The Culture of Life
Ah, the siren call of the well-turned phrase. Who can resist an argument when it is summarized as:
The Right to Choose
Choose Life
Right to Die
Right to Life
Pro-life
Pro-choice
The Culture of Life
This newest call to arms, “The Culture of Life,” is all the more remarkable because it actually introduces an entirely new word into the vocabulary of rhetoric. Not counting “of”, “to” and “the” (which are the literary equivalents of the blank tile in Scrabble) we now have the following words in play in the Great Ethics Debate of Our Times:
Choice/Choose
Culture
Death/Die
Life/Live
Right
Pro-
As any presidential speechwriter knows, this opens up brave new vistas of word spinning. To make things easier for both sides, I offer the following as a less-than-comprehensive list of possibilities now available with this new approved vocabulary:
Culture of Life
Culture of Choice
Culture of Culture
Culture of Right
Right to Die
Right to Choose
Right to Life
Right to Culture
Right to Right
Choose Death
Choose Life
Choose Culture
Choose Choice
Choose Right
Pro-Choice
Pro-Culture
Pro-Death
Pro-Right
Die Right
Live Right
Death of Choice
Death of Culture
Death of Right
Life of Choice
Life of Culture
Life of Right
The Right Choice
The Right to Culture Life (this one’s for the stem cell people)
The Right to Culture Death
The Right to Culture Culture
The Right to Live Cultures (this one’s for the yogurt people)
Death of Life
Life of Death
Choose the Right Life
Choose the Right Death
Choose the Right Culture
Choose to Live
Choose to Die
Choose to Right the Death
Choose to Culture the Live Death
Culture the Choice of the Right Culture
Live Right, Choose Culture (For all those public radio and television people)
Culture the Right
Culture the Right Death
Culture the Pro-Right
The Pro-Right Culture
The Death of the Pro-Right Culture
The Culture of the Right-handed Dead Golf Pro (OK, so I cheated a bit on this)
Feel free to add your own. The sooner we can all get this out of our systems, the sooner we can have a meaningful dialogue about life and death. Who knows, we might even get to introduce a new word into the lexicon. My own humble proposal? : Humane.
The Right to Live Cultures (this one’s for the yogurt people)
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Good one!
Alli
How about this one: "The Culture for Humane Rights and Choices" It could even be abbreviated "CHuRCh" for those who feel the need to make everything seem pious.
~Cali
OMG women!!
You have too much time on your hands!!
LOL… thanks for the yohurt people one!!
ps…out of interest, just how long did that take?
I must learn to spell yohurt
I must learn to spell yohurt
I must learn to spell yohurt
I must learn to spell yohurt……
bwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!! i elect you to the ministry of goodspin.
the words have lost their meaning…they’re just sounds now…
great entry!
ok, since I can choose:
I choose to piss off and/or on the right wingers
How do I know the Yogurt folks (and Sour Cream folks promising the same vitality within they wares) is telling me the truth? I am all fer havin’ the Right to Live Cultures, but, how do you tell when them Live Yogurt Cultures is DAID? Settin’ around in a tub full of white slime in a cold dark ‘frigerator don’t seem like much of a life to me…
And as for the last line in your quite entertaining piece. Amen. Here’s to Humane Treatment! Here’s to Humility whilst we discuss what Humane Treatment is! Here’s to…Humanity! All of us. 🙂