Defining Conservatives Down
As a writer, I am perhaps more sensitive to perversions of language - the deliberate redefining of words, phrases, and concepts long-established, for the purpose of deceiving the reader. There were some genuinely chuckle-inducing efforts made at the dawn of politically-corrected speech, with most rather innocuous - like “Domestic Engineer” instead of Housewife - although others offered a glimpse at the steep slope that lie ahead if we followed the speech-Nazi’s path.
At the beginning, we generally accepted the justification given, understanding that inartful words and phrases can indeed cause unnecessary friction between speaker and hearer leading to misunderstandings that inhibit communication. However, these now-verboten words and phrases have become the foundation of ever more restrictive “speech codes,” dramatically unbalancing the give and take of human interaction by forcing self-censorship for fear of inadvertent violations, and empowered explicit censorship at the whim of the “offended.” This is the very definition of silencing debate.
Inhibiting speech eliminates more than open disagreement, it precludes any advance in understanding. When we are unable to verbally explore ideas, we can never conduct meaningful review of our past or chart a course for our future. We are forever locked in place - first intellectually, and soon after, physically, as man is a dynamic creature who must remain in motion or atrophy and die.
This is why authoritarian regimes are historically short-lived. Eventually, the inquisitive nature of man will overwhelm the limiting influence of a government/society bent on absolute control. As countless despots have discovered (often enough you’d think they’d have learned!) you can declare thoughts off-limits, but you cannot stop them, and eventually one or two will slip out and take a life of its own.
Once free to circulate among the minds of others, an idea becomes a concept, then a plan, and finally an act. What man thinks, man does, and the way it gets done is through language. This is why free speech is the first target of every would-be tyrant. Control the language to control the people.
A popular method is to redefine the meaning of words and phrases. Whether by attaching stigma to a word or concept or by co-opting it with an entirely new definition, the result is the same - ordinary speech is upended, and with it reasoned communication. Suddenly we aren’t speaking the same language as our peers and understanding is replaced with suspicion and doubt. This is no accident; indeed it is the precise intention. If you can’t control the thoughts people have, you can at least ensure they find it increasingly difficult to communicate those thoughts to others.
If people are continually talking past each other rather than to each other, they are far easier to control as they cannot coalesce around any commonly held beliefs.
This corruption of our language is the engine that drives “cancel culture,” a particularly nasty bit of human behavior that makes a pariah out of anyone who crosses the arbitrary (and constantly moving) line of acceptable speech. Worse yet, it is proudly context free, and sees no unfairness in applying today’s latest “woke” standards to speech and acts from decades, even centuries earlier. Careers are destroyed, lives ruined and entire swaths of society are set adrift, cut off from the main without a single thought given to the context within which the “offenses” occurred, or the overall contribution made by the offender.
It is worse than tone deaf, it is a grand celebration of willful ignorance-as-high-achievement. It’s the precursor of mob-rule; the resume of those who seek permanent status as useful idiots in the tradition of Lenin. They destroy, but do not comprehend, and are wholly committed to erasing everything and everyone but themselves. People like this are only a few nudges shy of donning a uniform and manning gas chambers and crematoria as they are “only following orders.”
Beware the corruption of language. Conservatism is not Fascism, nor is it Nazism, despite major media outlets using those terms interchangeably. Political correctness, just like its bastard sibling, multiculturalism, are not intended to enhance inclusion, they are designed to pry us apart, confound our shared beliefs and eventually, define us out of existence. Refuse to abandon the words and phrases they target. In fact, use them more often, and ensure everyone knows their true meaning, not the circus-mirror version peddled by the authoritarian Left.
A people with no shared language, no common history and no universally-accepted definitions of their essential principles will lose all coherence and sense of identity, becoming little more than raw clay to be molded and enslaved by those who accept no power higher than themselves.