empowerment

1990
Reconsidering "Empowerment"

Reviewing an earlier journal entry in my ceaseless pursuit of quality, I encountered a deployment of the word “empowerment” (and its derivatives). Clearly some apology must be offered. This is one of those KQED or University of California at Berkeley-type words which, once uttered, begins to take on a perverse life of its own, bean sprouts and sandals all over the place. Like Kudzu, it throws out little tendrils and pretty soon has a Prussian grip on the whole kit and caboodle. Listen to that Berkeley radio station (KPFA) and you are never too far from the next "empowerment." Look down and you will see it has already entwined you at the ankles.

The power of a word to entrap then enslave its speaker should never be underestimated. The clergy have a weakness for “sharing,” particularly in the (nonexistent) intransitive sense, for example: "One Great Hour of Sharing" (sharing what?) or "Sharing and Honesty in the Modern Marriage" (with whom?) Again, the idea seems to be to seize the initiative via unusual or unexpected usage, but it is the word, and not the author, that wins out in the end.

The Bible itself is filled with odd phrases that dont make much sense really, and I stand by this judgment I dont care what (everlasting torment in Hell excepted).

       The lilies in the field do not turn neither do they spin yet 
       Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these.

OK that's pretty good. But what has the Bible shown me lately. All Bible quotations are approximate of course, maybe it wasnt Solomon. But I think it was. Anyway, in the Revised Standard they take what was OK about the B and blast it into Hell by exploding the King J locutions that carry all the real punch.

The book of Job is a nice one in my opinion, although I think I missed the point somewhere about midway through. Maybe it picks up later on, I'm not sure I finished it. I've tried a Bible study group but inevitably someone starts blathering on about “Gawd” or some other extraneous concept and things get a bit off track. Worse yet, someone will try to apply the Good Book to some incident in their own lives and then things can get a bit ugly of course. I've always liked to have as little of that sort of thing as possible. The Oxford B I have is good on the annotations if long on the Miltonian cross-referential style that is only appreciated by people who died over 400 years ago.

(Note added 28 March 2002).

The real Bible quotation is from Matthew 6, verses 28-29:
28 Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.