The Trouble With Is, is Is
Behind the unqualified use of the verb 'is' lurk a number of assumptions, each of which can lead to trouble.
So what's so bad about 'is'? The many ways in which it can be misused.
"It is good ..."
"He is lazy ..."
"That is a rock ..."
all have one thing in common. The 'is' implies that we are describing something out there that has a certain quality -- 'goodness', 'laziness,' or 'rocklike' -- which exists independently of our personal experience of it. And the next implication is that you must agree because obviously that is what it is. But what we really are describing is an internal experience which may only have validity for us.
Another thing we imply when we use 'is' seems to be that we have examined the subject (whatever it may be) thoroughly, and have determined how best it can be described. But, in reality, we can only have examined a limited number of possibilities. Yet in everyday conversation we often hear or read pronouncements like, "She's an artist," or "Her work is about the intersection of art and technology," rendered with the air of finality.
When we make clear the limitations of our experience and that we are talking about that experience rather than the person, event or thing, we leave open the way to further discussion (rather than arguments over categorical statements).
This may sound obvious but the fact remains that many of us, every day, use 'is' in ways that reduce the world we describe to a two-dimensional diagram -- sans color, sans depth, sans motions -- sans everything.
Death to Is!
Joshua Trees for v. issue 1