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You Don't Say - Modern American Inhibitions (Paperback)
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You Don't Say - Modern American Inhibitions (Paperback)
Series: Classics in Communication and Mass Culture Series
Expected to ship within 12 - 19 working days
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In this era of political correctness, it is often impossible to say
things as one would like. Indeed, certain ways of feeling and
talking that were once acceptable are now, in effect, forbidden. Of
course, taboos extend further than speech. Social and sexual
inhibitions are also evident. Benjamin DeMott argues that the very
least a society should do is to try to understand the meaning of
its own inhibitions. As he writes in this new edition of "You Don't
Say," "a supple awareness of the effective censorship of the day
can toughen resistance to clich and stereotype, and is absolutely
indispensable to the survival of sharp minds."
At the center of "You Don't Say" is the proposition that the
present age of personal liberation has created as many inhibitions
as it has abolished. Some of our new-found freedoms could be
employed with a sharper sense of tact. And some freedoms we have
lost are worth remembering-or even recovering. In the essays that
comprise "You Don't Say" DeMott reflects on the use of language,
how modern man has "claimed" to be free of repression though the
opposite is true, and how people who object to certain types of
language and prefer verbal ambiguity do so possibly to assert their
moral dignity and intelligence. The book is full of sharp
observations, witty commentary, and empathetic description of the
contemporary social and cultural scene.
In an essay entitled "The Anatomy of "Playboy,"" DeMott correlates
the magazine's popularity with its reductionist tendencies: the
world becomes reduced to the realities of sexual need and
deprivation. In "The Passionate Mutes," the author reflects on the
changing language of the greeting card throughout the years. "Dirty
Words?" is a meditation on language itself, and on how mastery of
the word was at one time a key to power. And in "Oyiemu-O?" DeMott
considers the writing of "native" African and Indian authors in an
age during which the colonialist viewpoint was considered
authoritative. The author's new introduction discusses the essays
in their historical context and how they are relevant to the
present day, and describes how the book came into being.
" A] book distinguished by its beauty as by its wisdom
for-although we may feel the pressure of inhibition against
admitting it-intellectual courage can be as beautiful as bodies
swayed to music. The intelligence of hope can be as passionate as
sexual hunger."-"New York Times Book Review"
Benjamin DeMott is an essayist, novelist, and journalist. He was
professor of English at Amherst College, and a consultant and
writer for National Education Television. He is the author of "The
Body's Cage, Hells & Benefits," a collection of essays, and
"Killer Woman Blues: Why Americans Can't Think Straight About
Gender and Power."
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