Obdurate – Friday’s Word of the Day Haiku

Happy Friday! Today’s dictionary.com word of the day is another election-themed gem.

According to dictionary.com, Obdurate is defined as:

1. unmoved by persuasion, pity,or tender feelings; stubborn; unyielding.

2. stubbornly resistant to moral influence; persistently impenitent: an obdurate sinner.

It comes from the Latin verb obdūrāre, a derivative of the the adjective dūrus”hard.” In Classical Latin obdurare meant “to harden,be hard,” and also “to hold out, endure.” In Late and Christian Latin, the verb meant “to harden the heart  (against truth or God).” It entered English in the mid-1400s.

“Hardened hearts (against truth or God) and stubbornly resistant to moral influence.” Sound familiar? That pretty much describes our current U.S. election cycle.  At a time of unprecedented access to knowledge, information and truth we are even more entrenched, so polarized that we cannot even stand to hear an alternative viewpoint.  We can’t be persuaded, change is the enemy and truth cannot be known.  “What is truth?” I hear this argument every day.

How did we get here? I have a few thoughts on this topic and word of the day…and a few haiku too…

Knowledge is power, limited by those in power, when only the powerful have access. 

Information is only as good as its source. 

Truth is truth when based on facts, not on opinions. 

But then, what do I know? You probably have a few theories of your own. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. I can’t promise it will change anything for anyone else, but it will empower you just for having said it. May we all relearn the art of compromise and the beauty of engaging alternatives.

Peace Out!

Here are my haiku…

An obdurate mind
has one response to the truth…
la, la…la, la, laaaa!

“Because I said so,”
can’t move an obdurate teen,
consider a bribe.

kat ~ 4 November 2016