 A
benign, civilized word appropriated by Communism and
clobbered by McCarthyism.
Too soon to say, but if the Cold War is truly over, maybe we can have the word "comrade" back. It will take much longer to redeem the idealistic maxim... "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."For one thing, it loses something with an obligatory "his/her" substitution (see virgule). For another, there's more than a hint of coercion in the first half and a void in volition in the second. Then too, a fourth of the world's population continues to live under Communism. By the way, the Chinese changed the word "needs" to "production"... "From each according to his/her ability, to each according to his/her production."...which signals a curious shift toward incentives, not to be confused with greed. Meanwhile, I use "colleague," which is
serviceable enough
but not so warm. As an aging liberal, I have
neither "buddies" nor
"chums" anymore. They all became Republicans. In his 2011 novel Snow Drops, A. D. Miller depicts a fictional Russian journalist who says...
|