I hate pretty much every single term used broadly to describe the collective mental illness that has currently afflicted huge swaths of the American population. The problem is not the terms themselves, but the expertise with which the meanings of normal words have been co-opted, and the misuse of them by those who simply don’t know any better and refuse to learn. The end result is that terms like “brainwashed” and “gaslighting” take on a kind of pop-social meaning that reflects the groups that typically level these words as insults rather than meaning what they mean. It can make talking honestly about a thing difficult, which of course is the whole point. Like the terms “narcissist” and “bigot,” these words have been scrubbed of their meaning and reassigned as epithets for anyone who disagrees with the collective. They are interchangeable to a very large extent. Their use isn’t dependent upon an offense committed by their target, but on the audience who will hear the insult slung and on which word will get the correct reaction from them. If a member of the collective decides that calling someone a racist is likely to get a more positive response from others within the collective, racist it is! If narcissist or bigot would be better, then those will do nicely. The point isn’t to convey meaning, but to energize others in the collective echo chamber. To show that “I am You, and We together hate this person.” Very often, it is the permission slip required from the collective for its members to tear down someone’s life and “cancel” them – shunned and banished from society as punishment for non-conformity.
The Credibility Conundrum
The Credibility Conundrum
The Credibility Conundrum
I hate pretty much every single term used broadly to describe the collective mental illness that has currently afflicted huge swaths of the American population. The problem is not the terms themselves, but the expertise with which the meanings of normal words have been co-opted, and the misuse of them by those who simply don’t know any better and refuse to learn. The end result is that terms like “brainwashed” and “gaslighting” take on a kind of pop-social meaning that reflects the groups that typically level these words as insults rather than meaning what they mean. It can make talking honestly about a thing difficult, which of course is the whole point. Like the terms “narcissist” and “bigot,” these words have been scrubbed of their meaning and reassigned as epithets for anyone who disagrees with the collective. They are interchangeable to a very large extent. Their use isn’t dependent upon an offense committed by their target, but on the audience who will hear the insult slung and on which word will get the correct reaction from them. If a member of the collective decides that calling someone a racist is likely to get a more positive response from others within the collective, racist it is! If narcissist or bigot would be better, then those will do nicely. The point isn’t to convey meaning, but to energize others in the collective echo chamber. To show that “I am You, and We together hate this person.” Very often, it is the permission slip required from the collective for its members to tear down someone’s life and “cancel” them – shunned and banished from society as punishment for non-conformity.