Chesterton saw the cowardly weakness for euphemism as evidence of both mental and moral breakdown in the West, and, as per Walker Percy, sentimentality a cloak neatly provided by the father of lies (Jn 8):
We can always convict such people of sentimentalism by their weakness for euphemism. The phrase they use is always softened and suited for journalistic appeals. They talk of free love when they mean something quite different, better defined as free lust. But being sentimentalists they feel bound to simper and coo over the word "love." They insist on talking about Birth Control when they mean less birth and no control. We could smash them to atoms, if we could be as indecent in our language (diction) as they are immoral in their conclusions.
Lay GKC's commentary and insights alongside Sandro Magister's masterful Herod Slaughters Where the Cross Does Not Come and one will see that all the "simpering" and "cooing" of euphemisms isn't the sole problem of the early 20th century. Modern Catholic and otherwise Christian politicians and western denizens fall into mental and moral decay as well. 'Fetus' may hat.
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Chesterton saw the cowardly weakness for euphemism as evidence of both mental and moral breakdown in the West, and, as per Walker Percy, sentimentality a cloak neatly provided by the father of lies (Jn 8):
We can always convict such people of sentimentalism by their weakness for euphemism. The phrase they use is always softened and suited for journalistic appeals. They talk of free love when they mean something quite different, better defined as free lust. But being sentimentalists they feel bound to simper and coo over the word "love." They insist on talking about Birth Control when they mean less birth and no control. We could smash them to atoms, if we could be as indecent in our language (diction) as they are immoral in their conclusions.
Lay GKC's commentary and insights alongside Sandro Magister's masterful
Herod Slaughters Where the Cross Does Not Come and one will see that all the "simpering" and "cooing" of euphemisms isn't the sole problem of the early 20th century. Modern Catholic and otherwise Christian politicians and western denizens fall into mental and moral decay as well. 'Fetus' may hat.
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