Orwellian DoubleSpeak is alive and well, and it is pouring forth from the radical militants and social utopians who are working madly to destroy society as we know it and to replace it with something made in their own distorted image. They delight in manipulating language, changing definitions, and using euphemisms to carry out their agendas.
There is a good reason for all this: they know full well that social engineering is always preceded by verbal engineering. To change a culture you must first change the language. Take longstanding terms, gut them of their traditional meaning, and infuse them with the particular agenda you are trying to push.
It works quite well. In theological circles for example this has proven to be a winning strategy. The theological liberals will take biblical and theological terms and strip them of their historical content, and replace them with their own twisted meaning.
As J Gresham Machen wrote in his 1923 classic, Christianity and Liberalism, they have so diluted and distorted biblical terminology that the message they preach is an entirely different gospel. Indeed, it is no longer Christianity at all: “Despite the liberal use of traditional phraseology modern liberalism not only is a different religion from Christianity but belongs in a totally different class of religions.”
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So too in today’s culture wars. The lefties and liberals are simply changing language, and making things up as they go along. We all know how the homosexual lobby for example expropriated the word “gay” and totally denuded it of its original meaning, rendering it null and void.
They are doing that with all sorts of other words and ideas. Their attempt to claim marriage as their own is nothing other than the complete demolition of the very term and the very institution. They turn traditional understanding on their head as they seek to achieve their revolutionary aims.
Indeed, they have become experts in calling black white, and white black. They excel in turning day into night and night into day. They do, in fact, just what the prophet Isaiah warned about millennia ago; “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”
In this regard, one on-side gal on a social media site posted a clever little introductory primer on how to interpret the activists’ doublespeak. It is a great start and much more could be added to this, the loony left’s lexicon. Here is what she wrote:
-Tolerance = Embracing everyone’s views except Christianity
-Free speech = The expression of any opinion as long as it is not Christian.
-Bigot = A Christian.
-Bigotry = Any belief from the Bible.
-Homophobe = Anyone who champions traditional marriage. Especially a Christian.
-Hate = Opposing non-biblical opinions and actions. Even when done in love is still hate. Apparently.
-Civil rights = Getting whatever feels good legalised despite moral repercussions.
Quite right; a brilliant start to a great project worth developing on. BTW, she told me this came to her while she was vacuuming the floors. Ya gotta like a gal like this: she packs a sharp mind with a clean home – a great combo in my books.
Other folks have written along similar lines. John Hawkins recently wrote about “10 Concepts Liberals Talk About Incessantly But Don’t Understand”. He too dissects the verbal engineering and language games being played by the secular lefties. Let me offer some of his ten points:
1) Being Open Minded: To a liberal, this has nothing at all to do with seriously considering other people’s ideas. To the contrary, liberals define being “open-minded” as agreeing with them. What could be more close-minded than assuming that not only are you right, but that you don’t even need to consider another viewpoint because anyone who disagrees must be evil?
2) Racism: Liberals start with the presumption that only white people who don’t belong to the Democratic Party can be racist. So, for example, even if Jeremiah Wright can make it clear that he hates white people because of their skin color or if liberals take an explicitly racist political position, like suggesting that black people are too stupid and incompetent to get identification to vote, they can’t be racist. White Republicans, on the other hand, are generally assumed to be racist by default, no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary.
4) Greed: To a liberal, believing that you pay too much in taxes or even opposing paying more in taxes is greedy. In actuality, wanting to loot as much money as possible that someone else has earned to use for your own purposes, which is what liberals do, is a much better example of greed.
5) Hate: Liberals often define simple disagreement with them on issues like gay marriage, tax rates, or abortion as hatred. No matter how well a position is explained, or the logical underpinnings behind it, it’s chalked up to hate. Meanwhile, the angriest, most vicious, most hateful people in all of politics are liberals railing against what they say is “hatred.” This irony is completely lost on the Left.
9) Tolerance: In a free, open, and pluralistic society, there are all sorts of behaviors that we may have to tolerate, even though we don’t approve of those activities. Liberals don’t get this distinction. For one thing, they don’t understand the difference between tolerance and acceptance. They also don’t extend any of the tolerance they’re agitating for to people who disagree with them. Liberals silence people who disagree with them at every opportunity which is, dare we say it, an extremely intolerant way to behave.
10) Diversity: What liberals mean by “diversity” is that they want a broad range of people from different races, colors, and creeds who have identical political views. A black or Hispanic conservative doesn’t contribute to “diversity” in liberal eyes because he actually has diverse views. Incredible role models for women like Sarah Palin can’t be feminists to liberals because she doesn’t share the same liberal beliefs as sexist pigs like Anthony Weiner and Bill Maher. How can you have any meaningful “diversity” when everyone has to think the same way?
Someone could make a lot of money writing the first lefty lexicon. There would be plenty of terms and concepts to fill such a book. I have offered a few examples here. Feel free to add your own. The sky is the limit when it comes to the activists and their mangling of language and deconstruction of ideas.
http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2012/07/31/10_concepts_liberals_talk_about_incessantly_but_dont_understand
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