’ Without this theological provenance I should never have come upon the path of thinking. But provenance decides destination’ (Unterwegs zur Sprache, page 96).

Heidegger’s reputation in English philosophical circles has suffered badly from his association with Nazism. It would be easy to accumulate quotations to show how the connection suffices to discredit him philosophically. Yet we have no reason for expecting philosophers to be politically informed or enlightened or even sensible. They have in fact often proved very authoritarian and elitist in their views. Furthermore, Wittgenstein visited Russia in the 1930s and seriously considered emigrating there as late as 1939, when it was surely plain enough what Stalinism was like (cf. John Moran: “Wittgenstein and Russia’, New Left Review No. 73), but this fact has not affected any one’s estimate of his philosophical work. On the other hand, Wittgenstein’s philosophy may not be so independent of his social, political and religious opinions and experience as his most devoted exponents have led us to believe. But in the context of his life Heidegger’s connection with Nazism is not unintelligible.

Glossolalia can be produced with great ease—hence the title of this consideration of it. The interesting question is why people choose to engage in this form of pseudo-language, and this can at least be partially answered by describing its essential features, how people become glossolalists, and some of the conditions that favour it.

Anomalous speech is not so uncommon as is often supposed. Speech ingredients are used in ways ranging from the rudimentary to the highly sophisticated in both secular and religious contexts. The pseudo-languages of spells, incantations, games, nursery rhymes, and scat-singing for instance; those attributed to spirits and Martians; and those sometimes invented by children and adults can be located on such a continuum. What they have in common is that, unlike language, their meaning is not found in the conventions either of their internal organisation or of their relationship with the perceived world. Tongue-speaking in religious contexts is an improvised language of the same kind.

I have talked to many women around the United States who are establishing themselves in church positions hitherto exclusively male. They represent the principal Christian denominations and Judaism. Ages range from grandmothers to college students. Some reject the revolutionary label. But what they are doing adds up to a radical revolution. They are reformulating mankind’s most basic assumptions : not just the relationships between the sexes, but the notion of human nature itself, the notion of sin, the very notion of God.

Age is a factor in attitude. The younger women tend to more belligerency. But also important is the level of resistance of their churches to opening up the three male preserves: ruling, sanctification (ministration of the sacraments) and teaching. Women in Protestant denominations which give them some openings as rulers, ministers and theologians, are irked by tokenism but believe they can surmount it if they keep their cool. The higher resistance of Episcopalianism and Roman Catholicism is producing a strident, angry response.

Lorsque les effets d’une politique intérieure menacent de démoraliser et d’exiler des centaines de milliers d’êtres humains, les considerations de correction diplomatique doivent faire place à des preoccupations de simple humanité. Je manquerais à mon devoir si je n’attirais I’attention du Conseil sur la situation actuelle et si je ne plaidais pour que I’opinion du monde, par l‘intermédiaire de la Société des Nations, des Etats membres et non membres, fasse le nécessaire afin de remédier à la situation actuelle et écarter la tragédie menaçante.

McDonald’s letter exposing the deep roots of the Nazi persecution of the Jews and all opponents of racialism and other heresies naturally irritated the German authorities at the time, but it was also considered by the British Foreign Office as ‘a very ill-advised document’ and its author ‘a tiresome individual’. Not that our government lacked sympathy for the victims of Hitler’s policy, but it was hoped that a smoother diplomacy might in the long run prove more helpful to the Jews themselves and in the short run it seemed far too dangerous to tackle this still little known adversary on a matter of purely internal policy. And, like Pilate, they had no time to investigate the truth behind this policy. They simply could not grasp the fact that Hitler from the beginning to end was concerned to apply with ruthless logic the Weltanschauung he had worked out in bad German but with utter clarity in Mein Kampf.