Is "almost all language taxed by war" ?
Question:
In the poem Wichita Vortex Sutra, Allen Ginsberg says
"O but how many in their solitude weep aloud like me. On the bridge over the Republican River almost in tears to know how to speak the right language, on the frosty broad road uphill between highway embankments, I search for the language that is also yours, almost all our language has been taxed by war. Radio antennae high tension wires ranging from Junction City across the plains, highway cloverleaf sunk in a vast meadow, lanes curving past Abilene to Denver filled with old heroes of love, to Wichita where McClure's mind burst into animal beauty drunk, getting laid in a car in a neon misted street 15 years ago, to Independence where the old man's still alive who loosed the bomb that's slaved all human consciousness and made the body universe a place of fear."
The part I'm concerned with is where he says "almost all language has been taxed by war", what do you think he meant by that? Do you think that language has really been formed mainly around war and politics of war? If so do you think you can maybe give me some reference to how you know this, it doesn't seem to far fetched to me, considering humans by nature probably have been at war since we've developed linguistics. I understand this was an anti-war song protesting the Vietnam war, and how the politicians were using words to hide the casualties of the war, and how Ginsberg used this poem to reclaim literature in a way for peaceful purposes. Just wondering if all language is really taxed in a way by war.
Sorry for any grammar or spelling errors.
Answer:
I think that he's trying to say that he's searching for the words that will forever bar armed conflict. He is searching for the "language of peace" but can't find it because we only speak the language of conflict. I don't think that he's being literal there, but rather, metaphorical.
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