TrueSpeak Institute
Jim Guirard, President
1129 Cameron Road
Alexandria, Virginia 22308
703-768-0957 Justcauses@aol.com
THE POWER OF WORDS
Confucius: When asked -- 2400 years ago -- what would be his first action if he were put in charge of the government of China, the great philosopher replied:
It would certainly be to correct language. If language is not correct then what is said is not what is meant. If what is said is not what is meant, then what ought to be done remains undone. If this remains undone, then morals and acts deteriorate. If morals and acts deteriorate, justice will go astray. If justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence, there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters above everything.
Thucydides: Commenting -- also some 2400 years ago -- on rampant language distortion by all sides during the Peleponnesian Wars :
The ordinary acceptation of words in their relation to things were changed as men thought fit.
Benjamin Disraeli : Referring to the governance of both Great Britain and the worldwide British Empire, the great British parliamentarian said:
Few ideas are correct ones, and none can ascertain which they are. It is with words we govern men.
Prof. Robert Tucker : According to political historian and renowned biographer Robert Tucker, Soviet dictator Josep Stalin (real name Josep Zhugashvili) believed that
Of all monopolies enjoyed by the state, none would be so crucial as its monopoly on the definition of words. The ultimate weapon of political control would be the dictionary.
(TrueSpeak Comment: Let Stalin choose the words by which you think and Stalin will tell you what to think -- or not to think. And let bin Laden choose for us the self-canonizing language of "Jihadi martyrdom," and he will have us polishing his "holy guy" halo and conceding that we are, indeed, the "Great Satan" he so falsely says that we are.)
Ludwig Wittgenstein : The great Austrian philosopher and linguist in his famous work Philosophical Investigations recalled a situation earlier in his life with regard to the enormous and lasting power of habit-of-language:
A picture held us captive, and we could not get outside of it. For it lay in our language, and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably.
V. I. Lenin : Although he was a dialectical materialist, a militant atheist, Vladimir Lenin (real name V.I. Ulyanov) recognized the great appeal of religion and of spiritual values to most human beings. At opportune times, he cynically engaged in the pseudo-religious game which is implicit in the following quote:
We will find our greatest success to the extent that we can inculcate Marxism [substitute "bin Ladenism"] as a kind of religion. Religious men and women are easy to convert, and will easily accept our thinking if we wrap it up in a kind of religious terminology.
(Osama bin Laden of al Qaeda infamy follows in Lenin's steps via his own deceitful language of so-called "Jihadi Martyrdom" -- Jihad (Holy War) by mujahideen (holy warriors) and shahideen (martyrs) no their way to Jennah (Paradise) as a proper reward for killing all of us kuffr (infidels).
Joseph Goebbels : "____________________________"
George Orwell : "______________________________________"
Mark Twain : "______________________________________"
Mikhail Gorbachev : As the distinguished historian and biographer Robert Tucker has said of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's attitude toward dictionaries, "Of all monopolies enjoyed by the State, none should be so crucial as its monopoly on the definition of words. The ultimate weapon of political control would be the dictionary."
The worrisome relevance of Professor Tucker's observation can be found in the fact that in the mid-1980s the Soviet Empire's last dictator, Mikhail Gorbachev, cynically published — under the Oxford English Dictionary label, no less! -- a new dictionary which (among many other distortions) contains the following patently false definitions:
- Socialism -- "a social and economic system which is replacing capitalism."
- Capitalism -- "the system replacing feudalism and preceding communism."
- Communism -- "the revolutionary replacement of capitalism."
- Imperialism -- "the highest and last stage of capitalism."
- Fascism -- "the bourgeois movement and regime, typical of the era of imperialism."
As Professor Tucker might well ask: "George Orwell! Where are you when we need you?"
US Advisory Comm. on Public Diplomacy: "________________________________"
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan: Working in collaboration with Reagan Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy, Dr. Fred Charles Ikle, the late US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan defined the serious Cold War problem of "semantic infiltration" as follows:
Simply put, semantic infiltration is the process whereby we come to adopt the language of our adversaries in describing political reality. The most brutal totalitarian regimes in the world call themselves ‘liberation movements.' It is perfectly predictable that they should misuse words to conceal their real nature. But must we aid them in that effort by repeating those words? Worse, do we begin to influence our own perceptions by using them?
Jim Guirard -- TrueSpeak Institute 703-768-0957 Justcauses@aol.com
Jim Guirard is a DC-area lawyer, lecturer and anti-terrorism strategist.. He served for many years as Chief-of-Staff to U.S. Senators Allen Ellender and Russell Long. His new TrueSpeak Institute is devoted to truth-in-language and truth-in-history in public discourse.