Entry 2197, on 2022-01-12 at 11:41:10 (Rating 4, Politics)
When debating political ideas with people I sometimes get to the point where they start using phrases which they seem to be somewhat uncertain about. In fact, they often sound like it is something they think they should say without really understanding why. Sometimes I like to ask them to explain the concept involved in simple language, or to justify it by giving specific examples, but this generally results in a meaningless response.
It's a trick which is used by many different people with different political perspectives, but recently it seems to be something used by the followers of woke, progressive (so-called), leftist dogma.
A common form this takes is to take over, or hijack, a phrase or word which has an existing meaning which is difficult to disagree with, and assign it a more specific or subtly modified meaning which suits the person's or group's agenda.
A classic example of this is "black lives matter". If anyone asks me if I think black lives matter I would have to answer "yes", because what sort of person doesn't believe that? The problem is that that agreement is then often taken as agreeing with the "Black Lives Matter" political movement, which I don't support.
A common tactic to avoid this conundrum is to say something like "sure, but all lives matter" which should also be an incontestable point. But it isn't, because the woke crowd have redefined that phrase too, except in a negative way. By some convoluted logic they now claim that using that phrase is racist.
It's utterly absurd, of course, because how can a phrase explicitly singling out a race not be racist, when the same phrase applied to everyone, regardless of race, is racist! Oddly, many people take this fairly obvious example of intellectual dishonesty seriously and avoid the use of "all lives matter", even though its what they - and any reasonable person - should really think.
Here are a few other words and phrases which have similarly been subsumed into woke ideology and been assigned a more convenient meaning: equity, social justice, politically correct, fair pay.
Equity if defined in the dictionary as "the quality of being fair and impartial". Of course, this just pushes the problem of definition out another step, because we now have to decide what "fair" and "impartial" mean. That problem is difficult to overcome, but in an attempt at that, here is the definition of fair: "treating people equally without favouritism or discrimination".
So it seems that equity involves treating everyone the same, yet it is exactly the opposite to that which is often the case with modern leftists. Equity often involves treating people differently in order to try to get the same outcome. So, as an example, if one race is less well represented in university the "equitable" approach is to make it easier for them to get enrolled, possibly at the expense of others.
Anyone who thinks this is equitable needs to learn the meaning of the word, because it is the exact opposite of equitable. So if I was asked if I believed in equity I would say "of course I do" and the leftist would then say "so you believe in giving my favourite group easier entry into university" (or whatever other action they are promoting) and I would say "no, I said I believe in equity, not inequity".
Or if I was asked if I believed in social justice I would again say "of course I do". But then if I was told to do that I had to automatically believe all claims by women of inappropriate behaviour against them, I would say "no, justice involves giving everyone an opportunity to prove their innocence and I only conclude guilt when there is good, objective evidence supporting it."
So by now I hope you can see the problem here. I'm sure that these semantic tricks go far beyond the simple meaning of the words too, and I suspect some people genuinely do believe the misleading wording has a deeper meaning which they must pay attention to.
I've got to admit, it is a brilliant strategy, because unless you are aware of the process you can easily get tied up in it.
It's very easy for a person giving equal value to all lives to be construed as a supporter of a violent extremist movement like BLM. Its easy for someone who supports equal treatment for everyone to have that extended to special privileges for groups who don't achieve as much as some others. And its easy for the pursuit of true justice to be diverted into depriving one group of fair treatment to help out another which might be seen as more deserving for some reason.
I find the whole thing quite puzzling, because it seems obvious to me how corrupt this hijacking of common words really is. But when I provide true dictionary definitions of words my opponents often say something like "that's not the modern meaning of the word, it now means something else."
Surely if we are all going to communicate using the same language then we should have a standard definition for the words, and a dictionary seems to me to be the most credible source for this. Anyone who claims the meaning of the word is different from what's in the dictionary should probably change their words a bit, just to make communication with others more meaningful.
But I suspect there are two types of people who are making this mistake. The first are who I call the "master propagandists" deliberately use the words in an invalid way which advances their cause. They don't want clear communication, because that might lead to a conclusion other than what they prefer. And the second type are those who I call the "mindless zombies". These are the people who hear all of these catch-phrases and utterances from the first group and just assimilate them into their own vocabulary with no real thought.
So, as is often the case in this type of situation, it gets back to the old corrupt versus incompetent argument. For example, for someone who genuinely thinks giving handouts to one group while depriving another group of that same opportunity is equitable then they are either incredibly dishonest and are deliberately warping the meaning of words, or they are just too damn incompetent to realise how stupid they are being.
I guess there is a third category, which (keeping with my generally derogatory tone) I will call the "cowards". These are the people who know that the woke narrative is irrational or dishonest, but are scared to fight it because they are worried about being cancelled in some way.
So yeah, there are three types of hijackers who are changing out language for their own ends: the corrupt, the incompetent, and the cowards. Do you use words dishonestly like I have described above? Which group do you belong to?
Comment 1 by Anonymous on 2022-03-04 at 11:24:23:
Do you really believe this? Have you never heard that language changes naturally and there is no need for a conspiracy!
Comment 2 by OJB on 2022-03-04 at 11:32:22:
Yes, language changes naturally and for good reasons which everyone accepts, but language also is manipulated by groups with a specific agenda. Sounds like a conspiracy? Well, I guess it is, although most people involved don't see it that way.
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