I have long lamented the intentional destruction of language.
Language is important, it is the medium through which we communicate ideas.
Destroy the medium and ideas can not be communicated.
This is being achieved through conditioning and deception.
Notice how the word "government" is now used in a way that intentionally
does not distinguish between legitimate democracy and totalitarianism.
Back in 1996, Newt Gingrich's political action committee (GOPAC) mailed a pamphlet entitled "Language, A Key Mechanism of Control" to Republicans across the country.
The booklet lays out a plan to destroy language, to steal it. To assign new meanings to words.
Obviously reasoning occurs mostly through the medium of language, right?
The destruction of reason requires the destruction of language.
Words and phrases of language have become the battleground in political war.
They are either owned or controlled by one side or the other.
(The whole idea that there is only one side or the other is in itself toxic, it's the kind of thinking associated with mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, aggression and, especially, borderline personality disorder. It's an erroneous form of cognition, Where there is a spectrum of possibilities, they are divided only into two parts, with a blurring of distinctions within those categories. Shades of gray are missed; everything is considered either black or white.
Where in actuality complex realities are not binary.)
The goal of political rhetoric is to take control of every word and weaponize it.
Weaponized words are used in twisted ways, often as the opposite of their customary meanings.
The aim of this distorted language is not simply to defeat their political enemy, but to ruin the minds of the people who buy into their rhetoric. A person who can not discern relative truths or reason is much easier to manipulate than one who can.
Here are some recent examples:
We have often heard the person who champions reforms refered to as "elitists"
This is a particularly toxic distortion.
Offering reforms is a basic part of democracy, something that every citizen can do.
Not too long ago, the term “elite” referred to those who had achieved some worthwhile accomplishment; Perhaps reaching the pinnacle of a profession, receiving some type of significant honor, or serving in a high office.
There were once many routes to becoming elite and they all implied having accomplished something beneficial.
Who wants to be elite now?
No one.
The word has been completely corrupted and it's meaning destroyed.
“Little” was always a standard way to describe something small; a child, an amount of time, anything not particularly oversized.
While it wasn’t the most imaginative adjective, it was a useful one.
Now it's definition has become a generic derogation.
Even when spelled correctly, “little” is now demeaning and disrespectful.
When deliberately (or maybe not) misspelled as “liddle”, it’s currently a uniquely nasty insult.
The word“beautiful” is being destroyed as well because it's being applied to projects that are either non-existent, undesirable, or senseless. Things like a health plan that doesn't help anyone with their health,, an absurd wall on the southern border of the United States, or massive corporate tax cuts when revenues are less than expenses. Beautiful now means Jackassery.
Who wants to be beautiful?
No one.
The word has been completely corrupted and it's meaning destroyed.
Take a word like “optics”. Originally, this was a word used in the scientific study of light or transmission and deflection of radiation, it’s now become “the way in which a course of action is perceived by the public”.
(That definition is limited to North American usage. The rest of the world leaves it alone.)
Trump has reduced “optics” to a word marking his appearances on TV; a mere photo-op.
Take the word "promise" A Trump “promise” is not something to keep, but something to break; verified empirical truth has become “fake news”. Thriving, as the New York Times has done within the last year, means “failing’ in the Trump-revised dictionary.
Clichés have been elevated in importance, and the symbol of American decline likes to load up his twit tweets with them.
“Thoughts and prayers” have replaced useful generosity
And they are abundantly offered to despairing refugees, victims of massacres, Gold Star families and the millions who have lost everything to hurricanes, floods and fires.
“Wait and see” is another pet Orange Julius phrase.
It must be repeated the customary twice.
It never refers to anything good , but always yet another impending administrative disaster.
All is not lost because Twitler has inadvertently enlarged our vocabularies in another valuable direction. Words Americans may have forgotten from college courses in Sociology or Psychology 101 and 102 are now readily accessible to everyone! Words such as sociopath, which is still defined as someone “revenge oriented, exhibiting grandiosity, lacking empathy, failure to accept consequences of his own acts, sense of superiority without commensurate achievements, sexual promiscuity, blatant lying, impulsive and compulsive acts, sense of entitlement, paranoia, delusion and aberrant behavior.
Also “malignant narcissism”...it's unavoidable.
So we still at least have those words and their meanings intact.
