5.2 Call for Submissions–The Communication Issue

What is a misunderstanding? It is a failure to communicate. Communication is the simple tool that allows us to live together. Communication is also infinitely complex: verbal, non-verbal, visual, digital, handwriting, media-generated. Communication is the intersection between language, truth, and trust; the cornerstone of community; and a keystone of civilization.

And with the internet, it is now instantaneous. Facebook. Twitter. Snapchat. Instagram. How has digital communication affected inter- and intra-personal relations? How does the latest net neutrality affect the corporate internet and how will it alter our ability to communicate?

Communication is both helped and hindered by the media. How are we supposed to relate to, or operate within, a government managed by leaders “untethered to the truth”? Immanual Kant says that all humans have a moral responsibility to speak the truth. Without the truth, we threaten the ability to understand each other, threatening civilization itself. Lying depends on a mutual understanding of what is true and what is false.

Are there objective truths? How is the truth determined? Personal belief, scientific process, societal agreement? Is politically correct speech a clarifying tool or a deliberately obscurantist one ? 

What does it do to communication to live inside an echo chamber? If all the news you hear is from politically-inspired Fox News or (alternately) community-supported National Public Radio, what is the value of that “news” without the balancing viewpoint? Is that news or propaganda?

How do the sub-genres of predetermined language that rely on precedent—legal, medical, engineering—affect the open nature of American English? As a corollary, why is accent, posture, or presentation indicative of social status?

For this issue, we seek poetry, stories, and essays that recognize and respond to how communication—emotional, rational, political, scientific, religious—is affecting our perceptions and worldview. We seek writing that starts the conversation about this new world order as we are coming to know it.  As Canary poetry editor Gail Entrekin shares so eloquently in an article  about the impact of art: “I believe that there are other occasional readers who are just now receiving this news in a visceral way that argument and scientific information have not been able to impart.” Share a piece that exemplifies a cause you are passionate about. Remind readers of the simple things that freedom ensures. Pay attention to the details of a thriving society. A solid civilization and vibrant community look to art for their inspiration.

After the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked what type of government we had built, a Republic or a Monarchy, and he replied, “A Republic, madam, if you can keep it.” 

The question is:  Can we keep it?