In politics, there are quite a few words that are used in a problematic manner, e.g. because of deliberate misuse, because of genuine ignorance of meaning, because meanings have drifted too much over time and geography, because different users have a radically different understanding of a word—consider how “fairness” is something that virtually everyone supports but how different the implications of the word can be to any given speaker/hearer.
The list of such words is long, and I will only deal with some here and in due time. (Some of the most noteworthy among the many other examples are “discrimination”, “equality”, “offensive”, and “racism”. TODO import and link to Wordpress texts)
The chronologically first entry, on “divisive”, arose as an entry on a various page, and was followed there by “martyr” (however, “martyr” is only given an excursion here, as it is not a sufficiently wide-spread issue). Once I wanted to add an entry for “tone deaf”, I decided to create a dedicated page for such problematic words.
Note that this page tries to deal with words, uses, and abuses that are mostly particular to politics. It does not usually include more general cases of bureaucracy/corporate/PR/whatnot speak (e.g. “reach out” over “contact”)—such cases do occur often in the world of politics, but they are not in the slightest particular to politics. Ditto more general language issues (e.g. abuse of “they”; some of my extensive writings on such topics are found in another category).
The defining characteristic of a conspiracy theory is that it involves a conspiracy. In politics and/or Leftist propaganda, it usually seems to be used with a strongly deviating meaning, namely, of something that is manifestly wrong, pseudo-scientific, or otherwise to be ignored—often, with the implication that whoever believes in the alleged conspiracy theory is not just wrong but an outright crackpot. At an extreme, some seem to view it as a theory created through a conspiracy, paradoxically making the “conspiracy theorists” those conspiring. To boot, proof of wrongness (etc.) is virtually never given, leaving a main use as a rhetorical cudgel to discredit opponents without having to engage them with actual arguments.
Consider the idea that Caesar was murdered by a group of conspiring senators/rivals/whatnots. This is a conspiracy theory—it is also widely considered to be a historical truth. In reverse, the idea that Caesar was murdered by a lone gunman is not a conspiracy theory—but the suggestion is in crackpot territory. (Every other complication aside, there are no indications of guns in the Roman empire. Bows and arrows, scorpios, and other older technologies, yes; actual guns, no.) However, if we affix a “and the CIA covered it up!” to the Caesarian lone gunman, we again have a conspiracy theory—and, this time, we are simultaneously in crackpot territory.
The phrase “conspiracy theory”, it self, has a conspiracy theory that well illustrates the principle: I have heard claimed that it was invented by the CIA exactly for purposes like manipulating the broad masses into discounting various unpopular-with-the-CIA hypotheses. This alone makes it a conspiracy theory—whether the claim is correct, which I have never investigated, is beside the point.
It might be argued that whoever coins a phrase should have the say in what the phrase means, which, if the claim is true, would give the CIA that say and make the misuse of the phrase more legitimate.
Here, this fails on at least three issues:
The idea hinges on the combination of phrase and meaning being sufficiently reasonable. The misuse does not constitute a reasonable combination, however. By analogy, the combination “horse-drawn vehicle” and automobile car is unreasonable, while “automobile car” and automobile car is reasonable; and the combination of “horse-drawn vehicle” and something that is both a vehicle and horse-drawn is reasonable. (Here, I speak of these phrases as somewhat generally and permanently applying terms. It is, of course, possible to have some specific automobile car with an engine failure temporarily drawn by a horse.)
Overlapping, the “natural” meaning of the phrase is so clear and obvious that it is likely to have arisen independently on various occasions and uses even before any CIA involvement, which would invalidate the idea of coiner, as such. This, especially, when allowing for natural variations, say, the usually more accurate “conspiracy hypothesis”. (I stick with “conspiracy theory” for consistency with typical use.)
Even if a coiner is given a say, that say is beside the point if not taken—and, to the best of my knowledge, the CIA has never made the claim that “we coined this phrase and this is what it means”. (Be it because the CIA did not coin it or does not wish to admit to the coining.)
A particular twist is how the COVID-countermeasure era saw a number of claimed conspiracy theories turn out to be either true or, later, taken seriously by sufficiently many sufficiently qualified observers that implications like “if you believe X, you are a crackpot” turned absurd. A good example is the lab-leak hypothesis, which was widely derided as a “conspiracy theory” (mostly, if not necessarily entirely, in the “crackpot sense”). Not only has subsequent evidence made the lab-leak hypothesis look plausible (the U.S. House report views it as outright probable), but there is now proof of deliberate attempts by Fauci et al. to cover up and discredit it in a manner that amounts to a conspiracy. At a minimum, they conspired to prevent free and fair debate and serious investigations of the possibility; quite possibly, they conspired to cover up incriminating facts while themselves seeing the lab-leak hypothesis as plausible.
The trigger for this entry, however, was an example that borders on the apolitical and shows how widely spread and ingrained the misuse has become due to its frequency in political contexts: Wikipedia on the Tartarian Empirew (in case of changes, refer to oldid=1260924674) alternately describes various ideas around this Tartarian Empire as “pseudo-history” (likely, justified) and “conspiracy theor[y/ies]” (unjustified), e.g. that it was something like an Atlantis-of-Tartary. In this, there seems to be no understanding that these are radically different terms with radically different implications, and that nothing (?) mentioned on the page actually falls into the category of conspiracy theories. In contrast, a claim like “evidence of the Tartarian Empire is suppressed by the government” would be a conspiracy theory. (Such claims might well exist, but are not the target of Wikipedia’s use.)
Whether this example is more political or apolitical depends on factors that I cannot judge from the page alone. Taken alone, the ideas seem to be the kind of pseudo-science/-history that is not (or not automatically/necessarily) political. The works/ideas of Erich von Däniken, e.g., are not typically viewed as political, while moving on a similar level of wrongness and in a similar topic area. The complication is that the page puts them in the context of “Russian nationalism”, which adds a political angle. We now have questions like what aspects dominate, what purposes the believers might follow, to what degree believers are “true believers” resp. merely claim belief, and to what degree the nationalism at hand is of a political nature—questions that I cannot judge without further readings/research.
As an aside, I caution that even the classification as pseudo-science/-history, other phrases often misused, hinges on methods and mindset—not correctness. It is not enough to just be wrong, there must also be an element of so poor use of methods and/or so wrong a mindset that the (unqualified) word “science” is undeserved, while there is a simultaneous pretension of science. Indeed, even pseudo-science might occasionally get something right—by sheer coincidence, if nothing else. It is then possible, if rare, to be correct and still deserve the label “pseudo-science”. (Going by the Wikipedia page, however, it is likely that both “wrong” and “pseudo-science” apply in this specific case.)
An interesting question is whether some group might be deliberately pushing “conspiracy theory” into contexts like the Tartarian Empire in order to strengthen the (unjustified and misleading) association between conspiracy theories and e.g. pseudo-science, with an ultimate goal of making the label “conspiracy theory” the more effective as a rhetorical/propaganda trick.
(Here, I prefer Hanlon’s Razor, but it would fit well with the methods used by some propagandists.)
In U.S. politics, great store seems to be put on bills (initiatives, whatnots) that are “bipartisan”, in the sense that support comes from both major parties.
In reality, however, I have seen repeated cases where the Democrats praise a bill a “bipartisan” because it has the support of a small minority of the Republicans—which entirely misses the point of true bipartisanship. (Ditto some similar settings, as when a bill might be suggested or developed in committee by a Democrat and RINO.) Equally, I have heard complaints that the Republicans (or some specific Republican, e.g. a vetoing governor) would go against a “bipartisan” bill, with the implication that this would be more-or-less a moral wrong. But, if the Republicans went against it, how bipartisan could it truly have been?
At a minimum, the word should be limited to cases with significant (preferably, majority) support in both parties.
In a bigger picture, however, concerns can be raised against the idea of something being “bipartisan” on at least two counts:
Firstly, in the best of worlds everything would be judged on its merits. The issue of something being “partisan”, “bipartisan”, or whatnot would never matter—either it is beneficial or it is not.
Secondly, the intended implication that something “bipartisan” would be better is highly dubious, as it can equally be a sign that the politicians collaborate (e.g. by trading support for the one bill and the one party against support for another bill by the other party) against the interest of the people or, absent actual collaboration, have shared priorities that deviate from those of the people. (And, from the point of view of a member of the people, we land at the previous paragraph: he should not consider a bill good because the politicians claim that it is “bipartisan” but if and when it actually makes sense to him.) In this, it can be an outright positive when a bill causes heated debate—that way, the chance is increased that the voters’ support is not abused or wasted. (With secondary advantages including that a bill that was subjected to heated debate, controversy, whatnot, is more likely to have been thought through in sufficient detail.)
For examples of how not to do it, consider Germany since the beginning of the Merkel era, where the will of the voters has repeatedly been made redundant through anti-democratic, unethical, and destructive coalition governments between parties that should be sworn enemies. (This is made the worse, as the coalitions have usually artificially favored the Left: Either the Left has a majority and we see a Leftist government, or the non-Left has a majority and the nominally Conservative CDU forms a coalition with the Social-Democrats, ensuring that the Left is at least partially in power.)
That a bill is both genuinely bipartisan and in the best interest of the people does happen. If so, the label “bipartisan” might, for all I care, by attached, but would be of significance only rarely, as such a bill is likely to pass without great fuss and publicity anyway.
Special cases include e.g. a “bipartisan committee”, with the idea that a committee is set up for some purpose and has roughly 50–50 members. (But, analogous to the above, a Democrat committee with a few token Republicans is not bipartisan in a meaningful way—and vice versa.) Here, however, the word “bipartisan” has a somewhat different meaning and it is not a given that suggestions made by the committee will eventually have “bipartisan support”.
To be tone deaf, in its literal sense, is a matter of a musical lack, an inability to interpret tones correctly. (Sometimes sloppily extended to refer to other or more general musical issues, up to and including an inability to sing/play in an adequate manner, regardless of reason.)
To apply “tone deaf” to politics, at all, is likely a bad idea, but if it is applied, then the application should match some metaphorical tone deafness, as when someone sees some politically relevant facts and fails to draw the right conclusion. (By which token a great many politicians would be tone deaf...)
In reality, the implication tends to be “someone said something and I/we disapprove of it” (with variations like “[...] found it insulting”). For instance, the trigger for writing this entry was the claim:
A parade of New Zealand academics are lining up either to denounce him as tone-deaf or sneer that he might have received too many bangs to the head.
This, after someone (Joe Marler) criticized the “haka”, a ritual Maori dance, in the context of sports—where a strong case can be made that it has no place. (Depending on the exact performance and context, I might consider it: unsporting, as it often has an element of intimidation; a waste of the time of others, including opposing team and audience; pointless, as it serves no legitimate purpose in the context; unprofessional or, even, outright childish, as adult and elite athletes should focus on the sport at hand.)
Now, if Marler had spoken in the belief that “a parade of New Zealand academics”, various haka fans, or various haka performers would line up to lend their support, then, just maybe, the use of “tone deaf” could be justified. (But even this feels like a stretch.) There is no reason to believe that this is the case, however. More likely, he saw something as problematic and decided to speak up about the problem. To take even the expectation that others would disagree as a reason not to speak, would reduce the chance of a change, bring a greater risk of creating or preserving “echo chambers” and “opinion corridors” on the topic, etc.
The simple truth is that we cannot and must not let the risk of a negative reaction prevent us from speaking up, be it to point to a problem, to contradict some narrative, to point out errors in reasoning or the existence of other perspectives, etc. (Exception: If the negative reaction is so extreme that it causes danger, caution might force an exception. This, however, shows a problem with the reaction—not with the speaker.)
(2025-08-25)
Since the original writing of this section (November 2024), I have increasingly come to suspect that there is a deeper family of problems behind this for at least some users—and one that might make these users take a diametrically opposite stance to my own:
The sad truth is that many (on the Left and among women, in particular) seem to see it as a virtue in its own right to have and/or express the majority resp. (should the higher bar be reached) consensus opinion—which the “tone deaf” typically do not. To boot, if this attitude is sufficiently dominant, the majority opinion automatically becomes a consensus opinion; to boot, it might be viewed as such by many with this attitude, even when they do not dominate. (Also note the overlapping idea of “consensus for the sake of consensus”. A dedicated text on such topics might follow at a later time, including on a related speculation that some submissively minded prefer a “nanny government” or a political “strongman” to the point that they react with hostility to those who want to think and decide for themselves.) The matter is made the more complicated when e.g. the “loudest” opinion (cf. later parts of the original text) is taken to be the majority or consensus opinion.
(For simplicity, I will just use “consensus” in the rest of this addendum, with an implication of roughly “whatever the user of ‘tone deaf’, rightly or wrongly, considers to be the consensus or otherwise majority opinion”.)
The implication of the phrase “tone deaf”, then, might be that the accused does not know what the consensus is (if he had known, he would not had said what he did), commits thoughtcrime/wrongspeak/whatnot against the consensus (speaking against a consensus, even when one knows what the consensus is, is a sin), or otherwise is in violation of the consensus. Someone with, so to speak, better hearing would have made sure that he knew what opinion the consensus dictated and then stuck to that.
In a variation, some might favor the consensus in words (while in silent disagreement), because not doing so would be dangerous to the speaker, harmful to society, or similar, in the situation at hand (and in the perception of the individual at hand). The “tone deaf” might then not been as lacking in virtue but in e.g. an understanding of where there is danger, a self-preservation instinct, or similar. (In reverse, I might argue that the “tone deaf” simply have more backbone and a greater drive to stand up for the truth than their critics.)
An overlapping idea is that of brav opinions—especially, when the user of “tone deaf” considers his own opinions to be the brav ones. A more general version of the above might then replace “what opinion the consensus dictated” with “what opinion was virtuous” or similar; however, this lowers the applicability of specifically the phrase “tone deaf” even further. (But note that the points in this addendum, brav-ness included, are not identical to the more obvious case of someone wanting to suppress dissenting opinions for more conventional reasons, notably, to prevent others from hearing them.)
In as far as someone errs in another regard, e.g. through failing to be diplomatic when diplomacy is legitimately called for, a formulation should be chosen that reflects the actual error at hand, e.g. “lacking in diplomacy”. Pushing a spurious “tone deaf” has no justification in such cases.
While I have not kept a list of examples, I have the strong impression that the abuse of “tone deaf” (as with many other words) is a predominantly Leftist issue, especially, as one of the many rhetorical tricks used to to condemn someone without actually addressing his arguments, or, rather, to condemn someone for the purpose of not having to address his arguments.
A particular point is that the Left and/or women often fall into the trap of considering whoever is the angriest, the loudest, or similar, to be in the right. However, the connection between being angry/loud/whatnot and being right is extremely weak. (Indeed, the Left appears to be angry and/or loud more often than right.) To, then, speak up against someone angry and in the wrong is not a matter of tone deafness—but of doing the right thing.
When it comes to private situations, some caution might be needed, e.g. in that we do not try to explain to someone angry why he is in the wrong until he has had a chance to calm down. (And even then some cases might better be left alone out of diplomacy.) Even here, however, the application of “tone deaf” is limited. (It might e.g. apply when person A fails to understand that person B is angry, but not when he explains in the full knowledge of the anger.)
When a situation is public, however, this changes.
A discussion of demands that someone “read the room” might (barring the portions on literal tone deafness) read very similarly.
Quite a few other words, notably “insensitive”, share lesser similarities: Yes, if someone says something in ignorance of the effect that it can have on the counterpart this will often (not necessarily always) be insensitive. However, if the statement is made because it really should be said and because it would be wrong to allow any “sensitivity” of the counterpart’s to stand in the way of the saying, the label does not apply.
This the more so, as large groups (especially, in Leftist areas) are over-sensitive or, worse, feign sensitivity (feign being insulted, upset, whatnot) in order to limit their opponents.
The word “divisive” is very problematic in today’s politics, because it creates an impression of an active attempt, while the intent of the users of the word is usually either on something passively and indirectly happening or some combination of a cheap rhetorical trick and the sentiment that “we do not like him; ergo, he is divisive”. The former is potentially exemplified by some recent [September 2024] reports on the death of Alberto Fujimori, which were the trigger for this text; the latter by countless mentions of Donald Trump.
(Where I speak of “potentially” because borders can be hard to draw, Trump, to some degree, is deliberately provocative, and my knowledge of Fujimori is limited. The latter was highly problematic in some regards, that I do know, but whether he was divisive is another matter entirely. However, his exact status is irrelevant to the big picture of this text.)
A better use of the word is for someone who deliberately tries to push various individuals, groups, peoples, whatnot apart and to create problems between them, in what might amount to “sowing discord”. Vice versa, most of those to whom the word currently seems to applied, would be better referred to as e.g. “controversial”, which describes them as having a (potentially) passive characteristic.
Other common uses include a “divisive” policy, which is problematic already because a policy, as such, has no intent or will and does not try to do something. Even ignoring this problem, the same as above usually applies—they might cause controversy, but they are not thereby divisive. Ditto various other uses (not necessarily restricted to politics), as with a “divisive building”, “divisive decision”, or, even, “divisive athlete”—chances are that these are merely controversial and not actually divisive.
Looking at U.S. politics, and what various politicians themselves say and do (as opposed to what their opponents claim that they say and do), actual divisiveness seems far more common among Democrats (while the label is, paradoxically, usually applied to Republicans). Which party tries to saw discord between Blacks and Whites to further its own causes? Democrats. Between women and men? Democrats. Between homo- and heterosexuals? Democrats. Etc. Likewise, historically and worldwide, it was predominantly the Left, especially Marxists, that pushed groups apart, furthered hate between groups, etc.
Note that the gap between (a) what someone actually says and does, and (b) what (especially, Leftist) opponents claim that he says and does, is often quite large. When establishing e.g. what type of policies someone is likely to push when in office, look at actual past actions first, then own claims, and only after that consider the claims of opponents.
Concerning divisive Democrats, beware that the intent in any individual case must be considered. Much of what the Democrats do in related areas is ill-advised, harmful, whatnot, but might also be made with good and non-divisive intentions. The above refers to actually divisive actions and intentions.
The Republicans, in contrast, might well point to problems with e.g. some groups of immigrants, but they do so because there actually are problems with these groups—and a message like “immigrants are evil”, even in a more diplomatic or softened form, is an extraordinarily rare exception. (While e.g. a “Whites are evil” is far more common among Democrats or, at least, some important sub-groups of the Democrats.) Indeed, most Republicans do not seem to primarily blame even the problematic immigrants (as such; excepting outright criminals, MS-13, and whatnot) but immigration policy, and are careful to separate legal and illegal immigrants in their treatments. (In a next step, a divisive Democrat often tries to sow discord by claiming that someone critical of immigration policy is racist, xenophobic, or similar—but that is a different story.)
There are at least three types of problematic uses, the first two on topic, the third straddling the border to being off topic:
The use of “democracy” (“democratic”, etc.) to imply something positive, modern, enlightened, whatnot, in politics that goes well beyond the actual meaning of the word—and might at times even be in conflict with this meaning.
This in particular when we look at civil and/or human rights, freedom of the press, Rechtsstaatlichkeit, and similar. (Possibly, by a detour over “democratic values”, it self highly misleading.) These, however, are neither limited to democracies, nor guaranteed in democracies. Freedom of speech, a truly central civil right, is a good example of something often strongly restricted in democracies—and not necessarily in a manner that could be argued as contrary to democracy, as it often has majority support. (The degree to which a democracy with non-trivial limits on freedom of speech can function well might be debated, but such limits do not automatically make something “not a democracy”.)
Truly despicable situations can arise when e.g. civil rights are trampled with motivations like “to protect democracy”. As I have noted repeatedly in the past, I consider the civil rights more important and more valuable than democracy and the main benefit of democracy the increased chance that they are preserved. To take what should be the means (democracy) and use it to destroy what should be the end (civil rights)... To make matters worse, the motivation often gives me the impression of being a dishonest attempt at manipulation, and does not necessarily protect democracy in any meaningful sense.
The use to imply something non- or outright anti-democratic, e.g. for purposes of propaganda—as with DDR/GDR, the “Deutsche Demokratische Republik”/“German Democratic Republic” and some other Leftist horrors.
This sometimes with pseudo-justifications along the lines that “the party” or “the great leader” would know the will of the people better than the people, which would make such states more democratic than those unenlightened Western democracies. (Many politicians in democratic countries also seem to entertain similar beliefs with regard to themselves, based on their behavior, but they are far less likely to make a public declaration of such beliefs.)
The use to imply that something more general is made available/becomes accessible/is whatnot to the people at large, the broad masses, or similar. This, especially, with variations of “democratization”.
For instance, I have seen formulations along the lines of printing leading to a “democratization” of knowledge, that the car and/or railways would have brought a “democratization” of travel, that access to this-and-that must be “democratized”, and similar.
While there are some cases where an indirect connection to democracy can be argued (e.g. in that the ignorant might not be able to participate in a democracy in the way that the more knowledgable can), the overall mass points strongly to a different intent, with a focus on “demos” (“people”/whatnot) and not “kratos” (“power”/whatnot). We then have something that is far better described in different terms.
In many cases, I suspect, variations of “democracy” are abused as an antonym for variations of “elitism” (or some similar concept). While there might be a “semantic hole” here, in that “elitism” does not have a true antonym in common use, the abuse of “democracy” is not acceptable: Firstly, it is very possible to have a society (political system, whatnot) that is simultaneously elitist and democratic—or, for that matter, simultaneously neither. Secondly, there is a risk of an unwarranted rub-off effect, because “democracy” has so strongly positive connotations with many and “elitism” so strongly negative ones. (My own take is that both are potentially positive when done correctly, which, however, they usually are not. Indeed, many current Western societies simultaneously display democracy and political elitism done wrong.)
What terms to use instead will depend on what the original formulation intended, the exact context, and similar, and I do not wish to give a blanket recommendation.
For printing, above, something like “printing made knowledge more accessible to the broad masses” might or might not match the original intent.
Words beginning with “popul” would likely often work well in a subset of their meanings. A hitch is that other meanings (notably, relating to being well liked) often dominate in current use and understanding.
Depending on point of view, other cases can be argued. Very notably, I have seen quite a few complaints from U.S. debaters that amount to “the U.S. is not a democracy—it is a republic”. Given certain meanings of the terms “democracy” and “republic”, this is true. Given others, it need not be, and a republic in this sense might best be seen as a special case of a representative democracy. (A related point of criticism could be that using “democracy” without the “representative” would be wrong, should specifically a representative democracy be intended.)
Such protestations, however, have some value in terms of awareness. At a minimum, they have changed my own understanding of “republic”, in that I, for a very long time, saw a republic more as “has a president” and a monarchy as “has a king” (or whatever title applies to the monarchy and/or ruler at hand) regardless of whether the republic resp. the monarchy was a democracy. (From a formal and/or etymological point of view, a “democratic monarchy” could be seen as a contradiction in terms—a Tolkien fan might joke about “one king to rule them all”. However, at least current everyday use certainly considers my native Sweden a simultaneous democracy and [constitutional] monarchy, which likely strongly contributed to my earlier take, while similar claims apply to the U.K., Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and others.)
Another issue in my early exposure was the great number of nominal republics that were not the least bit democratic—the more so, as above, when their name contained the word “democratic”. Oddly, it took me a very long time to reflect on the possibility that “republic” (be it in a name or another claim) might be as fraudulent or misleading as “democratic”. (Despite my very early understanding of the latter fraud.) I have certainly had thoughts along the lines of the difference between monarchy and republic being mostly nominal, e.g. in that there have often been kings-by-election (even be it by a limited group of electors) and at least some (de facto, if not de jure) presidents-by-inheritance. I would not even rule out that I have written an argument to that effect in the past.
Of course, the “coining” republic, the Roman, might have fallen well short of the modern ideas of democracy, which could have contributed further—but the “coining” democracy, the Athenian, was a similarly poor match.
As the motivation for this entry is to discuss misuses of “freedom of speech” (be it using this phrasing or something equivalent), by the Left, the press, or some other grouping; as the use is often nonsensical or outright contrary to freedom of speech; and as there seems to be many fundamental misunderstandings around it, a few words on meaning are relevant:
Freedom of speech properly is the right to express opinions, discuss topics, and similar—and to do so without unwarranted interference, e.g. through government censorship or sabotage by third parties.
An important indirect, but often neglected, aspect of freedom of speech are the rights of the potential hearers of the speech, that they have the right to hear or not hear as they see fit—not as the government or, say, a Leftist activist sees fit. To e.g. drag an unpopular speaker out in the desert and let him speak as he likes in front of sand and locusts might be compatible with a strictly speaker-centric interpretation of freedom of speech, but it would make a mockery of the entire concept. (Ditto e.g. a social-media platform that accepts all input but never actually makes said input readable to anyone but the original poster.) There is next to no value in just being able to express one’s own opinion, with not even the right to be heard and without the symmetrical right of the potential audience to hear.
An older text on reach vs. speech covers some related ground in more detail. (I hope to provide a more up-to-date and more complete version in the future.)
Exactly how to define freedom of speech beyond the informal description above is a tricky question, however, and even those who agree in the broad strokes might disagree in detail. For instance, German law contains great restrictions on the display of swastikas (but, oddly, not on corresponding Communist symbols). When resulting in a limitation on political expression, e.g. in that a Nazi-sympathizer may not wear a swastika on his clothing, many or most would likely view this as a restriction on freedom of speech, if speech in an extended sense. (The word “speech” is, of course, not to be taken literally.) However, the same rules also long prevented the depiction of swastikas in computer games—and even when the Nazis served as villains in the game at hand. Should this truly be viewed as a limitation on speech or as a limitation on something else? (Looking in another direction, even if someone were to exceed the speed limit to, somehow, engage in communication, even political communication, the speed limit would only in exceptional cases be viewed as a limitation on freedom of speech—and chances are that someone who drew on e.g. a constitutional right to freedom of speech to get out of a speeding ticket would be laughed out of court.) Such examples could point to a need to differentiate between e.g. freedom of speech and a more general freedom of expression.
Repeated mention of “political” should not be seen as limiting freedom of speech to matters political. However, politics is where freedom of speech is the most important and restrictions the least justifiable—and this page is centered on politics.
Just as freedom of speech and of expression are not the same thing, neither is equal to freedom of opinion. Indeed, there is no guarantee that the speaker at hand is expressing his own true opinion as he exercises his right to speak—he could, e.g., be lying to voters to increase his chances of being elected.
Nevertheless, an error in the other direction sometimes occurs, in that something that supposedly applies to freedom of speech is extended to freedom of opinion. Notably, I have heard claims like “freedom of opinion is not absolute”, while invoking (already dubious, cf. below) legal restrictions on freedom of speech. Freedom of opinion, however, truly is absolute—we are entitled to have any opinion that we wish. (Even should this opinion be horrifyingly naive, e.g. that Kamala Harris would be good choice for POTUS, vile and hateful, e.g. that Jews should be killed for being Jews, in the face of science and reason, e.g. that nuclear power must be stopped even at the cost of more fossil fuels, or otherwise problematic—up to and including opposition to freedom of speech.)
In the border area between elaboration and what might, in its own right, make a reasonable item for the main discussion:
It is important to understand the difference between freedom of speech and whatever legal and/or constitutional protections of freedom of speech exist. For instance, that the U.S. 1st Amendment limits government interference with freedom of speech, not interference in general, does not imply that an Antifa thug attacking a peaceful speaker for saying the “wrong” thing would not be a simultaneous attack or limitation on freedom of speech—it very much is. (And while the victim might not be able to draw on the 1st Amendment, he can draw on other legal protections, e.g. against assault and battery. Unfortunately, his means of recourse against less direct interference, including noise-making for the purpose of drowning him out, are far lesser.) The murder of Charlie Kirk (with minor reservations for exact motives) is very much a matter of an attack on freedom of speech—the permanent silencing of a voice (a) for freedom of speech, as such, (b) against the insanities of the Left.
In the other direction, if a particular country has limitations on freedom of speech (and, like e.g. Germany, undue limitations in particular), speech that goes beyond those limitations is not suddenly “unfree” speech. It might well be speech that is not protected or speech that is outright prohibited, but this often more reflects problems with the laws than problems with the speech. From another perspective, it is important to differ between the legal view of speech and a more abstract view, e.g. based on ethical reasoning, natural law, or pragmatic concerns for what is needed to ensure a sufficient and sufficiently productive political, intellectual, scientific, whatnot debate. Certainly, at an absolute minimum, the right to disagree with a law, as it stands, is absolute—we might be forced to obey the law, but never to agree with it.
More generally, many make the mistake of taking a legal definition of a word or a phrase to be the definition or meaning even outside legal contexts. This severe error might be given a separate discussion at a later time—especially, with an eye at some Leftist attempts to abuse laws to force changes in language use.
A common issue is that the press invokes freedom of speech in a spurious and self-serving manner (and, to boot, in lieu of freedom of the press), for matters irrelevant to freedom of speech (and, usually, freedom of the press).
For simplicity, I will speak of e.g. “press” and “paper”. This should not be seen as excluding other relevant fields, types of entities, whatnot (e.g., when relevant, “TV networks”).
For instance, the trigger to writing this text was an odd misuse reported on the day of writing (2025-09-19): During the on-going 2025 world championships in athletics, Finnish press was upsete about not being let into a press conference for Daniel Ståhl, a Swedish athlete with a strong Finnish connection, and cited “the freedom of speech”/“yttrandefriheten”. However, on the outside, this would be a matter of freedom of the press (and, cf. below, even that is very dubious). Moreover, there are practical concerns in that, according to the linked-to text, the Swedish federation uses a more interactive format for press conferences, which would make it impractical to have a larger number of participants, which is why the press conferences are normally limited to the Swedish press—and where it is feared that if the Finns were allowed access, which might not explode the numbers, other countries might follow.
Whether the above example is political might be debated: The interests and details at hand are almost certainly not, but it could be argued that any issue relating to freedom of speech is inherently political through the connection to freedom of speech. The following paragraph, however, is gives a highly political example.
A very similar issue has repeatedly been in the news concerning Donald Trump and who is or is not given access to his press conferences.
In both cases, we see someone effectively being denied the right to ask questions of a specific someone, at a specific time, and in a specific place—nothing more, and nothing less. With the press vs. Trump, I suspect that the true cause for the complaint is not even that, but something entirely irrelevant, namely the speed of reporting and/or an increased/decreased credibility from reporting first/second hand—or, maybe, even just a bruised ego or a wish to score cheap and misleading propaganda points. Yes, having to report on a press conference second hand might be a disadvantage, but it is not in the slightest a matter of freedom of speech—even invoking freedom of the press is dubious.
To this, note that:
Nothing that goes on at these press conferences is likely to be secret.
Some parts might or might not be “off the record”, but, if so, the press should not write about it anyway. Moreover, for a member of the press to have access to off-the-record information is strictly a privilege, not a right.
There might always be practical restrictions in the number of participants—and the more participants there are, the less time and opportunity will there be for any given participant to ask questions or otherwise interact (as opposed to sit quietly and listen to others).
Here we can also argue against too fix press participation and/or press participation based solely on a “We are the [name of important paper], dammit!” basis.
Such participation can create a lock-in effect and reduce competition by giving larger papers a major advantage over smaller in terms of e.g. access to press conferences, perpetuating what papers are large and what small.
There might be practical restrictions of other types, e.g. in that language issues can limit the practicability of foreign press presence or that geographical distances can make participation hard even for some who are invited.
Even an “open” press conference is usually restricted to the press.
A private citizen, a representative of a different party, a functionary from a different athletics team, a university researcher, or what else might apply, will usually not be allowed access—or only with a special dispensation.
Demanding press access is, then, more a matter of gaining privileges for the press than upholding rights of the press.
Press conferences are usually held on an entirely voluntary basis. Most holders could simply refuse to hold one.
In some cases, there might be an external imposition, e.g. that the arranger of a certain sports competition makes the participation of athletes contingent on a certain level of “availability”, say, for pre-/post-event press conferences or a between-event-and-shower interview.
However, I am not aware of any such impositions for the POTUS, beyond a “state of the union” duty relative Congress (not the press), and while I do not rule out that such an imposition does exist for the Swedish athletics team, there was no mention by the Finns of any violation of it. (Had there been a violation, this, and not freedom of speech, would have been the natural angle.)
To boot, I consider such impositions unethical in the area of sports and in violation of the idea of sports competitions as sports competitions—as opposed to news events.
Outside press conferences, there is a natural and, to the best of my knowledge, uncontested principle that subjects of press reporting are entirely free to chose what papers and whatnots they talk to, e.g. by granting an interview.
(And even “exclusive” interviews typically go without protests from the rest of the press.)
There is nothing to prevent a paper from asking questions over other channels, including by phone, email, and letter.
Yes, such questions might go unanswered, but so can questions asked at a press conference. There is a difference in that a refusal to answer, or an attempt to dissemble, during a press conference can look worse, but that is not a matter related to either of freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
In the case of many high-ranking politicians, including Trump, we have the additional complication that press conferences are often held by proxy, in that a press speaker interacts with the press in lieu of the politician, which reduces access to “the horse’s mouth” in a different manner—and that this does not result in loud protests from the press.
One possibly, partially, justifying angle is exemplified by a reference in the linked-to article to the old Soviet era: The Finns had compared to the Swedes to the Soviets, who, apparently, had a practice of holding press conferences related to sports behind closed doors. I am not aware of the details of this, but, based on other Soviet practices, I could easily imagine that it was done to ensure that the press had the “right” message afterwards—the more so, as the individual athlete’s own take might have been viewed as unimportant compared to the Party’s take and as e.g. careless statements by the athlete might have needed correction before hitting the printing press.
A more open access could reduce the risk for such abuse, but there is a difference between inviting only Pravda and Izvestia, on the one hand, and applying other limitations (e.g. booting misbehaving individual journalists/papers or pointing to natural limits on the number of participants), on the other. If in doubt, modern technology allows alternate solutions to such risks—notably, airing press conferences live or taping them for distribution to those interested. (And I am under the impression that this is the case with e.g. Trump’s press conferences.) Such a solution could also reduce the risk that the press angles material, e.g. to favor/disfavor political candidates of which the paper at hand approves/disapproves. (Note e.g. the infamous “word salad” interview with Kamala Harris, the very selective airing, the ensuing controversy, and the legal actions by Trump.)
A particularly absurd and egregious example family is the invocation of freedom of speech to justify censorship—that the act of censorship would be an act of speech, allowable under freedom of speech and, for some reason, trumping any right of the original speaker to freedom of speech. In contrast, a freedom-of-speech compatible handling would be to allow the original speaker to speak and then to hold an own counter-speech to those interested in hearing it. Ditto e.g. attempts to simply drown out a speaker with noise-making, instead of meeting his arguments—neither making noise, nor preventing others from hearing, is a matter of freedom of speech, but giving a counter-argument is.
Both freedom of speech and freedom of expression underlie legitimate contextual restrictions. Even if we say that making avoidable noise was acceptable or a right in general, it would not be so in a context like a lecture hall where it interferes with the legitimate purposes of the speaker, those who invited the speaker, those who came to listen to the speaker, whatnot. Likewise, it would not be so in a library where others try to read or work.
(Where I use “avoidable noise” to differ between e.g. someone blowing a vuvuzela for the purpose of making noise, be it on a noise-for-the-sake-of-noise basis or to use the noise for some purpose, and someone driving a car for reasons of transport, with noise as an unavoidable side-effect.)
However, such restrictions must be applied in a reasonable and equitable manner—and, sadly, the Left sometimes tries to prevent non-Leftist speech by imposing unreasonable or one-sided restrictions to its own advantage. The next paragraph gives an example.
In the overlap between this and the “speech vs. reach” question (cf. an earlier side-note and link), we have issues like warnings by a partisan social-media platform that some particular statement made by a user of the platform would be wrong—imposed onto that statement in a manner that prevents other users from reading the statement without reading the partisan counter. This is not a matter of freedom of speech, it is a matter of abuse of a position of power to diminish someone else’s freedom of speech, and it is unethical of the platforms to interfere in communication in this manner, when they, by all rights, should just be silent relayers akin to a telephone company (again, cf. link)—the more so, as the warnings are often given to favor a certain, usually Left or far Left, political or ideological agenda/narrative/whatnot over another.
This approach is a particular negative for an off-topic reason: Many lack the insight to understand that even a big and official looking warning by the platform is not necessarily correct—and they might, on the contrary, assume that “what the platform says” is to be valued as an ex cathedra over what an individual debater says, be it an OP or a commenter. However, there are great problems with e.g. low competence, extreme ideological distortions, and (at least, during the COVID-countermeasure era) government pressure to push a certain message, and “what the platform says” might be less reliable than the statements of even an average debater on matters related to specifically politics—let alone of highly intelligent and well informed debaters, who, paradoxically, are unusually likely to be slapped with such warnings. (For the simple reason that someone simultaneously highly intelligent and well informed is very unlikely to actually support Leftist narratives and agendas.)
Indeed, these warnings are very often factually faulty in their own right and/or go back to matters yet to be settled and/or are matters of perspectives/priorities/preferences/whatnot.
A far better approach would be to have the self-appointed fact checkers (a) be entirely independent of the platform, (b) just put their opinions in the comments—just like any other debater. This not only evens the playing field in terms of impressions on naive users but also makes it easier for other debaters to argue for or against these opinions, including by providing true fact checks of claims made by these self-appointed fact checkers.
The word “eugenics” is not that common in politics and it might be debated whether abuse is more a matter of political or everyday use. However, the use is often outrageously wrong and the implications often political or politics-adjacent, even when in a more everyday setting.
There are at least two recurring errors:
Confounding eugenics with racism, a wish to exterminate other races, or similar. An association between eugenics and genocide seems to be particularly common. (Possibly, aided by some optical similarity of the two words.)
Whether, say, the Nazi take on Jews was eugenics at all is debatable, as there was a juxtaposition of mostly disjunct population groups. A ban on interbreeding, while misguided, could be seen as a fit, but the Shoa (which was much more important and the main source of the association with genocide) is a much trickier matter. Here classifications like “attempt to eliminate the competition” and “attempt to purify society” (not “[...] the race”) might be better matches—neither of which, no matter how detestable or insufficient as justifications for the Shoa, is a matter of eugenics.
Of course, while the Nazis were focused on race, there is no reason that a non-Nazi eugenicist should be, just like a potential refusal by a Nazi-German physician to treat a Jew is no reason why other physicians should also refuse.
Failing to understand the difference between opinions and goals, on the one hand, and the methods used in their pursuit, on the other. (As I never tire of saying: Evil is as evil does.)
It is without a doubt true that many past approaches to eugenics have been wrong-headed (extraordinarily so in the case of the Nazis), but the problems where not in eugenics, as such, but in the wrong-headed approaches—and it is clear from most modern condemnations of eugenics that the speaker actually disapproves of these approaches, while failing to understand the difference.
For instance, consider some hereditary trait (its exact nature is beside the point). There are now at least two separate issues that are relevant to a eugenics discussion: Firstly, would it be beneficial to reduce (or increase) the incidence of this trait? (Also see side-note.) Secondly, if it would be beneficial, what means of doing so are justifiable?
The first question is extremely tricky in its own right, and a more valid criticism of eugenics, as such, is that it is very easy to arrive at short-sighted or outright wrong answers. For instance, genetic diversity (not be confused with the faux-diversity pushed by the woke) can (a) be reduced by eugenics, (b) be quite beneficial in the long term, e.g. to allow sufficient future variation and to give enough flexibility if the circumstances of human live were to change enough as to make other traits/genes/whatnots than today favorable. For instance, sickle-cell anemia is a side-effect of simultaneously having two “non-standard” alleles that control haemoglobin production; however, when only one of the two is present, which is far more common than that both are present, the result is a decreased vulnerability to malaria. Now, what if this allele was, by some mean, removed from the population to eliminate sickle-cell anemia—at the cost of more problems with malaria? (And note how the weighing of the two problems might give very different results depending both on how common the allele is and how common malaria is in the location at hand.)
For the better part, the problems have rested with the second question, that means have often been used that are not justifiable, be it in my eyes or in the eyes of those who condemn eugenics wholesale. However, this does not imply that other means would be unjustifiable or that eugenics, as such, would be wrong. A 1930s attitude (common in large parts of the Western world; often among Leftists and Progressives) might have called for the involuntary sterilisation of those with an unwanted trait, which, in doubt, would be wrong through violating the rights of the individual to medical and other self-determination. However, what if, instead, information was spread that the trait at hand was heritable, that it could have a negative effect on offspring and society as a whole, or whatnot, and the decision whether to procreate was left to the individuals who had the trait? Likewise, it would be wrong for the police to perform a massive air bombing of a bank with a robbery in progress, but it does follow that it would be wrong to try to apprehend the robbers—or even necessarily to lob a few smoke grenades into the building.
Of course, enforcement of what the citizens do not voluntarily do did not die with the erstwhile popularity of eugenics. On the contrary, it is very popular today too and especially on the Left (where the loudest objections to eugenics are often found today). Consider e.g. much of the COVID-countermeasure era. At an extreme, I have seen repeated recent references to some lunatic who wants to infect the population at large with alpha-gal syndrome (an intolerance of red meat) on a eating-red-meat-causes-global-warming-so-we-have-a-moral-duty-to-prevent-it basis. (Something worthy of a mad scientist from a cartoon.)
As for eugenics pre-WWII, it was very often something pushed by the Left, including many Swedish Social-Democrats and U.S. Democrats. Chances are that the turnabout was originally mostly a matter of a wish to artificially create as much distance to the Nazis as possible, in order to push the false dichotomy of good Lefties and evil Nazis/Fascist–either you are a good Leftie or you are an evil Nazi, so you better be a Leftie.
This mistaken view of eugenics is the more unfortunate as current humanity is largely protected from natural evolutionary forces and often seems to be exposed to outright negative forces, for which eugenics done right could give some protection. (That e.g. some cave-dwelling species go blind over generations is not a matter of teleological/quasi-magical adaptation to a new environment—it is a result of there being no penalty associated with a worse eye-sight, while keeping eye-sight up can come with a cost.)
There is need to tread carefully, certainly, e.g. with an eye at how governments or the Left could abuse eugenics to make future generations more compliant, e.g. because of complications mentioned in a previous side-note, e.g. because a too great focus on some particular trait (e.g. intelligence) can lead to overall dysfunction (as seen in many dog breeds, where extreme fitness for a specific purpose or an outright focus on optics have brought on many problems not present in wolves and more general working dogs). However, again, this is not the type of problems that are discussed around eugenics—instead, we have the two major errors in understanding discussed above.
Words like “justice” are inherently tricky, because different speakers and hearers can have radically different takes on what constitutes justice. Everyone wants justice, but if we do not agree on the meaning, that really does not matter. This is the worse when, as with the modern Left, some group demands Tolkningsföreträde and applies a meaning or set of meanings that is highly disputable or outright absurd.
Indeed, the many uses by the Left in today’s world go to such extremes that “justice” might be no more than a label applied for rhetorical purposes, regardless not only of meaning and interpretation but even of relevancy. Consider the absurdity of “climate justice”, which has no true connection to justice and sometimes seem to not have much to do with the climate either.
While I have never seen an attempt to define “climate justice”, the general drift and pseudo-justification for the label, in only a slight caricature, seems to be that everyone who is not a White male is hit harder by climate change than everyone who is a White male. This also gives a strong indication that the true matter at hand is not related to the climate, as such, but to tired Leftist attempts to create artificial oppressor–oppressed (privileged–unprivileged, whatnot) constellations for political purposes, to be divisive and push “us vs. them” scenarios, etc. (Note how I use “divisive” in its correct sense here. Cf. the earlier section on that word.) Alternatively, in the other direction, that existing artificial oppressor–oppressed constellations, etc., should be geared to support the extended family of “climate causes” in a spurious manner.
The claim that the former group would be hit harder than the latter is, of course, made in a blanket manner, without supporting argumentation. Further, if that claim were taken to be true, a word like “equality” would be far better suited than “justice”, again pointing to “justice” as a label applied for its rhetorical value and/or to go hand in hand with a greater group of similar labels, notably “social justice” (cf. below). Ditto “fairness”. (Generally, one or both of “equality” and “fairness’, and maybe some other words too, are better choices than “justice” in very many contexts.)
The most common use is likely “social justice”—but with implications that effectively amount to great injustice. Specifically, it is usually some variation of “equality of outcome” (true justice, if we apply the word at all, would imply “equality of opportunity”), an excuse for government interference to raise taxes and increase handouts (which always involves punishing hard workers and rewarding the lazy, regardless of other effects and intents), to explain differences in outcome exclusively by external factors (including “systemic racism”, the “Patriarchy”, and “discrimination” in its Leftist distortion) to given an unjust and unjustified motivation for e.g. government interference, or similar.
The idea of “justice for X” is illustrative in two regards:
Firstly, it shows how “justice” usually has a connotation of righting a wrong in its traditional uses, as it does with the idea of a justice system or in the phrase “justice is blind”. (With parallel connotations of e.g. something that makes a fair decision between two parties in a conflict, with the exact relevant connotations depending on the exact context at hand. Calls of specifically “justice for X” often arise in the context of a prior criminal conviction that is seen as or claimed to be unjust.) When we look at Leftist uses, “righting a wrong” is either something absent or something that requires a strongly Leftist viewpoint to include. For instance, it is not a matter of (human) right or wrong, justice or injustice, whatnot, when the one is born to parents with a higher SES than the other. It is a matter of chance. (Or, for those who believe in such things, e.g. fate, karma, or God’s will.) In contrast, injustice could be argued if those born to the “right” parents have more legal rights than those born to the “wrong” parents, as in many past societies. Likewise, a hyper-egalitarian, equality-of-outcome, “Harrison Bergeron” style society that ensured that all parents had the same SES would be highly unjust through forcing everyone (or, at least, everyone aspiring to be a parent) into the same mold, removing individual choice, killing “pursuit of happiness”, etc.
And the type of “justice” proposed by the Left is hardly ever compatible with the aforementioned idea that justice is (or should be) blind. On the contrary, it often looks very hard on irrelevant characteristics of the person or persons involved, like race and sex. Likewise, it often amounts to a deliberate and very “seeing” interference with matters at hand, individual choice, who is given what opportunity/position/whatnot based on what criterion, etc. It is not social justice in any true sense, and certainly not blind justice, when, say, college admissions systematically favor members of some races (notably, Blacks) over others (including Whites, but Jews and East Asians likely to the highest degree) and puts race above merit and “scholastic aptitude”.
Secondly, such specific calls, unless opportunistic, are often driven more strongly by ideological conviction or personal sympathies than by, say, legal reasoning and forensic evidence. (To boot, sympathies that are often spurious through being based on a topic like race or through arising through a propaganda portrayal.) Correspondingly, many such calls are misguided in a manner very similar to how Leftist calls for (political types of) “justice” are misguided. This in at least two variations, namely, (a) when someone actually guilty and proportionately punished is viewed as innocent or disproportionately punished, and (b) when the view is correct but based on poor reasons. (Even a blind hen can find the odd corn.)
Here, I take “[dis]proportionately” relative a baseline of what is typical for the same crime in the jurisdiction at hand. I make no statement as to whether that baseline, it self, gives proportionate or disproportionate punishment in a more absolute sense—a question that is extremely subjective. (For instance, the U.S. often has considerably harsher punishments than my native Sweden for the same crime.)
A particularly interesting case is that of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, a successful Black boxer, who was convicted of a triple murder in two separate trials. (With reservations for details—my last contacts with the case are some ten years back.) Great clamor arose that he was innocent, a victim of racism, whatnot—and Bob Dylan wrote a song. (My own first contact with the case was this song, “Hurricane”, on some record with famous songs by “various artists”, that I bought as a teenager.)
After a great many back-and-forths, his conviction(s) were overturned on technicalities—and he is, to this day, proclaimed as “innocently convicted”, “victim of racism”, etc.
However, there appears to be strong signs that he actually was guilty and, in my understanding, he was never found “not guilty” in court. (And he was certainly guilty of other, lesser crimes, at other times.) Here, there is a considerable chance that his position as a somewhat famous Black man (a lesser precursor to OJ) was the main force behind the (literal or metaphorical) calls of “justice for X”—not actual innocence.
At the same time, this potentially demonstrates an off-topic problem, namely that it is possible to both be guilty and receive an unfair treatment in court—proof of mistreatment is not proof of innocence. (But might, for reasons of e.g. “beyond reasonable doubt” or “due process”, still be enough to legitimately set even the guilty free.) Signs of such mistreatment could, however, certainly have increased the chances that he was seen as innocent and/or that his cause was “taken up” by various and sundry. (But, again, chances are that these were not motivated by, say, a general belief in the importance of due process. Instead, it was a matter of a somewhat famous Black man being on the receiving end—be it regardless of guilt or in the naive belief that he was innocent because he was a Black man accused by a White establishment.)
While too specific to make a general entry:
A repeated annoyance in the war between Israel and various terrorist groups is the abuse of the word “martyr”. (Mostly, but not exclusively, by the latter.) An example of a martyr is someone who sticks to a particular religious position even when faced with death as a consequence. A random civilian who is accidentally hit by a bullet intended for someone else is not a martyr. Such an event is a tragedy and words like “victim” might apply—but not “martyr”. Likewise, a soldier killed while fighting other soldiers will not normally be a martyr—just a casualty. Even someone strongly religious who is killed by accident by an enemy is not a martyr (even should the war have a religious aspect). Etc.
I do not attempt to draw exact borders, e.g. whether the position has to be religious or whether it might also be political/ideological and whether outright death (as opposed to, say, permanent disfigurement) is necessary. The above cases, however, are clear.
An interesting question is when the above “normally” is exceeded for a soldier. It might e.g. be that someone who engages in a suicide mission can deserve a “martyr”. (But note the difference between a legitimate military suicide mission, say, to take out an important military target, and a terrorist suicide bombing, aimed at killing innocent civilians.)
The self-chosen labels “pro-life” and “pro-choice”, and their derivatives, show at least three problems of a different character than the examples in the main text:
Firstly, they are too similar in appearance, making it easy to use (hear) the one and intend (understand) the other. Indeed, the trigger for this excursion is the discovery of an own mistake of this type—I put “pro-choice” where I had intended “pro-life”.
Secondly (and more importantly), they are too detached from the core of their meanings:
The lesser evil is “pro-life”, as the pro-lifers almost invariably are motivated by exactly a wish for (human) life, the belief that it is (literally or metaphorically) holy, etc., and as this attitude is usually held through a wide set of opinions in different settings, e.g. a pacifist attitude to military conflicts. Even here, however, the core implication is limited to such a small scope that the term is over-broad—and it is certainly possible, if likely rare, to combine strongly negative feelings on abortion with positive feelings on military interventionism or the death penalty.
For “pro-choice”, however, little excuse can be found. Firstly, the abortion issue has little to do with choice, and what the pro-choicers want is usually something radically different, namely to give women a one-sided right. This while excluding choice and influence by others, including both the father and the foetus. Moreover, a “pro-choice” in other areas is often absent. For instance, very many pro-choicers are in favor of mandatory health-insurance schemes and, more generally, a loss of choice for the individual in favor of “nanny government”. The term is so misleading that I, were I to hear it for the first time without knowing the background, might have taken it to imply something in the Libertarian and/or non-nanny government direction—but these are manifestly not opinions that dominate among pro-lifers.
Yes, we can discuss whether a foetus should have a choice in the matter. (Possibly, substituting the likely will of the adult that it, sans abortion, might have grown into.)
That, however, is a portion of the issue that actually should be discussed, and which the pro-lifers almost invariably refuse to discuss: When on the road from conception to adulthood do we acquire the status of human beings, when are we awarded human rights, etc. Many Christians, e.g., see the conception as the “when”; historically, “quickening” and “viability” have been common choices. A pro-choicer who is actually serious about the issue should pick a “when” based on rational criteria and then argue based on those criteria. Instead, we get such nonsense as “my body, my choice”, which utterly misses the point—up to and including that it is actually the body of the foetus that is at stake.
Thirdly, they are very vague in their meanings, because of the complications of “when” in the above side-note. At an extreme, we might have two persons who both see abortion as acceptable up to point X (but not beyond), where the one identifies as “pro-life”, because he sees human life as beginning at X, and the other as “pro-choice”, because X might give women a great degree of latitude for “elective” abortions. (Similar complications include a loss of nuance, e.g. concerning attitude towards abortion in case of rape and medical emergencies. Indeed, a common issue is that pro-lifers are misrepresented as uniformly having an “absolutely no abortions under any circumstances” attitude, which actually appears to apply to only a small minority.)
The word “predictable” is an interesting illustration of another problem family: the word, it self, is usually understood and used sufficiently uniformly, but I have seen quite a few Leftist uses where it is abused for a particular line of misleading rhetoric. (Specifically, one of the lines that aim at avoiding an actual discussion of the underlying topic. See side-note for another example.)
For instance, some while back, I read a complaint over (very legitimate) protests against one of BBC’s many woke casting disasters, where a great number of characters had been cast with various minorities in an anachronistic manner and/or one that was contrary to an underlying book. (Which work this might have been, I do not remember—the number of works afflicted is simply too large.) The more-or-less only “argument” in this complaint? The protesters would be “predictable”. The apparent implication? Because the protesters were “predictable”, the protesters had no case.
The point here is not whether such woke casting is justified but the unwillingness to actually provide arguments that go beyond cheap rhetoric and sloganeering.
Looking at the underlying issue, however, I would not necessarily object if individual anachronistic casting choices were made for a good reason, e.g. because some Black actor impressed the most among the actors interested in the part and the choice was not ridiculously contrafactual (say, casting Queen Victoria with a Black woman or, worse, Black man).
The problem here is that the woke casting takes place on a massive scale, for political or ideological reasons, and with no regard for the resulting quality (even e.g. anachronistic choices aside). Acting ability matters, as do fitness for the role at hand, and by pushing e.g. a must-be-Black casting, the pool of candidates is shrunk to the point that the work suffers relative a better casting.
Additional arguments can be raised concerning how an incorrect worldview can be created among viewers. This is generally a problem with fiction, but the results in other areas are rarely very dire. With woke castings, however, we might have results like viewers assuming a different presence of non-Whites in the past, which leads to wrong conclusions about history or the now. At an extreme, some survey in the U.S. showed that many thought that around half (!) the population was Black—in part, because of on-screen over-representation of Blacks. In a next step, this can give ammunition to distorting rhetoric about alleged “under-representation”, “discrimination”, and similar.
Yet another angle is fairness: Being an actor, outside a highly successful (numeric) minority, is hard enough. Now imagine that talent and hard work takes second place to skin color—on top of all the other obstacles.
Then we have issues like faithfulness to an original work and respect for its author, and similar complications—the lack of which is a problem ranging well beyond matters of woke casting.
But what should be done instead?!? Should we not protest against the recurrence of a problem because we have protested against it before?!? There might come a time when protests cease, true, because no-one can be bothered to protest for the umpteenth time against a problem that lives on despite the umpteen-minus-one earlier protests. That, however, does not make the protest less justified, nor is it a sign that the problem has gone away. It is certainly not a justification of whatever Leftist nonsense was behind the problem or an acknowledgment that the problem never was a problem.
Likewise, if someone walks up and down the street and, without provocation, punches random others in the nose, it is perfectly predictable (and entirely justified!) that he sees violence returned. No, not everyone will return it, but enough will, maybe including many who might only have witnessed an unprovoked punch. That the reaction/consequence is predictable does not make it any less justified. Similarly, he has no right to demand a release from police custody, merely because the custody was predictable.
Or turn the matter around: What, e.g., if someone were to reject woke casting by the BBC because it is predictable? (And predictable it is.) Or what if the many, many repeated Leftist protests on various topics were rejected because they were predictable? (Indeed, the Left can to some degree be seen as a meta-movement of systematic, and usually unfounded, protests against anything between heaven and earth.)
Another example of similar “argumentation” is to simply use some variation of “the same old tired argument—again!”. (Something that I have seen quite often with Feminists.) Well, the argument might be old, but it is not therefore tired. More importantly, to those who bother to check facts and think matters through, it might actually be devastating to the Leftist position. (It often is, which might be why the Left wants to avoid its use, but each argument must, of course, be judged on its individual merits.)
What then are we to do?!? Refrain from raising a strong argument, because it has already been used in the past? Because the Left has no good answer to it?
A particularly perfidious variation is to raise the audacious claim that this-or-that argument would have been debunked ad nauseam (and here some anti-Feminist drags it up—again!). Well, if the claim about the debunking was true, this might be a valid approach, but it never has been, in the cases where I have seen this variation. So, instead of actually giving a counter-argument, the Feminists pretend that they would have given something a thorough debunking, they refuse to present the counter-arguments because of the “again” (in reality, no counter-arguments of note exist), they fail to link to a prior debunking (in reality, none exists), etc.
There are quite a few words that should or could be used but which are not, for spurious reasons, and/or are suggested as “do not use” by those with an agenda or a lack of insight. These often come with very poor replacement suggestions. Note e.g. my discussion of “illegal immigrant” vs. the highly misleading “undocumented immigrant” on my various page.
An interesting twist is that such cases that occur outside politics often still have a more-or-less political motivation. (In some cases, to the point that it is hard to tell what is a “political” resp. “non-political” use.) Note e.g. the many PC terms that do more harm than good to language—sometimes even resulting in euphemism treadmills. For example, a housewife is not a homemaker. For example, what is the point of declaring words like “retard” to be offensive, when they (a) originally were chosen to be value-neutral, (b) the replacement will be seen as offensive by the same complainers a few years down the line, (c) this repeats again and again?
A particularly interesting case is “Indian” (red, not dot):
Firstly: A legitimate reason to avoid “Indian” would be disambiguation, exactly to avoid the red-or-dot confusion. However, those who oppose the use seem to invariably go for “Offensive!!!”, which simply is nonsense. (Note how the alleged reason for a suggested change can tell us much about the underlying motivations of the suggester.)
Secondly, the main suggested alternative “native American” is idiotic and even worse misleading than “Indian”. Donald Trump is a native American, just like I am a native Swede. The obvious choice would have been “aboriginal American”. Indeed, this choice is so obvious that I strongly suspect a truly abusive motivation behind “native American”, namely, to codify superior rights to the land in the very language used. (But I have not investigated the history of the term.)
A secondary, but off-topic, problem is how the use of “America[n]” for “U.S.” complicates matters—the more so as the Canadians have chosen a different way to handle “Indian” and as great classification problems can arise when we look at, say, Peru and Alaska.
(The Canadian “First Nations” is an extremely awkward term, but is not as problematic as “native American”.)
The ambiguity of “Indian” does not exist in e.g. Swedish and German, where words for “red” and “dot” Indians are used that do show the common etymology but differ in shape. For instance, Swedish uses “Indier” for “dot” and “Indian” for “red”. (The reason is likely that the latter was imported from the English language at a comparatively late stage, while the former had taken a different road at an earlier stage.)
In particular when the political and the everyday overlap, there can be a great many tricky judgment calls and problems with drawing borders.
Consider the odd rejection of the word “secretary” as (pseudo-)offensive (“I am not a secretary!!! I am an executive assistant!!!”). This rejection is not only highly irrational (cf. below), but also seems extremely overblown, almost religious, and otherwise odd. In its superficial signs, it would then match many uses pushed by the Left for ideological/political reasons (and a Feminist angle can certainly not be ruled out). However, at the same time, some mixture of stupidity, ignorance, and irrationality would probably suffice to explain this idiocy—and there is no obvious political angle to it.
A sufficient mechanism might e.g. be that some women see how some secretaries performed comparatively low-level tasks (say, taking dictation), that these were usually women working for men, and/or that they had the impression that the profession was female dominated (and, therefore, for some reason, to be viewed negatively). In this, it is somewhat similar to how a word like “retard” has gone from being medical terminology to being viewed as “offensive” in the eyes of more metaphorical retards: the actual meaning and intent of the word is drowned out by the connotations that the word, in due time, developed in the minds of some. A big difference, however, is that “retard” ultimately does refer to something negative (which is how it came to moonlight as a slur), while “secretary”, to non-ignorants, can be a quite positive term.
Positive? Until somewhat recently, being a secretary in the “assistant” sense was often a position of responsibility and confidence. Indeed, etymologically, “secretary” amounts to someone trusted with secrets, while “assistant” amounts to a more generic helper or even someone who is merely present—a potentially far lesser position. Throwing a wider net, Cabinet level positions in some countries are labeled as “secretary” (and this today—not a hundred years ago), the head of the UN is the “secretary general”, etc.
In a comparison between e.g. the erstwhile secretary of an executive and an executive assistant, it is less a matter of the latter carrying more responsibility or being put in charge of tasks that the other was not and more of a modern prejudice about what the former used to do. (Beyond, of course, changes brought on by changing circumstances as time has passed, including technological developments. These, however, are independent of the label used.)
I am uncertain why and how the switch from “secretary” to variations of “assistant” began. It might have been rooted in the increasing presence of women in the workplace (initially, often in comparatively low-level positions, involving tasks like stenography/dictation/typing), which filled many positions labeled “secretary” with women and with this being the career high of many. (And, no, a girl in the typist pool was no more a secretary than a valet is a butler.) At this point, the aforementioned irrational complainers might have begun to see “secretary” as something negative and clamored for a different title, which lead to the change, which increased the irrational feeling of offense when someone spoke of a secretary, etc. (Here, it is also hard to draw the line between the cause and the symptom.)
It might also, however and e.g., have been a case of corporate newspeak, where ever newer and fancier titles and whatnots are invented for no good reason. (Note e.g. that even “executive” is a comparatively new term in this context.)
While “controversy” is not necessarily misused in the manner of some above words, it is in so far problematic that controversy as such is seen as something negative by many, e.g. in that a controversial candidate would, ipso facto, be a poor candidate. (With side-effects like that the replacement of false allegations of divisiveness by even justified claims of controversy, cf. above, would not necessarily improve the situation.)
Such associations, however, are entirely unwarranted. In politics, in particular, it is rare to see a candidate (to stick with that) who simultaneously lacks controversy and has something substantial to offer. This the more so, as the Left often reacts with outright and automatic hatred towards any candidate who tries to undo Leftist agendas by, e.g., furthering free speech or reducing government overreach, or who dares to criticize the Left, expose the flaws in its often deeply flawed ideas, whatnot. (Indeed, often, it is enough to not explicitly support Leftist agendas and narratives.) The result, then, can easily be that any non-Leftist candidate of note is hated by the Left, therefore controversial, therefore seen as poor-because-controversial by many members of the dumb masses.
A candidate who is not controversial is also likely to be the poorer for prioritizing being elected over doing what he sees as the right thing, putting a consensus-for-the-sake-of-consensus over finding the right answer, lacking the courage to take a stand where a stand might matter, and similar. In this, a lack of controversy is more likely to be a negative sign than a positive one.
An overlapping problem is the voters who have an attitude that a consensus that is wrong is better than a disagreement between proponents of what is right resp. wrong. (An attitude that appears to be fairly common among at least women.) This attitude is extraordinarily wrong-headed, but could go some way to explain why there is an association controversial–poor, because these might genuinely see the controversial as bad through violating their flawed ideal of a consensus-for-the-sake-of-consensus. (Possibly, including variations like any-candidate-must-be-liked-by-everyone.)
Also see an above addendum on matters like consensus-for-the-sake-of-consensus in the context of accusations of being tone deaf.
Then there is the issue of e.g. press and propaganda that claims, or deliberately creates, controversy where there is no need for one or that gives a skewed impression of the relative controversy of candidates, for the purpose of tricking unwary voters. Note e.g. how rarely the likes of Harris, Newsom, and Biden, even Soviet-era throwback Mamdani, have been labelled as controversial, despite, with great justification, being viewed extremely negatively by so many Republicans. Indeed, Mamdani is viewed extremely negatively even by many more moderate Democrats, while Harris was, at best, viewed with skepticism by many Democrats who did not subscribe to the fiction that being a Black woman would be a qualification in its own right.
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