Language and how we label things to make them palatable
in Politics ·
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how much of our political reality is shaped by the specific words we choose to use. It’s wild how a single word change can completely shift how a person perceives an entire system. We use these clinical, bureaucratic terms for things that feel incredibly heavy and human, almost like a way to sanitize the reality of what's actually happening on the ground. It’s a way to keep the discomfort at arm's length.
It reminds me of how we talk about "collateral damage" in conflict or "downsizing" when people are losing their livelihoods. If you use the right terminology, you can make almost anything sound like a necessary, organized process rather than something deeply unsettling. I feel like we’re losing the ability to call things what they actually are because we’re too afraid of the emotional weight those words carry.
Do you think our vocabulary is actually being used to hide the truth of modern policy, or is "sanitizing" language just an inevitable part of how a massive society functions?
It reminds me of how we talk about "collateral damage" in conflict or "downsizing" when people are losing their livelihoods. If you use the right terminology, you can make almost anything sound like a necessary, organized process rather than something deeply unsettling. I feel like we’re losing the ability to call things what they actually are because we’re too afraid of the emotional weight those words carry.
Do you think our vocabulary is actually being used to hide the truth of modern policy, or is "sanitizing" language just an inevitable part of how a massive society functions?