The Dictatorship of Vocabulary

[rgraham666]

Since I hadn't been on the Lit forums in a while I made a faux pas in the Authors sub forum. I was alerted to the fact that there is a politics forum now so I came here to browse…

…and I was made aware yet again how limited political speech is, limited by the vocabulary we use. Left! Right! Conservative! Liberal! Socialist! Fascist! Capitalist! Communist! All words meant to trigger emotional reactions in ourselves, our allies and our opponents without actually contributing any knowledge or wisdom to the debates.

Which is, of course how the powerful want it. If we are ruled by a dictatorship of vocabulary we can't challenge their power.

So I no longer use the terms Left and Right because the boarding requirements of horses have no meaning anymore. All other labels we use now are just as meaningless.

I use a triangular scale now with the vertices labelled; democrat, aristocrat and barbarian.

Democrat and aristocrat are from Jefferson.

Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves. Call them, therefore, liberals and serviles, Jacobins and Ultras, whigs and tories, republicans and federalists, aristocrats and democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are the same parties still and pursue the same object. The last appellation of aristocrats and democrats is the true one expressing the essence of all.

The third vertex is from H. Beam Piper who defined barbarian as someone who, "doesn't understand civilization and wouldn't like it if they did."

Personally I find this much more useful, and accurate, than the linear dictatorship we've bound ourselves to.

Now that I've tossed the golden apple into this Feast of the Gods I shall take my leave. I wonder if I should change my handle to Eris?