Mincing Words

It seems the entire world has come to the conclusion that mincing words is acceptable. We have leaders who, when asked if they will do 'A' respond by saying they fully support 'X, Y and Z', without answering the question. We have corporations making statements about horrific abuses of power or failure of oversight saying, 'We value the safety of our employees..." or "We are committed to....", again without answering the question.

Additionally, emotionally-driven people are demanding misusing the use of terms like 'they' and 'them' to refer to individual, simply to fit their own preferences; read a modern news story about someone demanding to be referred to as 'them' and you can't tell if an individual or a crowd is the subject of the article. We're trading verbal precision to accommodate the emotional whims of a small, misguided segment of society. 

It's been demonstrated that language has a huge impact on cognition; how we speak, and the language we have available to us shapes our thoughts and actions in a fundamental way. By ceding the concept that fair questions require fair answers and words have specific meanings, we're damaging our society in a way that is probably not yet fully apparent. 

Clarity of thought and the ability to precisely articulate those thoughts is fundamental to meaningful communication, and meaningful communication is fundamental to a healthy society. By accepting imprecise language, we're giving that up. 

The important part of all this to remember is that the people demanding these changes-the politicians refusing to answer, the corporations talking around an issue and the people demanding modifying word usage to assuage their personal predilections KNOW this. That's the point of it all-control the way someone speaks and you'll eventually control the way they think; illegal aliens become undocumented workers, and mothers become birthing people.

The natural reaction of a true libertarian is to let folks do as they wish, as long as they're not hurting anyone, but language belongs to all of us; allowing it to be purposely distorted DOES hurt us, and intentionally so-when your children can't tell the difference between someone who migrated here and someone who snuck into the country illegally, you're damaging their understanding of the world. 

While most of us (libertarians, that is) naturally shrink from directive behavior, this is a place we need to stand and fight-letting people undermine the language YOU THINK IN is about as fundamental as damage gets.