Quote:
Originally Posted by scottw
these words don't have real meaning any more, they are thrown around so frequently and used as weapons to stifle opposition or disagreement as a replacement for thought...makes them meaningless .....hate, racism, bigot, and on........someone spoke of certain truths being "self evident" once upon a time......if you use these words often enough though, you start to exude their 'real meaning' yourself
|
Yes. And the meaningless words are the codes that distinguish the "superior" or "smart" group from those presumably too stupid to understand or tolerate, ergo too bigoted. There is a progressive lexicon of such words, bigot being one, but others such as fair, or equal, discrimination, and hate or racism as you mentioned. Words which have specific, concrete, or discernible meaning when spoken in appropriate contexts. But when hurled as weapons against opponents of progressive group-think, especially in political accusation, they indeed are meant to stifle thought by the nature of their imprecise but significant sounding emanations--"penumbras and emanations" as an activist progressive Supreme Court Justice once coined in order to transfigure constitutional law into something it wasn't--some shadowy middle which could mean whatever you want it to mean.
The shadowy remnant of the original meanings become the "moral" shibboleths by which the flock are persuaded in the righteousness of the cause.