THE PROBLEM WITH LANGUAGE IS…

those that (mis-)use it.

5 min readJan 24, 2023

It is said that Socrates revolutionized philosophy by asking a seemingly childish question: What is it? Yet, there was absolutely nothing childish about it. Quite the contrary, it is an utterly fundamental as well as challenging question. That Socrates’ question, some two thousand four hundred years ago, was challenging was proven by his own inability to resolutely define words and concepts such as temperance, courage, justice, and virtue — and they continue to be challenging to modern philosophers today.

Of importance, in this context, is yet another fundamental question: “What is the speaker’s intention?” In other words, what does the speaker intend to achieve making such a statement? What are his or her motives, and how might the speaker want to influence others? These are questions we should ask ourselves more often, especially when confronted with dubious or contentious statements.

That abstract ideas, such as democracy, good and bad, justice and injustice — or the very concept of knowledge itself, epistemology; which asks the question, “How do we know what we know?”, can lead to intellectual Gordian knots is worrying. But much more worrisome is the fact that these common words, pregnant with significance, and subject to interpretation and thus controversy, are often used to misinform and mislead the public.

Indeed, at the disposal of those that would beguile the reader or listener is a veritable arsenal. Such as misnomers (wrong word for person or thing), euphemisms (a nicer word for something that may be offensive or painful, e.g., “neutralize”, instead of, “killing”), whitewashing (using deceptive words to cover up wrongdoings), greenwashing (a superficial or insincere display of concern for the environment that is shown by commercial companies), pinkwashing (commercial enterprises purporting to be LGBTQ+ , or female friendly/compatible in order to attract more customers), as well as political correctness, and diplomatic language. Ultimately, if nothing else works, there are half-truths and alternative facts, or plain lies.

Examples abound in the news and never more so than during the Trump administration, during which the former president and his staff adroitly, at times, and clumsily at others, made use of just about every form of duplicitous statements or bare-faced fallacies. Fortunately, critical members of the media were quick in identifying and challenging the perpetrators with their misleading statements.

Another case in point is an opinion piece by Barney Ronay, chief sportswriter for the Guardian, in which he cuts through the deceitful use of the word “racism” in his column titled, “Qatar calling its critics racist opens a debate that may be worth having”. Herein, he points out that this country’s accusations are simply a defensive reaction to the accusations of corruption and scrutiny of human rights violations in this Middle East country. One might add that this is a common diversion or “smokescreen” strategy implemented by wrongdoers in which they falsely assume the role of the “aggrieved” party.

Putin repeatedly makes use of this deceitful technique as he oft-claims that it is Ukrainian Nazi’s that precipitated Russia’s “special operations” (read “invasion”) of that besieged country. The latter is, of course, a perfect example of euphemistic language to obfuscate the dire truth: Putin’s self-proclaimed “special operations,” in plain words, is a war for domination and land. Similar to this is what is commonly called raising a “false flag,” in which one party accuses the other of offensive military action in order to justify or falsely create an excuse to attack that party or country. One that was used by the US to escalate and justify US military involvement in Vietnam, and more recently the invasion and total devastation of Iraq.

In this line of reasoning, Putin also repeatedly puts forth the accusation that it is NATO that is encroaching on Russia and its allies — the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) countries. However, Putin’s hidden agenda (and motives) here is to recover territory lost by the fall of the bankrupt Soviet Union, and in his view a historically part of Russia. Thus, his justification for his “special operation” and the invasion of Ukraine as well as previous, shorter incursions into Georgia and Chechnya. Yet, it has apparently never dawned on him that these and other former Soviet satellite countries, from the former Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia to Moldova, and Ukraine, are now legitimate sovereign nations on their own, did not always belong to Russia, and more importantly, wish to continue as an independent sovereign state.

Slightly more remotely in history, we have seen how demagogues and populists come to power: partly, because of their oratorical powers, their overbearing, and or charismatic personalities, and their ability to arouse hatred against specific groups, the scapegoat. Scapegoat groups are typically different from the majority population, such as ethnic, or religious minorities, followers of a particular political, or other nations.

An egregious example is Hitler’s first step towards absolute power, which originated in a German Worker’s Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP) meeting he attended. During the meeting he took the floor impromptu and in an irate tirade against the previous speaker. Unfortunately, that was not the last hateful tirade he would utter before whipping up the German society, across all classes, against what he identified to be the common enemy and source of all things wrong in the country, the Jews. They were amongst other so-called ‘deviants’. Amongst these were Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma (Gypsies), homosexuals, people with disabilities, critics, political opponents.

Mussolini, his Italian soul mate, counterpart, and role model similarly whipped up his fellow countrymen and women by fiery nationalistic rant. His scapegoat? The left.

More recently, we have seen how an obvious common enemy and threat to humanity, the COVID19 virus that quickly grew into a pandemic, was used by oppressive regimes to incarcerate critics and political opponents. Many public health authorities were threatened verbally, and in some cases death threats were dealt out, by gullible adherents of conspiracy theories.

All in all, despite the complexity of language and the very words that comprise it, we innately or intuitively have a sense of what is right and what is wrong. What is just and what is unjust. Even monkeys have this basic capacity.

Nevertheless, we must be on our guard and remain critical of false saviors, prophets, messiahs, populists, and demagogues who claim to have the panacea to all of our troubles and promise paradise on earth. The least one can do when confronted with such claims is to ask that seemingly childish question that Socrates raised more than two millennia ago, “what is it?”, and what are the motives driving the speaker?

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https://carlos-garcia-durazo71451.medium.com/extract-from-manuscript-2084-the-singularity-3f2cb14269bd?source=friends_link&sk=88b7f4866e2fdcf437ab4300bce49869

Additional reading:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Benito-Mussolini/Rise-to-power

https://www.amnestyusa.org/issues/national-security/

https://www.roangelo.net/logwitt/logwitt6.html#essential-definition

https://www.roangelo.net/logwitt/logwit61.html

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.2041-6962.1971.tb02192.x#:~:text=Based%20upon%20first%2Dhand%20knowledge,%2D%20tual%20knowledge%2Dthat)%20.

https://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/socdef.htm

https://www.thoughtco.com/platos-meno-2670343

https://www.roangelo.net/logwitt/logwit61.html

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-ethics-shorter/#5