War of the Words (part 3)

"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?... Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?... The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking-not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." - George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 5

Before going on the final part of this article, I admit with some embarrassment that I forgot to mention the most obvious example of the redefinition of a word in the last century. This was of course the creation of the new term "gay" to replace the technical term "homosexual". This really came from nowhere, with no connection to the topic it would be applied to, and in a short time it completely changed the meaning of a word in one generation. Now every time you see anything over 40 years old you have a problem. Even the theme song for the Flintstones ends with "we'll have a gay old time!" Makes you wonder about Fred and Barney. Yikes! Not only does "gay" make no sense as a word choice, but it definitely follows the connotation/denotation rule. The word originally describes an emotional state in the denotational sense, but when it was repurposed by the homosexual community the denotative value became the connotative value, lending a needed boost to the debate about homosexuality through the non-subjective path of feelings and associations that helped shape it to the form it is today. Is it rational? Not really. As an example, how many times have you heard a gay person (yes, I'll use the term because it is the common parlance whether or not I like it) calling into a radio show when the topic is "is gayness a choice?". Almost every time you end up hearing the argument "why would anyone choose to be gay???", on the basis that it is so miserable being that way that nobody, including them, would ever choose this lifestyle if they had a choice. (Strangely, though, they immediately after this run out and dance around in a pride parade and talk about how wonderful it is to be gay - go figure.)

Anyway, now let's get on to one of the most pernicious tactics of all - changing the meaning of words used by your opponents and take away their ability to use language to present their arguments. Here are a few examples:

• American: In the past, everyone pretty knew what this meant. Now it carries a huge amount of negative baggage and means 'imperialist', 'bigoted', 'closed minded', 'repressive', and a host of other putdowns. That's if a conservative wants to use the term. It's a term of shame. How often do these new 'americans' say "why can't we be like the enlightened Europeans?" I will comment in a future blog on this topic, because I think that the definition of "American" is a very important component of our current political debate. This is closely related to the next word...
  
• Patriotic: After 9-11 there was a glorious time when everyone enjoyed being patriotic again. We were unified around what made America great - for a while. The real attack came with the word 'Patriotism'. How many times have you had the quote thrown at you "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel"? As the left slowly but surely worked to wipe out this wave of real patriotism which was conterproductive to their ends by reintroducing self loathing and self doubt, patriotism was redefined. Now traditional patriotism ("bad" patriotism - for conservatives) is defined as politicized 'jingoism' and 'hate'. In their case, "good" patriotism consisted of calling the president Hitler and a murderous liar every five minutes while selling out your own country by throwing your arms on camera around America-hating communist leaders of other countries and releasing classified documents to undercut your own nation in war. As Hillary Clinton put it: "I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic, and we should stand up and say, 'We are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration!'". Of course when a leftist president is elected, any dissent is unpatriotic and suddenly Hitler comparisons are the gravest offense against America.
• Morality: Traditional morality is "hate", while new, non-specific amorality is defined as moral. This word had to be destroyed when Jerry Falwell combined the words Moral and Majority. Hence "the moral majority is neither" on bumper stickers. Nowadays we have reached the point where morality is so out of fashion that boasting of (traditional) immorality is a big way to boost your career!
• Discrimination: A simple act has become a word for all that is evil in the world. A person of "discriminating tastes" used to be a person of class. Parents discriminated about possibles spouses for their daughters. Not much needs to be said about this - so much negativity has been piled on this word that the very act of choosing anything causes massive condemnation.
• Democracy: Note how many communist countries call themselves "democratic". How in the world can a dictatorship with no voting and suppressed dissent be democratic? Easy! You just redefine the word democracy! In this case it is not "one man, one vote" (something that leftists always quote but never really want) but instead it means "one man, one dollar". That's how a moron like Michael Moore can get away with the statement that "we need to get rid of Capitalism and replace it with Democracy". As long as one person has $10 and another has $5, then society is not democratic. Better that both have only $1 than that one has more than another. But it is not just about money. Democracy in the leftist sense really means that everybody is exactly the same, no matter what they choose to do with their lives. Look at leftist controlled areas like heavily unionized jobs, and you will see that individualism and initiative are sacrificed for "democracy". I personally have spoken with many people over the years who were persecuted by their union brothers for "working too hard" and told to knock it off, because it makes other people look bad. Besides, they are told, working hard will make no difference in their career anyway since their entire career has been mapped out in the union contract from the day they are hired to the day they retire.

On the subject of the word democracy, there is no way I could leave out C.S.Lewis' words, from the mouth of Screwtape the demon, in the story "Screwtape Proposes a Toast". Note how prophetic Lewis' words are about our current political and educational climate:

The basic principle of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be ‘undemocratic’… . At universitities, examinations must be framed so that nearly all the students get good marks. Entrance examinations must be framed so that all, or nearly all, citizens can go to universities, whether they have any power (or wish) to profit by higher education or not. At schools, the children who are too stupid or lazy to learn languages and mathematics and elementary science can be set to doing the things that children used to do in their spare time. Let them, for example, make mud-pies and call it modeling… . The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age-group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coaeval’s attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON THE MAT… . Of course this would not follow unless all education became state education. But it will. That is part of the same movement. Penal taxes, designed for that purpose, are liquidating the Middle Class, the class who were prepared to save and spend and make sacrifices in order to have their children privately educated. The removal of this class, besides linking up with the abolition of education, is, fortunately, an inevitable effect of the spirit that says "I’m as good as you". This was, after all, the social group which gave to the humans the overwhelming majority of their scientists, physicians, philosophers, theologians, poets, artists, composers, architects, jurists, and administrators. If ever there was a bunch of tall stalks that needed their tops knocked off, it was surely they. As an English politician remarked not long ago, ‘A democracy does not want great men.’...

For ‘democracy’ or the ‘democratic spirit’ (diabolical sense) leads to a nation without great men, a nation mainly of subliterates, morally flaccid from lack of discipline in youth, full of the cocksureness which flattery breeds on ignorance, and soft from lifelong pampering. And that is what Hell wishes every democratic people to be. For when such a nation meets in conflict a nation where children have been made to work at school, where talent is placed in high posts, and where the ignorant mass are allowed no say at all in public affairs, only one result is possible.

So, how do we reclaim the language? How do we keep the left from stealing from our hands the very tools we use to communicate ideas, to prevent us from even discussing them?

(More in part 4)