I spend far too much time thinking about communication. The words we pick have meaning, connotation, and implicit context.
Consider the following phrases: I did well in my maths. It bit me in the arse. When I was at University.
All three phrases are phrases from the UK. They imply something.
When I say “the state argued …”, I am choosing not to use the word “government”. “The State” has different connotations than “the government”. It helps to communicate.
One of my friends truly believes I spent time with an unnamed three letter agency doing “that sort of work”. I didn’t.
No matter how many times I tell him, “no”, he doesn’t believe me. Why does he believe this? My knowledge about things he knows are not commonly known, and a quiet competence in certain areas, along with a vocabulary taken from spending time around the military messes with his brain.
The only way he can make it all fit is to put me in the box labeled “spook”.
The media knows this, they understand it, better than we do, in general. And they use it to tell a narrative that they want to tell.
NBC did a piece on PregerU. It turned into a hit piece. Dennis and Marissa go through the broadcast and show how words were twisted.
It is a long video, but well worth watching
way back in the early 80s when that asshat introduced the ak47 to a school yard, theres dan rather doing a piece on “semiautomatic” rifles…. at a range with atf shooting MACHINE GUNS in the background. every other word was “semiautomatic”… while full auto guns were fired in the background with little white tags hanging from the trigger guards like they came from a gun store.. the result you ask? people saying you shouldn’t be able to buy machine guns from gun stores… words matter. its been a fight ever since. there is evil in the world and its blatant right in front of us
That’s why they invented the phrase ‘assault weapon’, to deliberately confuse people w/ ‘assault rifle’. The VPC even admitted that.
I’ve seen political ads showing heavy machine guns and the text talking about ‘assault weapons’.
Words do matter.
In fact, the legal profession is based on that very concept. A lawyer, a competent lawyer will choose their words with extreme care. It literally is the difference between winning a case, having a Constitutionally supportable law, or an enforceable contract and chaos.
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And words matter, perhaps even more so, in advertising and marketing. Why is BMW the ultimate driving machine (HINT: It is the advertising, not the vehicles themselves.) Why are Democrats the kind gentle party, and Republicans are only interested in big business and screwing over individual rights? Yep… marketing. For the very same reason the move violent and oppressive “religion” on the planet is somehow branded as the religion of peace.
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When the time comes for swaying public opinion, words are the weapon of choice. “Hands up, don’t shoot!” “I can’t breathe!” “Just getting Skittles and an iced tea.” All designed to sell a narrative, and all very effective. There literally are people who think the events of Jan 6th were in fact a violent insurrection, and the US Government was practically overrun. (Seriously, I was told the other day that there was video of people trying to break through AOC’s office door. These people actually believed it as well.)
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There is a reason why the pen is mightier than the sword.
Full agree. Language is a weapon and they have years of experience and carefully selected think tanks to select exactly what they want to say and how. The same groups can workshop a pithy slogan and use their paid army of influencers and news types to make it spread inorganically while we’re still trying to argue a basic point in their attack. It is why reading is so important as a child and just as important as an adult and why I wish I had not been so hard headed about my grammer and english classes as a youth.
Heinlein’s “Revolt in 2100” had a long passage about this, and how the rebels were slanting the news coverage while appearing to support the regime.
Finally got a few minutes to start watching the video.
About 10 minutes in, (nine minutes maybe) NBC says something about a fight between good and evil.
Dennis Prager’s commentary was surprise that the left does not think the fight between good and evil is important.
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In reality, the problem is not thinking it is not important, or thinking evil is good, or anything like that. The problem is the left is so adamant they cannot, will not discriminate, that they refuse to acknowledge there is good and evil. All things must be equal. To say good is better than evil is, in their minds, equivalent of discriminating, and discrimination is wrong.
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And, in keeping with the theme of this post, that is why a leftist can claim a word means, exactly what they want it to mean, when they want it to mean that. Making the claim that one word is a better descriptor of the thing, or idea is discriminatory, and must be shunned.