Can Studying Grammar Save Our Culture? by Thaddeus Kozinski

Can Studying Grammar Save Our Culture? by Thaddeus Kozinski

We have heard much about the moral, political, and spiritual corruption of American culture, and certainly there is tremendous need for conscious and vigorous action to shape and reshape our behavior in accordance with virtue, the common good, and God’s Law. What could studying grammar have to do with saving our culture? Well, we are told in John’s Gospel that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Does this passage indicate an intimate connection between language and God, and thus between our words and our spiritual health? As Orwell argued at the end of World War II, the ubiquitous corruption of language in the West was not simply an effect of moral and political corruption, but was, in a profound sense, a cause of it.

Language is essential to what we are as human beings. As our language becomes corrupted, understanding becomes impossible. We are returning to Babel.