Introduction
This will be week two of not writing the next article for our series on American history. My apologies for this! This week has been a long, difficult one for me, and it takes hours to perform the necessary research for the short essays I provide you with in that series. While I love few things more than diving headlong into primary sources and research, weeks like this one leave me drained and disinterested in doing much of anything that requires further use of my brain. I’m sure quite a few people can relate to this. However, my goal is to provide readers of this blog with an article each week wherever possible as time and my new schedule with the beginning of my Master’s courses allow. So this week, we’re talking about the importance of language.
Why Talk About the Importance of Language?
One of the things I love most about research and discussions as well as about life and reason in general is the opportunity provided to learn the why. So why this topic? What led to my decision to discuss this now?
First, I love philosophy and history, but my major as a grad student is focused on English and composition, which is what I’m hoping to teach (though I may wish to branch out into literature and philosophy as well). From a very young age, I have loved words: learning new ones, digging into the meanings and backgrounds of words new and old, and using them practically in daily life. My love for language as a whole has been a part of my life since I was a small child.
This love of language and words often drives people around me insane because it means that I either use words they don’t know without even stopping to consider that it isn’t a part of any normal vocabulary (or maybe not part of anyone’s except mine at times in my circles) or that I correct them for using words incorrectly. This is not, mind you, out of any sense of superiority or my being a language snob. Rather, it is that I see improper use of language and wonder if the person realizes that their misuse of it makes them appear unknowledgeable or foolish regardless of how intelligent they may be. I know few things have embarrassed me more than realizing that I’ve been using some language or word incorrectly without any correction from those who knew I hadn’t been using it properly.
I mean, I used it in public, and whether I appeared to be a fool to others would largely depend on the audience’s own understanding of the phrase or word, but it certainly made me feel a fool. So, because I would prefer someone tell me when I’ve used a word incorrectly or could’ve used a better one to convey my actual meaning, I tend to correct others without much thought. When we are learning a new language, we look for people who are fluent in it and willing to tell us when we have some part of the language wrong in our usage of it. Unfortunately, we do not seem to apply the same diligence to the use of our own language here in the States.
Rarely, some people thank me. Others accuse me of being superior and thinking I’m smarter than everyone around me. The first lets both of us walk away feeling good about each other and glad we either learned a new thing or saved someone else from making a complete fool of themselves in public. The second does nothing but make me feel bad for what was initially a good intent, which admittedly is my own fault since I could choose not to care or feel bad given that I had no intent to make the other individual look stupid.
Now, the second reason I chose this topic is because as I’ve been listening to others, reading through comments on social media, and listening to the catch phrases or language used by media, I’ve noticed a growing trend that alarms me: the use of extremely offensive language or words in an extremely incorrect or inaccurate way. So I wanted to bring attention to the trend and some of the words as well so that hopefully a few less people will use them incorrectly by the end of the article. This will include some language or wording used by both sides of the political aisle. So now that we have the why for this discussion of language and its importance, let’s dive in and take a look!
The Importance of Language in Cultural and Political Settings
Any man or woman who denies the importance of choosing words precisely clearly does not know the power of language. Language has the power to shape the very thoughts that we have.
For example, many of you have never met me in person. You only know me through social media or through these articles. Let us say that you were completely new to me, however, and a friend was telling you about me. If the language they used for me was “an insightful individual”, you would have a completely different opinion of me than you would if they used language such as “she’s a spiteful, uneducated individual”.
Words and language have power. We all know this. My example here is a very basic one, but this power has been used to bring down and raise regimes all over the world. Shaping language to this advantage is commonly referred to as rhetoric or the art of persuasive speaking. When language is shaped to help define our thoughts and beliefs regarding the world around us, they can be considered an expression of philosophy. When used to speak of political activities or persons, our language may be either a blessing or a curse and is most certainly a double-edged sword when used incorrectly.
When it comes to cultural and political environments, words are often used to blacken those one group disagrees with and to paint that party’s own members to be without any blemish. How much any individual buys into these attempts to sway views away from balance and reason to extremism depends greatly upon how well developed the individual’s own opinions are, how well they have learned to think for themselves, and whether they themselves wish only to hear what they want to hear or prize reality and truth above all else even when it is painful. This is true of every individual no matter their political or cultural affiliation. So it is key for average citizens who wish to avoid falling into the traps laid by politicians and cultural leaders seeking to convince them to stop thinking for themselves or discussing with those who disagree that they understand the meaning of the terms that the politicians or cultural leaders use. This is where the importance of language comes into play in these areas. Words have meanings, and despite the way many people these days wish to treat them, those meanings do not change on one’s own whim. They cannot mean anything you please or anything some other person pleases. Their definitions are their definitions, and while there may be fads to use words like rad or dope to mean things they do not, those are fads, not enduring uses of the language or even the primary definition for the words. The fad does not redefine the word, even if it may add a new meaning when spoken by certain individuals in a certain way. So we must know the definition and then assess whether or not the definition of the word warrants its use in a particular case.
Let’s move on to some practical examples.
Nazi
This first one is being used constantly by the left against the right. (Note here that my use of left and right is a general term. It does not mean that every individual in these two groups uses these terms for or against their party or their party’s opponents. Many do, but on an individual basis, things are not able to be painted in generalizations with broad strokes fairly.) It is used as a smear against any conservative who is too right wing. Recently, the media has begun to lump any Trump supporter–even those who held their noses while voting for him–as Nazis and insurrectionists due to what happened at the Capitol.
This term has an actual meaning, though. It does not mean “right winger that I don’t like and disagree with”. (We’ll get to the right wing equivalent of this a little later.) The philosophical stance that Nazis held was pretty specific, at least in key areas.
First, they held that there was only one superior race: the Aryans. All other races, according to a Nazi, were inferior to that superior race and therefore deserved to be subjugated by the Aryans.
Second, they were nationalistic and believed that the individual lived only to serve the State. Their ultimate goal was to sacrifice on behalf of the State, which was–according to the philosophers of the time–its own living entity. The individual to them was merely a social construct that did not exist in the true reality.
Third, they did not believe in reason. Hitler and his followers loathed it with a passion. In particular, Hitler sought to eradicate it from every school in Germany because he understood he could not gain power and control if people held onto the Aristotelian view of knowledge that was prevalent during the age of Enlightenment, which stated that knowledge could only be obtained through our mind or intellect and the use of it to observe the world we are in within the sphere of objective reality, not some mystical otherworldly reality. Instead, Hitler and the lead philosophers held that there was no way to understand anything in this world except through revelation of the divine and that the average person’s will could only be expressed through the State.
Fourth, they were fascistic. We’ll go into this particular term in a moment since this is so closely related to our discussion on the term Nazi, but in short, fascism was the belief that the individual had no value or existence outside of serving the State and that whatever the State demanded was right. In many cases, Nazism and fascism shared a belief in some mystic, divine being or universal will that ordained things to move as they did in the pseudo-reality we are able to perceive around us. But the presence of some mystic being or universal will was not a necessity, as we will see in a moment.
Given this understanding, Nazi actually entails some very, very specific beliefs. To accuse anyone of this is, in short, a heinous thing. Most people understand this on some basic level given the atrocities the Nazis committed, and if that were all that were implied, it would be bad enough. But given the philosophy and belief system they operated under and the why underlying their actions, this is a worse blackening mark on someone’s name than I believe most realize. Personally, this is a term I would never use on anyone no matter how much they disagreed with me unless the person had clearly demonstrated that they fit the definition of the term because calling someone a Nazi without evidence is to accuse them of the worst sorts of moral and rational wrong a person could commit.
Fascism
Another popular one with leftists engaging in Facebook and Twitter arguments as well as with elected officials and mainstream media on the left, this term–as near as I am able to determine–when they use it means, again, anyone on the right who doesn’t bow to our opinion or regime without a fuss. I have had this particular insult tossed at me for disagreeing with someone and providing demonstrable facts and statistics illustrating why I disagreed. To use this term so loosely and with no evidence makes nothing but a total jerk out of whoever has used it. And that’s putting it very nicely.
So what does this term imply? For this definition, let us turn to some of the things written by prominent Fascist philosophers and dictators. We shall start with Mussolini’s definition, which is perhaps the most succinct: “And if liberty is to be the attribute of the real man and not of the scarecrow invented by the individualistic Liberalism, then Fascism is for liberty. It is for the only kind of liberty that is serious–the liberty of the State.” He also stated that “The definition of fascism is the marriage of corporation and State.” In his piece The Doctrine of Fascism, he says, “Thus fascism could not be understood in many of its practical manifestations as a party organization, as a system of education, as a discipline, if it were not always looked at in the light of its whole way of conceiving life, a spiritualized way. The world seen through Fascism is not this material world which appears on the surface, in which man is an individual separated from all others and standing by himself, and in which he is governed by a natural law that makes him instinctively live a life of selfish and momentary pleasure. The man of Fascism is an individual who is nation and fatherland, which is a moral law, binding together individuals and the generations into a tradition and a mission, suppressing the instinct for a life enclosed within the brief round of pleasure in order to restore within duty a higher life free from the limits of time and space: a life in which the individual, through the denial of himself, through the sacrifice of his own private interests, through death itself, realizes that completely spiritual existence in which his value as a man lies” (The Doctrine of Fascism, from excerpt by Cambridge University Press).
For further understanding of the meaning of Fascism, turn to Kant and Hegel who championed the philosophy of the movement quite clearly. Hegel states of the goals of the individual considered a hero or historic figure in a fascistic system: “A World-historical individual is not so unwise as to indulge a variety of wishes to divide his regards. He is devoted to the One Aim, regardless of all else. It is even possible that such men may treat other great, even sacred interests, inconsiderately; conduct which is indeed obnoxious to moral reprehension. But so mighty a form must trample down many an innocent flower-crush to pieces many an object in its path” (Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of History). Later, in that same series of lectures, he says that “Subjective volition – Passion – is that which sets men in activity, that which effects “practical” realisation. The Idea is the inner spring of action; the State is the actually, existing, realised moral life. For it is the Unity of the universal, essential Will, with that of the individual; and this is “Morality.” The Individual living in this unity has a moral life; possesses a value that consists in this substantiality alone” (Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of History).
Hegel echoes what Kant, his predecessor, had to say. So when we take a look at just the surface of what these leaders of thought and policy said about their own system, it was a system that believed the individual could only live a moral life if they lived with their will in unity with the desires of the State, that the State was superior to the individual, and that there was nothing truly morally wrong so long as it was in accord with the “divine” or “World” will. Is it any surprise that the atrocities of Nazism, which took this system and added to it fanatical nationalism and Darwinian theory of survival of the fittest, could occur with such a philosophy?
So, when we use the word fascist to describe someone, we are accusing them of believing in anti-reason, that the individual exists solely to sacrifice for the will of the State, that the individual has no morality in their existence outside of the State, and that nothing of any value exists outside the will of the State. Furthermore, we accuse them of believing private interests are evil and that morality is a construct of the State’s divine will, which means that anything is acceptable so long as the State justifies it in one way or another. Can there be any doubt this is just as wicked an unfounded accusation as calling someone a Nazi is? Of course not! Calling someone a fascist is nothing short of character assassination if we still live in a society that values reason, the individual, and morality on its own not as determined by the government. So if you use this term on someone simply because they disagree with you politically on a matter unrelated to the tenets of fascism and they become incensed, it may be because they simply find it offensive for the general meaning or it may be because you just accused them of being one of the worst sorts of men to walk the face of the earth and you did it without any evidence beyond a contradictory, unrelated opinion. If you use the term irresponsibly, you deserve to draw ire from those you used on, particularly if they have any understanding of just how weighty a blot to their character you have just leveled on them.
A final important note here… Often people claim that one cannot be a liberal fascist or a communist fascist. This is actually not the case. While historically speaking, the two sides were opposed in WWII, the philosophies have actually gone hand in hand many times in ancient history. Rome itself was highly State-run and Fascistic but its policies were actually much more in line with the Left’s agenda in America today than it would be with the right. That is only one example. If we boil the fascist viewpoint down to the essentials, the philosophical stance is that the State may do whatever the State deems best for the State regardless of how many individual “units” (people) it destroys in the process. This is the very philosophical principle that the Communist regimes operate under. As we’ll see next when we examine the words Communist and Socialist, their origins have links to fascism through Marx, the man who came up with the system in the first place.
Communist/Socialist
This is one that my side of the political aisle throws around all the time, and it aggravates me just as much because it is used in the same grain as fascist and Nazi are by the left. It is used to shut down a discussion and to attempt to smear the opposing opinion and individual as horrible individuals. Now, more and more, as we move further and further to the Left in our culture and academics, this is becoming less of an insult, but the intent is the same even if the individual it’s leveled on doesn’t see it as rude.
What is a Communist? A Communist is someone who adheres to the principles of Marx and Lenin. Mainly, Marx was the driving philosophical force behind the movement, and he was actually a Socialist, but early on, the two had very, very little difference. The difference was only in how they thought the revolution should take place, and who should start it, not in the basic philosophy.
Marx adapted the philosophy of Hegel to fit a more secular worldview. He essentially replaced “God” or the “World will” with biology and science to suit his atheistic tendencies. However, he and Hegel both believed the State had precedence over the individual and that serving the cause was more important than one’s own desires. Marx outright called for a dictatorship of the proletariat. He wanted to abolish both class and religion. Hegel would have firmly disagreed on religion, and this was one reason why Marx was so hated in Germany. Despite his philosophical roots being grounded in the removal of rationality and thought to allow for the dictatorship to be established and to abolish everything he thought was wrong with the world, and although he believed in a practically Puritanical adherence to the tenets of his doctrines to be considered a good Socialist, he angered the major philosophers of Germany and Hitler himself with his insistence on removing religion from the picture.
Marx envisioned a world in which the dictatorship of the proletariat ruled however long it took to ensure that no individual would ever be able to rise above the others. His motto was from each according to his ability and to each according to his need. The dictatorial proletariat was to be the final decision-maker on who needed what and what the ability of each was, and because Marx didn’t believe in a human nature that could be bent toward greed even in a “perfect” environment, he believed this dictatorship would of course keep everyone moving toward the utopia of classlessness and income equality he sought after. Of course, the great lie to his philosophy, among numerous problems, was that human beings are by nature inclined to seek their own benefit even in a large group, and by establishing a dictatorship at all, you have merely substituted one ruling class for another, landing you right back where you began. Nevertheless, this is what he believed in.
He demanded rigid adherence to the principles he set forth and to Socialism and the revolution instead of a divine will or mysticism, but nevertheless, his system relied on the same principles of fascism: the State does whatever the State deems best for itself even if it destroys individuals in the process. The ugliness of this philosophy came out in the atrocities committed in Russia under Lenin and Stalin, again in China and North Korea, and once more in Cuba, Venezuela, and numerous smaller countries after the USSR collapsed and splintered. In every case, it led to damage and destruction.
Now, it should be admitted here that sometimes this is the accurate term for an individual based on their own admission of their philosophy or belief system. If that is the case, then this term is fair to use, not as an attempt to malign someone but as a legitimate usage of the word. For example, Bernie Sanders is either a hardcore Socialist or Communist (in the philosophical and literal meaning of the words). To decide exactly which, we would need to know exactly which class he believes should rise up and throw off its “oppressors”, but he is certainly one of the two based on the things he has said. But if I were to call someone a Communist or a Socialist simply because they think that we shouldn’t get rid of Social Security or they think that we should expand the tax codes, I would be using the word incorrectly. As a rule of thumb, I rarely, if ever, call someone a socialist or a communist unless they have proven in their rhetoric that they are. This is because it’s a serious accusation to claim someone is either of these. It says something weighty about what they believe, and as I find both systems to be grievous violations of natural rights in their intended forms, I find it equally grievous to falsely accuse someone of believing in either.
Racist
This is one also thrown around a great deal, usually whenever someone disagrees with BLM as an organization. Note that the only people actually disagreeing with BLM as the slogan, not the organization, are the ones who really do believe that black lives don’t matter. No decent human being disagrees with the Left on the matter that black lives are important and matter just as much as white lives. They obviously do. We can agree and disagree on how exactly we address the issues we see in the black communities and the issues that these communities are telling us they actually see as problems, but we should be able to at least agree that their lives do matter and we don’t want to see active injustice done. We also don’t want to see them harmed or even killed by police when they are not threatening the officer or doing violence to them or another individual.
But where we cannot agree is on BLM the organization because of the agenda they push. It is an agenda that the last summer of 2020 showed was not in favor of what actually benefitted these communities as it led to increased violence from BLM rioters in the very neighborhoods where many of these communities reside. Black business owners were attacked, had goods stolen, and stores destroyed. In Chicago, we had multiple weekends in a row over the summer with reports of little children being shot in the violence by other blacks, but no one in the mainstream media reported on it. It was only reported by local news sites and a few conservative news sites like Daily Wire who had reporters who could get them the info. Furthermore, though it has since been removed after numerous people pointed it out, over the summer, BLM’s core values statement stated that one of their goals was disrupting the nuclear family structure. For those who don’t know what a nuclear family structure is, it is a two parent, mother, father, children home. Studies have shown that removal of either parent, but especially the father, leads to more instability in the children. Removal of the father in particular leads to higher crime rates, higher likelihood of involvement in violence, and higher likelihood of going to jail. The struggles of single mother homes and their results are things that the black community itself has spoken about on numerous occasions, and yet BLM’s goal was to destroy the very nuclear family structure that would help to address the suffering the lack of it has caused.
With that basic background out of the way on the issue, it is clear that conservatives, who do value the nuclear family structure and also care about addressing real issues of inner city violence affecting black communities as well as actual individual cases of police brutality when they occur, will not be agreeing that BLM the organization is a worthy cause to support any time soon. But is it accurate or fair to call anyone who doesn’t support them a racist as has so often been done on social media and in the media?
Well, the term racist also has a specific definition. The dictionary defines a racist as “someone who believes that their race makes them better, more intelligent, more moral, etc. than people of other races and who does or says unfair or harmful things as a result” (Cambridge Dictionary). Now, if the person you are talking to agrees that black lives do matter and that they are just as deserving of equal protection and equal rights under law and in the eyes of their neighbors as anyone else, do they fit this definition simply because they refuse to support an organization they believe does not in fact advance the cause for those equal protections and rights? No. They do not. Unless the person makes it clear that they believe their race makes them better in one way or another or superior to someone else not of that race, then they are not racist. It is literally that simple.
Accusing anyone of being a racist on the basis that they disagree about what the problem is or how to solve it is not only bad rhetoric, it’s once again a character judgment and attempt to smear them in order to shut down what could have been a polite, legitimate conversation. See my articles on Christianity and Racism Part 1 and Part 2 for a more clear and expanded explanation on why legitimately being racist is so bad from a moral and Christian perspective.
There is no doubt in any decent individual’s mind, even if they don’t understand the why for it, that racism is a bad thing. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that it would offend someone or shut down a conversation if you call them that without due cause. All you are communicating is that you are either a jerk or ignorant, perhaps both, and that you do not want to have any discourse that would allow both of you to consider the topic from multiple sides to find the best solution to any real world problems that may need to be solved. This will convince no one that you are worth talking to, and it will only make them less inclined to ever listen to anyone of the same opinion as you. If your goal is to make them more entrenched in their side and their way of thinking, then this word is a great one to toss around. If you want to open a civil discourse, reserve this word for those who genuinely deserve it.
A behavior displayed might be prejudiced (maybe not racist, even when dealing with minorities, as racism requires that you are judging on basis of race, not on the basis of where they live or their class, for example) or even racist, but that does not mean that the person themselves is wholly a racist. There is the chance that they never realized that the behavior or the particular aspect of their belief system was in fact prejudiced or racist. You have an opportunity, no matter which side you’re on politically, to influence and potentially help mitigate the prejudice or racism where it is legitimately occurring. But you can’t do that if, the moment they disagree with you, you jump straight to what is the more “sophisticated” equivalent of a five-year-old’s name calling.
You do not convince people that you are correct and they are wrong by making them wish to end the conversation as soon as possible. Doing that only shuts down your chance to make a difference. And, however nice you might act normally, it brands you as a rude, intransigent jerk in that person’s mind forever. You’ll rarely have a chance to change that bad opinion once you’ve made it online, so think before you use a term that carries with it such a negative meaning! This goes for anyone and everyone carrying on a discussion in which the other side disagrees.
Coup
This one has cropped up quite a bit since everything in the Capitol. To put it succinctly, we do not have the evidence to say for certain that what happened in the Capitol was a coup. So far as we have evidence, we cannot call it a coup. Why? Because a coup, based on the definition, is an overthrow of the current regime by military or politicians within the current regime. For example, when Lenin took over in Russia, it was a coup. He had military backing and was part of a minority party that touted itself as the majority to gain what it needed to stage the coup.
A group of rioters is not a coup. Individuals who planned to help incite a riot and then used it to steal laptops and whatever top secret info they could get are also not (necessarily) a coup. They are most definitely performing espionage and committing plenty of federal crimes along the way. In no way should anyone defend their actions. But let’s make sure we label them correctly according to the evidence and the meaning of the word we are using. Until it is proven that the government or the military sanctioned, planned, or backed the riot and the espionage/theft of private government info that occurred, we cannot call it a coup because the definition of the word simply does not fit the evidence. We can call it by numerous other names that convey equally the disgusting nature of the act and the aftermath of it, and those names would be much more appropriate because they fit their proper usage and the facts.
Conclusion
No doubt there are many other words that are misused in the current political and cultural environments. These are just the few that I see frequently through social media or have heard friends either use or be subjected to. By no means is the list exhaustive.
My hope is that looking at the list has provided you with something to think about regardless of which side you are on and that it might aid you in approaching language more carefully and with more understanding of both the good and the harm it can cause. If we want to bring true unity back to America, we’re going to have to stop using words incorrectly as a shield against any discussion with the other side long enough to listen, filter through the bad ideas, agree on common values and principles that every American should be able to hold to, and then debate what we will give on both sides in order to gain what we want in others. That is how things worked in the days of the Founding.
The nature of rhetoric, language, and people has not changed so much that the same principles cannot apply. We have to keep our language civil and accurate and, most importantly, devoid of name calling, if we want to see that become a reality. All of us can work on this in one way or another to help become part of the solution instead of being a part of the problem.
Resources
Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of History from Marxists.org
The Ominous Parallels by Leonard Peikoff (Takes an in depth look at why Germany fell to the Nazis and the parallels between pre-Nazi Germany and America today.)
Collection of Primary Sources on Fascism and Germany from guides.library.columbia.edu
The Doctrine of Fascism by Mussolini, Excerpts from constitution.org
The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
