At a Loss for Words
with Carol Off
Hosted by Adrian Harewood
In Person Streaming Politics Non-Fict
With wit and wisdom, the voice of Canada—Carol Off—delivers a thoughtful yet searing examination of the power of words, the necessity of truth, and the existential need for humanity to communicate with care, especially in these divisive and troubling times.
Join our host, Adrian Harewood, for a conversation with award-winning author and broadcast journalist Carol Off about her latest bestseller, At a Loss for Words: Conversation in the Age of Rage.
As co-host of CBC Radio's As It Happens, Carol Off spent a decade and a half talking to people in the news five nights a week. On top of her stellar writing and reporting career, those 25,000 interviews have given her a unique vantage point on the crucial subject at the heart of her new book—how, in these polarizing years, words that used to define civil society and social justice are being put to work for a completely different political agenda. Or they are being bleached of their meaning as the values they represent are mocked and distorted. As Off writes, “If our language doesn’t have a means to express an idea, then the idea itself is gone—even the range of thought is diminished.” And, as she argues, that’s a dangerous loss.
In six wide-ranging chapters, Off explores the mutating meanings and the changing political impact of her six chosen words—freedom, democracy, truth, woke, choice and taxes—unpacking the forces, from right and left, that have altered them beyond recognition. At a Loss for Words is both an elegy and a call to arms.
Books are available from our friends at Perfect Books.
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