Babel-17 (5 pts): Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones...

     ...but words can manipulate you and turn you into a traitor against your own starship crew. In all seriousness though, Babel-17 was a very strange read for me. Reading this novel right after The Martian was a huge change of pace. While in The Martian I felt that I had a clear picture of Mark Watney's surrounding environment and predicament, I felt like I was walking through a haze while reading Babel-17. All the stuff about body modifications, and futuristic starships, and the whole concept of a "triple" not registering to me as a form of three-way relationship until I looked it up, it was very confusing. And yet throughout all the haze of world-building exposition, the one thing that stood out to me the most was the concept of using language and words as a weapon.

    At first I was surprised at Samuel R. Delany's choice to use a language as the main conflict of the novel. Normally when you think of space adventures, you would picture the main source of conflict being some supreme space overlord looking to control the entire galaxy, or something like that. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how clever Delany's choice was,  and how using words to fight is extremely relevant today.

    Words are some of humanity's most powerful weapons. They can be used to persuade, comfort, insult, and even manipulate. I think about how people use their words to hurtful towards others, calling them names and slurs that can sting and stay with someone for a long time. Some even use words to divide groups of people, trying to set people against each other through claims that one side is worse than the other. Others use words to gain power, manipulating people into believing them and their baseless promises to build a better future. 

    I'm reminded that Babel-17 was published in 1966, which was during the Civil Rights Movement, a time that called for people to speak up and use their words for justice and equality. Though we have made much progress in equality since that time, there is still work to be done, and what better way to call for more change than to use our arsenal of words against those who refuse to listen.