2 February 2007
Terminology
I have been thinking lately about terminology in use by the news media and politicians, as related to the basic concepts of peace, human rights, and social justice. Here are some thoughts:
- It bothers me when instead of talking about people by using the terms “person”, “people”, or “human being”, they use the word “troops” to refer to our soldiers (as in “5 troops died today and one was injured”), and the terms “terrorist”, “insurgent”, or “the enemy” to refer to those people whom we are fighting. These terms dehumanize people on both sides, in an attempt to minimize the impact of their suffering and/or death.
- It bothers me to hear the term “the objective” used to mean “the extremely violent actions of war”. (There’s an example in this official military press release: “They define the wingman concept; meeting the objective under the worst of circumstances”.) Use of terms like this is an attempt to keep people from thinking about what is actually happening (in this case, presumably bombing Iraqi buildings, infrastructure, and people from airplanes).
- The use of the word “justice” by the Bush administration bothers me. Throughout the current crisis in Iraq, they have been talking about “bringing people to justice” via bombing and shooting them. (There’s an example in this White House press release from 2003: “…we’ve brought to justice about half of the al Qaeda network…. And so the other half still lives.”) I thought that Justice was one of the foundations of the United States, and meant things like a fair trial, being presented with the evidence against you, appeals court, and the other protections we have in our Constitution. Shooting first and asking questions later is not really the same thing, and it is still continuing (as in the recent “kill or capture” order from Bush for some Iranians in Iraq).
- The common use of the word “war” for things other than wars also bothers me. Two examples of this are the “war on drugs”, and a term I saw in the news recently, the “war on poverty”. Do the people who coin such phrases think about what the word “war” really means? War is an extreme, violent means of trying to resolve a disagreement by coercing another group to succumb to your point of view (or by killing them so they can no longer disagree with any strength). War causes many casualties in the armies of both sides, as well as in innocent bystanders. Is this the right imagery for thinking about how to solve problems like drugs and poverty?
RSS
I am very much in agreement with your observations, particularly the use of the term “war” with respect to drugs and poverty. All of the things you mention seem to be designed to promote simplistic thinking, rather than thoughtful consideration. And in the case of the wars on drugs and poverty and terror, the implication is that we are at war with these people, when in fact I think that those who use drugs or are poor or are terrorists need to be understood, not alienated by being made the objects of war.
Dear Jennifer,
Your remarks about the use of language are so much to the point. It makes me happy to see that intelligent people like you just find out about the dubious ways of using words. More than dubious, I’d say, because the use of certain words is part of a conscious policy.
For instance, if people participating in a demonstration are described as a “mob”, they automatically get a negative connotation and an uncritical reader will tend to dislike them — because who likes a mob?
The Bush government has been particularly ‘creative’ in this respect, but the same is true for Blair and company. Actually this phenomenon has been used at all times and all places.
I don’t know whether you are a literary person, but if so, you might want to read Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. In this superb novel he not only introduces Big Brother (nowadays misused as a tv-program) but also such ideas as the permanent war, Doublethink and Newspeach.
In this context Newspeach is very relevant. In Orwell’s dystopian novel it was meant to be a new language, promoted by the government, to make language simpler and to make alternative thinking (Thoughtcrime in the novel) almost impossible.
Nineteen Eighty-Four now almost seems a blueprint for governments to deceive their citizens. I wrote about it in my blog.
I am very much impressed by your bilingual website: a marvelous piece of e-craftmanship! I’ll think about implementing your method to my website, but I’d have to use three languages: Dutch, English and Spanish. I think it would mean a lot of extra work, but it might be worthwile.
Keep up the good work!
Sincerely yours,
Jan Marien
Belgium
Oh yes, I’m definitely a literary person, and I read Nineteen Eighty-Four many years ago. It is still relevant, as you say. Thanks for your comment!
Regarding doing a bilingual or multilingual web site, I have written an article on how to set it up (see link at bottom of this page). It does take some work, since you have to translate all the articles into the other language(s)… though you can start by setting up the framework and then add article translations as you have the time.
–Jennifer