Guess: Which extreme terms were named 2024 words of the year by major dictionaries? | Opinion
Cause, effect
Two major dictionary companies have each named a word of the year for 2024: “polarization” and “brain rot.” Together, the terms seem to explain a good deal of our current political problems.
“Polarization,” from Merriam-Webster, means that we are tending toward the extremes rather than toward the center.
“Brain rot” is Oxford English Dictionary’s 2024 word selection. According to that institution, this is the deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state as a result of “overconsumption of material — particularly online content — considered to be trivial or unchallenging.”
It appears to me that polarization thrives on brain rot.
- Keith Evans, St. Joseph
By his logic
Kudos to the editorial board for taking the Platte County Commission to task for refusing to implement the children’s mental health fund that voters approved last month. (Dec. 18, 10A, “Platte County Commission must obey the voters’ will”)
I would have gone further to challenge the incredibly asinine reasoning of Commissioner Scott Fricker. He claims that the 56% vote in favor of the tax was actually a much smaller percentage of the population, because of non-voters not being taken into account. Therefore, according to him, it didn’t truly reflect the will of the people. Of course, that thinking is preposterous. For one thing, how does he know the position of those who didn’t bother to vote?
Yet, I’d bet that 1) he didn’t win the vote of a majority of the Platte County electorate when he assumed office, and 2) he’d gleefully claim that Donald Trump’s plurality of only those who voted in November constitutes a mandate.
- Paul Blackman, Kansas City
Better off?
A Republican lawmaker has filed a bill to require that Missouri public schools display the Ten Commandments (Dec. 16, 1A, “Bill would require schools to display Ten Commandments”)
This legislation will face legal challenges, but in the meantime Republican leaders could post the document in their party offices, using the same format proposed for the schools: framed, at least 11 inches by 14 inches, in a “large, easily readable font.” Party members and visitors could then easily review the biblical injunctions against lying (Donald Trump won in 2020), stealing (confidential files stashed in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom) and lust (“Access Hollywood,” Stormy Daniels and so on).
Said the bill’s sponsor, “If we all obeyed the Ten Commandments, wouldn’t our country be a lot better off?”
- David Ekerdt, Kansas City
Count them in
Breaking a 100-year tradition, Ivy League college football teams will participate in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision playoffs starting with the 2025 season. (Dec. 18, KansasCity.com, “FCS football playoffs to welcome new conference”) This follows a yearlong process initiated by the Ivy League Student-Athlete Advisory Committee from all eight institutions, representing 12 sports.
This committee consists of 17 student-athletes, including Lucas Bullock, a junior football player at Columbia University in New York who is from Overland Park, having graduated from Blue Valley North High School in 2022. The Ivy League Council of Presidents has approved the proposal.
The Ivy League prides itself on a storied tradition of impact, influence and competitive success throughout the history of college football. A new chapter of success is about to begin.
- Molly Harsh, Overland Park
Outsider view
The Star’s Dec. 12 guest commentary “Trump’s Cabinet picks offer chance of ‘creative destruction’” (10A) is an illustration of what I call tech mania. The idea that some technological invention will solve problems that are social or economic in nature is nonsense.
Technological inventions have positive but also negative effects: Think nuclear power, the internet, self-driving cars and more. Creative destruction is a concept borrowed from Silicon Valley. Of course experts have a blind side. They stick to what J.K. Galbraith calls conventional wisdom. Creative destruction is another example of this concept.
The commentary’s list of inventions by people who were thinking in ways not consistent with their background or education doesn’t mention supposed innovations that turned out to be flops, such as the DMC DeLorean or the two-wheeled Segway scooter.
People who propose technological solutions to social or economical problems are unwilling to accept that all of us need to make changes to deal with climate change, inequality and homelessness, which don’t have simple solutions and none of the people Donald Trump has nominated are capable or willing to deal with.
We as a people need to ask ourselves: What kind of country do we want to live in and how can we bring that about?
- Gary Brush, Kansas City