Veteran CBC journalist Carol Off explores weaponization of words in new Western University course
Off's forthcoming book inspired the course and is set to be released in September
Have we lost the art of civil conversation?
It's something veteran CBC journalist Carol Off is exploring in a new course at Western University based on her forthcoming book, At a Loss for Words: Why We Can't Talk to Each Other.
Off spent 16 years behind the mic as the host of As It Happens, and after stepping down nearly a year ago, returns to her alma mater as a visiting lecturer.
The course called Endangered Words is being taught out of Western's School for Advanced Studies in the Arts and Humanities, and will explore the weaponization of language with a focus on reclaiming words such as equality, freedom, democracy and truth from polarization.
Carol Off spoke with CBC's Colin Butler on Afternoon Drive.
The following has been edited for length and clarity.
Colin Butler: Can you give us an overview of what you'll be covering in this course?
Carol Off: It's based on this idea I've been developing that started when I was still working at As it Happens. I just found the conversations I was having with people were becoming so polarized and the language was becoming so weaponized, hard, so accusatory.
I became conscious that we just were unable to have important conversations at a time when the planet is burning, wars are breaking out, and we need to talk to each other. I began the idea of doing a book, and then Western contacted me to see if I had something I could teach. I thought, 'Yeah, I'd like to talk about this weaponization of words that's come to alarm me so much.'
LISTEN: Former CBC Journalist Carol Off discusses polarization of language in new Western course and book
CB: Why did you want to dissect the weaponization of language?
CO: Words matter so much to everyone, but to us especially. There are six words in the book, and I'll explore some of them with the class. Probably the most important ones are 'truth' and 'facts.' If we don't agree on what truth is, if we can't determine what facts are, then we've lost the foundation of our society. We have to be able to agree on what is true and what is factual in order to make policies, to make decisions, to help people. If we can't agree on those things, we're truly lost.
CB: What do you think this does to us, Carol? Not just on a societal level, but even in terms of how our communities are made-up, our relationships with other people?
CO: I think it makes us selfish, and that really is the death of a society — when we don't care about others.
CB: You talk about reclaiming the value of those words and and finding our way back to civility. What does that look like?
CO: Well, it looks like having conversations with people that we disagree with, where we disagree with them and not hate them for their opinions, where we don't get angry with them. It looks like being able to compromise to find middle ground between what everybody wants and what everyone needs.
We have to see better leadership — people willing to step up and say 'We want to make this society better and stronger.' That's what I really feel is kind of lacking right now.
CB: I'm curious when your book will be available, and what do you hope people will take away from it?
CO: The book is out in September. This will be a huge election year. And we just have to determine what kind of society we're going to live in and what we think to be true. We have to figure out who and what matters, so that more people are included in our world than just ourselves.
I'm hoping that people take away from it is an attention to the language that we're going to be hearing over this next year and a better understanding of what people are saying, a better understanding of what they would like to say, and to use languages so it actually once again has meaning to them.