By Peter Pavarini
As our Constitutional freedoms have faced their greatest challenge in history, I’ve been thinking a lot about how things got to this point.
The Historical Divide Between Left and Right.
I recall reading Michael Lerner’s The Politics of Meaning[i] in the mid-1990s when the divide between Left and Right didn’t seem so great. Indeed, back then an unabashedly spiritual book about politics could be read by Democrats and Republicans alike. I appreciated the author’s frank criticism of both the Left and the Right for their failure to consider the human need for connection with a higher spiritual purpose which gives meaning to our lives. Rabbi Lerner called for a political environment made in the image of God or as he said, a “politics of meaning”.
Although clearly liberal is his views, Lerner sought to find a middle ground with which people on either side of the political spectrum could agree. He even went so far as to admit that liberal political philosophy appeared “congruent with the ethos of selfishness and individualism”, which made it easier for conservatives to blame all social dissolution on failed liberal policies.
Is National Unity Even Possible?
With the hindsight of the intervening 25 years, The Politics of Meaning seems almost quaint when contrasted with today’s discord. There’s very little evidence that Joe Biden’s inaugural call for unity has resonated with either side. When progressive Christians demand that evangelical Christians “repent” for the sin of supporting Donald Trump[ii], and the Leftwing media refuse to even have a conversation with a Libertarian like Senator Rand Paul unless he first admits there was no significant fraud in the 2020 election[iii], no one seems willing to have peace talks without upfront concessions from their adversary.
I’ve heard many people say, “it’s as if we’re not speaking the same language anymore.” They may be right; we’re not. Common words have been divorced from their traditional meaning and turned into ideological weapons intended to divide and conquer.
The Decline of the English Language.
George Orwell, the British writer who recently has been cited more frequently than any author dead or alive, addressed this subject in his 1950 essay “Politics and the English Language”:
It is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely.[iv]
Although mostly known as a fiction writer, Orwell said he was not addressing the literary use of language. Rather, he was concerned about language used as mostly a “instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought”. He went on to say:
“Since you don’t know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism? One need not swallow such absurdities as this, but one ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language… Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
When Words Had Meaning.
I have always been interested in the evolution of language, particularly when and how a word acquired its original meaning. One of my favorite texts on this subject is John McWhorter’s The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language.[v] He writes: “…human language differs sharply in a qualitative sense from the various levels of communicative ability … possessed by some animals.” Although my ten-week-old puppy is already responding to certain words (e.g., “outside”, “eat”), I know she is not nor will ever be capable of understanding or communicating abstract concepts, such as what she knows about a given subject. Indeed, anthropologists have long argued that what made humans “human” and distinct from other hominids (such as our cousins the Neandertals) was the use of the spoken word to express what we were thinking. McWhorter also contends that there is no genetic predisposition for language and that language is an artifactual “graft” onto humanity rather than an innate trait.
Silencing Dissent.
Why is this important to the current debate about censorship and free speech? Because silencing dissenting voices – as offensive and disturbing as some may be – is tantamount to suppressing who we are as individuals. We may be able to prevent someone’s words from being heard or read, at least for a time, but the thoughts and beliefs underlying those words can never truly be contained. There are countless examples throughout history of attempts to extinguish ideas that didn’t conform with the status quo. Millions have suffered persecution, torture and even death for what they believed to be true. Historical records have frequently been purged of contrarian philosophies, monuments, statues and other artwork have been scrubbed of all memory of those offenders, but no iconoclasm has successfully erased all trace of a non-conforming idea.
What we are experiencing by watching the attempted purge of Donald Trump and his supporters is the antithesis of what has allowed progressive thought to thrive in America since its founding. In the past, conservatives were generally the ones who tried to squelch expression they found out of bounds. Tyrannical despots throughout history resorted to such measures to gain or hang onto power. Liberals, who often claimed intellectual superiority, rarely if ever stooped so low.
Hijacking the Meaning of Words.
American Leftists and their allies in the media, Big Tech and academia have adopted the tactics of Marxist regimes in Russia, the People’s Republic of China, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and others. Failing to win the hearts and minds of most Americans, they’ve systematically sought to control the narrative by hijacking the meaning of words. Three primary examples come to mind:
- Calling anyone you disagree (on any topic) a “racist” trivializes the meaning of that word and only serves to put the person so labeled on the defensive. Nothing which may have provoked the insult changes for the better, but the epithet rapidly loses its potency every time it is used. Moreover, any hope of meaningful dialogue will disappear, which may be what the name-caller intended. If systemic racism really does imbue every facet of American life, it’s inconceivable how this kind of discourse will lead us to a fairer, more just society.
- Calling your adversary a “liar” without regard to the truth or falsity of his or her statement is another cheap trick. It’s akin to what Orwell said about most political speech, but far worse because it seeks to discredit the person on every subject. The Left continuously used this against Trump to the point that nothing he said could be accepted at face value, to the detriment of the American people. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
- Accusing others of what you yourself are doing or have done (also known as “projection”) is the most egregious misuse of language, but it’s the currency of the Left because it works – but only to a point. After dozens of American cities have been burned by “mostly peaceful” BLM protesters, causing upwards of $2 billion in property damage and at least 25 deaths, the Left gets apoplectic when a rally of 500,000 plus people (which in fact was mostly peaceful) results in a much smaller criminal incursion into the U.S. Capitol by fringe Right and Left groups. Even though Democrats (including candidate Biden) remained silent last summer, they now self-righteously claim that the “Siege of Capitol Hill” was an attack on America on par with September 11th or Pearl Harbor. This too is an abuse of language that disqualifies the Left from claiming the “moral high ground”.
No one can restore the meaning of language alone because there must be both a speaker and a hearer for the exchange of meaning to occur. However, each of us must choose our words very carefully. As the old adage goes: we must say what we mean and mean what we say.
[i] Addison-Wesley Books (1996).
[ii] The Baptist Union of Great Britain : Donald Trump and the heresy of white evangelical Christianity (baptisttimes.co.uk)
[iii] Sen. Paul clashes with George Stephanopoulos over election (nypost.com)
[iv] https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit
[v] Times Books (2001).
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