Word: oaths
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With such access to the absolute, the oath has always been promiscuously and even dangerously overemployed. It works efficiently enough as a device to keep court witnesses and public officials moderately honest; there, the sworn word is directly connected to deeds and penalties (perjury charges or impeachment). Ronald Reagan had no trouble making such a connection for the air-traffic controllers. But the dictatorial and the insecure have always been fond of the oath as a way to enforce orthodoxy, to lay down a prior restraint upon people's opinions. During the 1950s the loyalty oath turned into...
...first torchlight of the primeval, oaths worked by the magic of the words themselves; later, they glowed with the power of the gods, who were invented to officiate at melodramas. Oaths should be sparingly used and specifically targeted. Their imposing solemnity can shade without warning into the preposterous, into peeled grapes on pledge night, a witch doctoring oogly-boogly like the oath that Tom Sawyer's gang swore in the cave...
...reason why oathing gets overdone is that it is so inherently dramatic, even a form of fanaticism, a way of connecting (spuriously sometimes) to the Absolute. Knights, crusaders, saints and opera singers are forever swearing: it is a lovely plot device. Ahab swears his vengeance on the whale. In Don Giovanni, Ottavio vows to avenge the Commendatore by raising his fruity tenor to Donna Anna: "Lo giuro, lo giuro/ lo giuro agli occhi tuoi/ lo giuro al nostro amor" (I swear it, I swear it/ I swear it by your eyes/ I swear it by our love). Was there ever...
...Oaths have their sinister uses. They can turn into weapons to coerce and restrict. The solemn oath, of course, is not a bad way to lie. The Mafia enforces silence with an oath, and the blood oath over the centuries has killed more people than a medieval plague. But, in a free society, the oath has a crucial ceremonial function. The Hippocratic Oath reminds new doctors of their obligation, of the human context of their calling. An immigrant knows that the oath of citizenship is spiritually, almost physically, nourishing. His oath is a symbolic drama of community...
...oath is not faring very well now. Americans, a mobile and litigious people, nimble through the loopholes, do not like to be mired down in too many promises. Getting stuck in an old promise looks more and more like a sucker's game: both morals and interest rates change too fast. Baseball players renegotiate their contracts all the time...