Pseudo-Language

The Z Man shines some much-needed light on the ruling class’ attempts to stifle debate through the deliberate corruption of language.

Maybe it has always been true, but it seems like we live in an age of esoteric language or pseudo-language. Everyone is familiar with the gag of using “undocumented worker” in place of “illegal alien.”  Janitors became sanitation engineers and teachers are now educators. It’s a part of how the American Left makes war on our civilization. By destroying the language they destroy the truth. If words no longer have common and concise meanings, then there is no truth, only force.

Quick aside: doing away with reason so that everything is reduced to the blatant will to power is a hallmark of postmodernism.

There’s another aspect to this. The Progs create pleasant sounding phrases and neologisms that are packed with danger. It’s a natural outgrowth of the passive-aggressive tactics popular with the Progs. The new word or phrase is not intended to clarify or explain idea, but to warn people that the official truth has been decided and any further debate will be seen as a challenge. As everyone knows, the Left responds to a challenge with violence so the new phrase means “shut up or else.”

A partial list of pleasant-sounding yet perilous pseudo-language terms follows. Here are some of the highlights:

Have a conversation: Whenever you hear someone say they want to have a conversation about something, what they mean is they want to shut down all debate and impose their will with regards to the subject. Having a conversation about marriage led to the end of the homosexual marriage debate in favor of the sodomites. Having a conversation about race means Progs screaming at white people about racism and white privilege. Having a conversation always means sitting through a lecture.

Here’s What You Need To Know: This is a favorite of female millennial writers, who imagine themselves as brilliant because they got a gold star from their lefty teachers in school. It’s a phrase that sets themselves up as the arbiter of what is and what is not worth knowing about a topic. Unsurprisingly, what never needs to be known is anything that contradicts the one true faith. As soon as you see this in a post, it means that what you need to know is they are right and shut up.

Conservative Principles: Alternatively, “first principles” or “principled conservative.” The Conservative Industrial Complex loves throwing this around to benefit themselves and damage anyone questioning their project. As soon as you hear Official Conservatives™ talking about their principles, it means they are either about to throw in with the Left against you or they are preparing to surrender on some cultural issue.

Inclusive: This means normal people need not apply. Something that is inclusive is something that excludes the things normal people consider to be normal. A club that is inclusive, for example, will be full of homosexual males, blue haired lesbians and people with fashionable mental disorders. Inclusive is code for fringe weirdos only.

Divisive: Since uniformity and conformity are the highest virtues of Progressivism, anything that contradicts the tenets of the faith are labeled “divisive.” This lets coreligionists know that the person or argument is a major hate crime. This is also a mortal sin. There’s not much worse than being divisive.

Polarizing: Like divisive, this word is used for people or ideas that contradict the faith, but have not yet become mortal sins. The person or idea is causing conflict in the cult, but not so much that it is a threat. This is a venial sin.

It’s Complicated: This means it is not complicated, but we’re going to pretend it is so we can get a bunch of our friends jobs in the bureaucracy. Health care is complicated, for example, so it means thousands of jobs for liberal arts majors out of swank private colleges.

There’s a lot more work to be done: Politicians love saying this, usually after they rattle off a long list of their alleged accomplishments. Professional barnacles also love using this phrase when promoting whatever cause it is they represent, a cause that is fully funded by tax payers. In both cases, it means nothing will ever be solved and the racket will go on forever or until the treasury is empty.

The whole lexicon of lies is well worth reading.

Z Man does a vital public service by pointing out this non-language, which is what we’re dealing with here since the purpose of real language is to communicate ideas, and this cynical claptrap is meant to shut dissenting ideas down.

Being a professional languager myself, no head of the postmodern hydra vexes me more than political correctness and weasel talk. Fighting it is everyone’s responsibility.

Since the Z Man asked, here’s another entry in the postmodern Devil’s Dictionary.

Marginalized Voices: A nebulous abstraction invoked by someone who is about to speak on behalf of some catch-all victim group as if he were the Pythia receiving an oracle. The subtext, as always, is that straight, white, Christian men should shut up while the shaman delivers a lecture.