaning which I guess is the art of bullshitting, bullshit being a word that is fairly safe from getting redefined... What am I talking about? I have no idea. I just like talking. I am blissfully unaware of the "substack nazi kerfluffle." Also I'd never heard of the new "homesteader" culture but from your description I can totally imagine it. Maybe they can call themselves "earth influencers." Has a nice ring to it , eh? I'm a little bummed that you are holding down a full time job while doing turtle paradise. All those wonderful veggies and eggs you produce must be giving you a superpower. I hope your job is one that provides some inspiration and a place to try out new and original terms to seed the English language. Feel free to use "earth influencers." Ha!
We use the term “peasant gourmet” around here...but then if we examine that too closely “peasant”probably presents some issues. I’ll just go ahead growing food, cooking it as close to harvesting as I can, and enjoying both the process and the end result.
Thanks for sharing the other articles. After years of thought and questions and discussion, I still dont feel qualified to even offer an opinion. Those are big, deep, sensitive topics. So important that they aren’t swept under the rug, but so hard to engage in productive discourse about them.
RE the redefining of words: your piece made me remember "doublethink" from 1984. I dug up this quote: "All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory." Yes. I too am annoyed when something is redefined as something that might even mean the opposite but it's sort of inevitable I think. The horse of proper usage has left the barn. Everything is fluid in language and with the internet we find ourselves more and more in a cultural beehive. Poke it one spot and the bees will get excited on the other end. I don't really hang out with academics or intellectuals who are the ones who've made an industry of launching freighted terms. "Heteronormative" is one that when I first heard it I found particularly patronizing. But people who use terms like that do not live in the same world I do. (I say this in spite of my beehive analogy.) All this stuff is completely outside my control and in my own writing I'm kind of moving in the direction of style over strict meaning which I guess is the art of bullshitting, bullshit being a word that is fairly safe from getting redefined... What am I talking about? I have no idea. I just like talking. I am blissfully unaware of the "substack nazi kerfluffle." Also I'd never heard of the new "homesteader" culture but from your description I can totally imagine it. Maybe they can call themselves "earth influencers." Has a nice ring to it , eh? I'm a little bummed that you are holding down a full time job while doing turtle paradise. All those wonderful veggies and eggs you produce must be giving you a superpower. I hope your job is one that provides some inspiration and a place to try out new and original terms to seed the English language. Feel free to use "earth influencers." Ha!