From the Brussels Journal:
He who controls the way people talk controls the way they think. Hence, it is no surprise that the EUSSR is actively trying to manipulate our language. Last February, The Daily Telegraph reported that Franco Frattini, the EU Commissioner for Justice, Freedom, and Security, declared he was in favour of some kind of self-regulatory media code in reporting about Islam. Now the EU officials are “discreetly reviewing the language it uses to describe terrorists who claim to act in the name of Islam. EU officials are working on what they call a ‘lexicon’ for public communication on terrorism and Islam, designed to make clear that there is nothing in the religion to justify outrages like the Sept. 11 attacks or the bombings of Madrid and London. The lexicon would set down guidelines for EU officials and politicians.â€Â
The term “Islamic terrorism†will no longer be used. Nor will words such as “Islamist,†“fundamentalist†and “jihad.†The latter, for example, is often used by Islamic terrorists to mean warfare against infidels, but according to an EU official “for a Muslim Jihad is a perfectly positive concept of trying to fight evil within yourself.â€Â
The EU civil servants drafting the lexicon claim it will be a “non-emotive lexicon for discussing radicalisation.†The lexicon will be submitted to the 25 EU leaders in June. An EU official said the point of using careful language was not to “fall into the trap†of offending and alienating citizens. “This is an attempt […] to be aware of the sensitivities implied by the use of certain language.â€Â
Apparently these well-paid EU civil servants have nothing better to do than to put George Orwell’s 1984 into practice. Hence, in order not to alienate young Muslims the term “Islamic terrorism†is to be replaced by “terrorism abusing Islam.†The EU will have to invent a European “newspeak,†which we had better call not a lexicon but the EU’s “B vocabulary.†As Orwell wrote:
The B vocabulary consisted of words which had been deliberately constructed for political purposes: words, that is to say, which not only had in every case a political implication, but were intended to impose a desirable mental attitude upon the person using them.
Once again, we see the consequences of allowing language to be controlled by the receivers and not the utterers: because EU officials fear that Muslims may take offense to certain words and phrases, they are actively working on reforming the language to prevent giving said offense. This new “lexicon”—being developed ostensibly under the aegis of “tolerance”—is nothing short of a capitulation to the demands of an enemy that the bureaucrats who run the EU so greatly fear.
That this special Muslim speech code is being drafted by those whose political ideology had them, under different circumstances, protesting military euphemisms during the Vietnam and Cold Wars, adds yet another layer of irony to the surrender cake.
This tack, of course, is exactly the wrong one—and will simply embolden the Islamists vying for official control of the Muslim identity narrative into making additonal demands.
Instead, what the EU (and our own media, who—amazingly and dangerously—has begun to follow the EU’s lead) needs to do is to retake control of language. Because it is language, particularly the philosophical beliefs we hold about how language works, that creates the conditions for the kind of Orwellian situation now developing in the Europe (and may soon be coming to a newspaper near you).
We control words. They should not control us. And when words are controlled by our intent, those who take issue with their own particular misinterpretations of our intent can no longer claim that the fault lies with the utterer—the practical implications of which are that we no longer have to twist ourselves into knots trying to prevent giving offense by self-censoring our criticisms.
This puts the onus of “tolerance” on the listener, who is forced to accept valid criticism as a product of free expression. No one has a right not to be offended. And in fact, in our country, the First Amendment is meant to protect the right to offend, within reason.
By reasserting the locus of meaning linguistically and philosophically with the person responsible for formulating the meaning, we can begin to reassert the essential tenets of classical liberalism, which resist collectivism and wills to power by re-establishing the individual as the focus of liberty.
Going in the other direction—which we’ve been doing for the last nearly 40 years—only leads to the kind of totalitarianism that favors those who wish to control us through a control of our expression.
***
(h/t Kirk)
Jeff, your thinking is Double-plus ungood. Please report to the nearest Ministry of Love branch office for correction immediatly.
Excellent post.
But, if you criticise the Gospel of Judas Trvth, you are not making valid criticism. You are instead a RACIST!
TW: Gnosticism…it ain’t just for Christ-folk, baby.
There is an activist in SoCal who has been assserting that the term “illegal alien” is an offensive term on a par with words like nigger, kike,wop and spic. He even asserted this on Lou Dobbs’ show this week.
If you allow your opponent to defend the vocabulary of the debate, you’re already half to losing.
I’m no linguist or semanticist, but long ago, before universities adopted speech codes, I believed that political correctness was the greatest danger US society faced in the long run. I believed then that the language usage that political correctness required was designed to prevent the open exchange of ideas and to channel thinking along “approved” lines. Now I see what I was concerned about coming true.
Disgusting!
Would it be terribly uncouth to enquire why these busy beavers aren’t directing their energy to, say, getting rid of terrorism? That way they wouldn’t have to talk about it at all.
It’s not that I can’t think for myself, it’s just that I happen to agree with Jeff 99% of the time and he puts words together so much better than I can.
Thank you Jeff.
That’s what the university DOES…it seeks to lift the conditions of systematic oppression and racism so inherent in the bourguosie Capitalism so that the benefits of social justice and nonimperialist narratives can fully bloom.
One day, when white male racists have been brought to heel, we shall be truly free of terrorism, including capitalist terror leaders.
Zut alors, ‘oo authorized you to print zis?
All these people remind me of Olive Oyl’s father: “You owe me an apology!” Someday, at this rate, we’ll have to apologize just for being alive.
I should hope that most of the EU members, who are none too happy with their Muslim populations right now and have taken a harder line on terrorism, will tell Sr. Frattini and his lexicon drafting civil servants where to stuff their self-regulatory media code.
Vercingetorix –
And your ideas have worked sooooooo well every place they’ve been tried: the USSR, Eastern Europe, China, Massachusetts, et. al.; I mean, these societies are models of social justice, diversity of thought, wealth production (and wealth sharing with citizen producers), free thought, free expression, …
BeReal,
I urge you to look back through the archives for Vercingetorix’s posts. You also might check one or more on-line dictionaries for the word “irony”.
Regards,
Ric
Ric – Aren’t I the fool… I’m new to this site and should have learned the players. THX
The phrase “suicide bomb vest” shall be replaced with “spiritual multi-virgin instantiation device.”
Turing = from, as in The last civilized newsgroup in usenet, alt.quotations, is where those are from.
And welcome BeReal, but yeah. When you cruise the threads at Chez Goldstein, you’ve gotta enable your sarcasm settings.
No. That makes no sense. No one adopts the linguistic strictures of his enemy unironically.
His or her, I mean. Of course.
Just change the actors here to any two truly opposed factions and see if it makes any sense.
The Foucault Tribunal on the State of Psychiatry concluded its mock human-rights prosecution of psychoanalysis today. The Tribunal issued a statement, jointly drafted with The Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute, denouncing the language of antipsychiatry as “cathected” and “Oedipal.”
Please.
That’s two absolute bombs off JJ. If Lieber can settle down, it might a long night for the Rocks. Of course, there’s always the bullpen to give it away.
BeReal, Jeff doesn’t mind OT baseball comments, especially if they’re about the Rockies. Losers. Kidding, Jeff. I kid because I love. They will have to reckoned with this year, that’s a potent lineup. They’re no Phillies, but…..
Spamword, “six,” as in, “You’d better score at least six runs…..”
Fucking bullpen.
Hmmm.
If you own property in Eurabia, sell it now.
sw: EUSSR, the charge of the idiot brigade.
Related
Unfortunately, the only way we stop this is not necessarily by being insulting but by refusing to allow others to take insult where none was given.
Three word response to those that suddenly take the vapors upon hearing the politically incorrect word or phrase
Oh grow up.
’There are some people one would wish to offend.’ â€â€
W. Churchill, G. Carleton-Green, John Cleese (take your pick)
OT:
STOP THE PRESSES!!
Oh wait, Fox News doesn’t have presses.
I don’t doubt they’ll go batshit anyway over this.
Surrender cake? Hummmmmm, I’ll have an extra slice please.
“Ric – Aren’t I the fool… I’m new to this site and should have learned the players. THX “
Yeah, but you’ve definitely got the right attitude.
Spend some time getting familiar with the regulars. Not only are they brighter than the average bear, most of them are VERY funny.
The first thing I thought when I read this was: Um, hello? This is totally wrong.
In Understanding Jihad by Dr. David Cook (of Rice University) it is shown how this claim of jihad being an internal spiritual fight is a modern invention that has no basis whatsoever in Islam’s sources. (And Dr. Cook knows of what he writes: He has extensively studied Islam’s source documents and other documents thereof in the original Arabic. Very smart and talented man indeed.)
So, the Language Comissars of EUSSR are factually incorrect. Not that Muslims are going to mind it all that much this time. However, like the USSR, I’m sure factual veracity is not their top priority.
Such an effort to police language is abominable in my eyes. It is capitulation to Islamism.
As usual, excellent post, Jeff.
ANIMALIST
Not to offend any dead (or should I say “metabolically challenged”?) people reading this, but clearly the EUro-weasels are whistling past their own graveyard…
This is a time-honored European response: feed the crocodile, hoping it eats you last.
We may laugh now, but if like-minded people are elected in this country, it could just as easily happen here – and of course it’s already happening in the MSM.
This would be a great time to wish everyone a very Happy Eas…….
Uh…
To all, a very joyous Passo…….
To those engaged in “ultra-strenuous disagreement”, a wish for the season:
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun always be on your face.
May a roadblock rise up to greet you, and cause you to detonate before reaching your intended target.
HALLIBURTON!
We are already seeing inroads along these lines being built by the social engineers who populate the cadres in our universities and they are being aided by the likes of Comedy Central and Borders.
Goodness, Goldstein! Your blog–your use of words–is almost as politically incorrect as my own! The EU Thought Police will be breaking your door down any minute. I am typing these words from an EU Thought Police concentration camp at this moment. (they allow us one blog entry only–most people use it to alert their attorney)
That’s why I’m so glad I live in [REDACTED]! Where I can say any [EXPLETIVE DELETED] thing I feel! Because no [EXPETIVE DELETED] [DEDACTED] can tell me what to say. Not in [REDACTED]!
Just plain fuckin frightening.
Orwell was born 50 years too soon. Now is when we really need him. Not that he could get published.
But I bet he’d make a hell of a blogger.
I for one am deeply offended by this imperialist echo chamber oppression.
Did you guys see that? He oppressed me! He’s oppressing me! heh.
KNOCK KNOCK
This is the Euro-thought police!
Everyone slowly remove their hands from the keyboards, stand up and walk single file out of this blog’s comment section! NOW!!
Do not attempt to use irony or sarcasm! We have been innoculated against your words and wrong thought-speech will be severely punished.
Follow your assigned incarceration hostperson to the designated conveyance device for transport back to the Kos’s place.
Can we use littotes and derision, perhaps disdain for your nasty letter, one of no doubt twenty five increasingly-strong worded threats to discuss the steering committee to decide to issue the next ultimatum?
Hmmmm.
Am I a bad person? I frankly enjoy offending people and have personally held to the opinion that a day isn’t a good day until I’ve aggravated, annoyed or really pissed someone off.
sw: it’s a
full of humor for me.
Definitely bad.
Probably racist too.
homophobic too
Don’t forget mysogynistic.
Pissist to boot!
And who ought to be surprised by this?
We are speaking here under an American concept of freedom of speech, but that isn’t the way the law works in Europe. Fascist or Nazi parties can be, and are, banned in many democratic European countries, Muslim girls can be, and are, prohibited from wearing head scarves in France, and some whacko professor, someone we’d simply dismiss as a crackpot here, is serving a three year prison term in Austria for denying the Holocaust.
Of course, we have our own crackpots here, who’d criminalize politically incorrect speech if they could (and have, in fact, imposed speech codes to prohibit offense at some colleges), and they fall under the same general category as the Europeans: more socialist (meaning, in this instance, concerned with society and the group than with individual rights) that we are, less individualistic and libertarian than even our Democrats. If they have a purpose in life, it is to demonstrate to Americans just how valuable it is to have freedom of speech codified in our Constitution.