I have written a few times for Twitchy about how the left distorts language. Most recently, in the case of a school district in Michigan that wasn't to eliminate the words 'boy' and 'girl.' I hope Twitchy readers will not consider me to be a broken record to talk about it again so soon, but for me, it is just that important.
A parallel I have used in the past is from J.R.R. Tolkien, where he described how Morgoth created Orcs after viewing the Elves and wanting to make a twisted and hate-filled mockery of them. (This is only one possible origin that Tolkien never definitively settled before his death, but I will stop there in indulging my nerd obsession with Tolkien's legendarium.)
A shorter analogy would simply be to call it what it is: cultural Marxism. George Orwell knew it, Thomas Sowell knew it, as well as many others. It is as simple as this: Marxism seeks control. And there is no better way to control a society than to control its language.
The bonus for Marxists is how beloved language and words are by many people, including me. Whenever Marxism can destroy something beautiful, it will. It is meant to demoralize us, thus further cementing the Marxists' control.
Just a few days ago, one of Twitchy's favorite Twitter accounts, Wokal Distance, provided a huge thread demonstrating how language is being manipulated and destroyed to give the left more power. So, instead of reading me ramble on for another VIP article, today, I thought we could do a demonstration, courtesy of Wokal Distance's receipts.
1/
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) May 30, 2024
Dictionaries/wikipedia altering definitions and articles so leftists can win arguments
A Thread🧵
In 7 days since the Alito flag story broke the wikipedia entry for the Pine Tree flag was edited 206 times (pic 1)
In the 8 months prior the article was edited 22 times (pic 2) pic.twitter.com/x8iQGB6f5t
We all know how bogus the charges are about Justice Samuel Alito's 'Appeal to Heaven' flag, but just look. More than TWO HUNDRED edits in Wikipedia in a week, all designed to create a scandal where none exists.
This is nothing new for Wikipedia, which is little more than leftist propaganda.
2/@Cernovich gives us another fine example here. Wikipedia redefining "recession" to help Democrats out, and then locking the page to make it more difficult to fix👇https://t.co/rWZ5CoEUxE
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) May 30, 2024
See the little note above the changed definition? How, exactly is the long-recognized definition of a word 'affected by a current event'? Wikipedia will never answer that. And in refusing to explain, they reveal everything.
But it's not just Wikipedia.
3/
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) May 30, 2024
When Republicans nominated Amy Coney-Barret for the Supreme court the left changed the meaning of "court-packing" and dictionary .com went along with it. in order to try to make republicans look bad pic.twitter.com/teJbBk2dvZ
4/
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) May 30, 2024
Speaking of Amy Coney-Barret...
When Amy Coney-Barret used the term "preference" while discussing sexual orientation the left pretended that "preference" was offensive, and Merriam-Webster changed the definition in order to make that lie stick👇 pic.twitter.com/U53JqLJNwF
'Preference' is not an offensive word by the left's ever-changing rules. They REALLY hate conservative justices. Because the Supreme Court is one of the few institutions they don't have a stranglehold over.
One of the most famous attempts to mutilate language came from the gender cult (surprise, surprise) which caused another dictionary to infamously alter the definitions of man and woman (as well as girl and boy).
5/
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) May 30, 2024
The transgender activists got merriam-webster the change the definition of the word "female" to include "gender identity" (pic 1) when that was nowhere to found as recently as 2019 (pic 2) pic.twitter.com/AYAM6HR8Os
6/
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) May 30, 2024
Of course changing the meaning of the word "female" in order to help trans activists also means changing the meaning of the word "girl" to help trans activists
(H/T@libsoftiktok) pic.twitter.com/IhaChqyYnb
7/
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) May 30, 2024
And of course changing the meaning of the word "girl" to try to make the left look correct...means changing the meaning of the word "boy" to try to make the left look correct👇 pic.twitter.com/7FWi2r53Ds
Of course, Wikipedia or dictionaries couldn't get away with any of this without the leftist media cheering them on.
8/
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) May 30, 2024
We also find "vox" celebrating the fact Merriam-Webster changed the definition of racism to include purely "systemic oppression."
The left wanted to redefine the word "racism" according to woke ideology so they did, got the dictionary to play along, and the media celebrated… pic.twitter.com/T0Qmj6gkSg
Ahh, racism. They HAVE to redefine that or everything they build their house of cards on collapses in on itself.
Twitchy's own Chad Felix Green has also pointed this out with the changing meaning of the word 'bigot.'
8/ A long time ago @chadfelixg pointed out that google changed the definition of the word bigot in order to go along with leftist ideology: pic.twitter.com/JCQ6J0UqEz
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) May 30, 2024
That is pure insanity, defining someone as a bigot simply because of differing opinions, with no further context needed.
The Ministry of Truth wasn't even this sinister.
And speaking of cultural Marxism, not surprisingly, the left doesn't like that term one bit.
9/
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) May 30, 2024
The left did not like us pointing out their use of "cultural marxism" (a term found in academic literature to refer to marxist cultural analysis) so they changed the meaning of that word to be an anti-semitic conspiracy theory... and wikipedia went along with it.👇 pic.twitter.com/T02PQGxlfF
That screenshot is a little difficult to read, but the top half shows how Wikipedia recognized its long-established use in political discussion. The bottom, modified half now leads off by saying that cultural Marxism is a 'far-right conspiracy theory.'
10/
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) May 30, 2024
The left did not like non-white voting for Trump...so they changed the definition of "whiteness" to include black, brown, and hispanic people. The dictionary didn't go along with this...but the washington post sure did. pic.twitter.com/UXCTd3FRgb
'Multiracial whiteness.' Read those two words a couple more times. They'll make you laugh, but they are also terrifying.
After showing all of these receipts, Wokal Distance went on to explain the implications. This part goes on at length, so I won't include every tweet, but there are some important thoughts to capture here.
11/ What you are seeing in all these cases is an example of narrative warfare. Specifically, it is a form of discursive/dialectical warfare that seeks to try to win a social and political conflict by altering, changing, and shaping the meaning of the terms and concepts in play...
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) May 30, 2024
14/
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) May 30, 2024
Te way this works is that by endlessly changing, theorizing, and engineering discourse, they can endlessly reinterpret and redefine all of the ideas and concepts in play.
And if you can control the meaning of all the terms and concepts in play, you can control the debate.
Control the discourse. There it is.
16/
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) May 30, 2024
Woke activists are attempting to use their control over the institutions that make a record of the meaning of terms and concepts in play, (that is the dictionaries and public encyclopedias) in order to be able to define all the terms according to woke ideology.
Definitions of words should be aimed at truth. Woke does not care about truth, only ideology. And everything must comport to that ideology.
The thread provides an object lesson from Chloe Cole.
18/
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) May 30, 2024
Very few people on the conservative side understand the degree to which the language matters. @ChoooCole understands, and that is why she reframed the detransition debate so that she is a *Girl* (harmed by gender ideology) and not a "detransitioner"https://t.co/evhZ9ybW9V
Chloe Cole is one of the bravest people on the planet. And she is exactly right. She is not a 'detransitioner' (another term that the left seeks to demonize and twist to their political ends), she is a girl.
Not because she says so, but because TRUTH says so.
20/
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) May 30, 2024
To focus on the fact she's a *girl* who was *harmed * by *gender ideology*
In doing this she makes sure woke activists can't normalize what happened to her by making "detransition" an new identity on a "gender journey" that includes "gender affirming care"
See how it works?
It is insidious. Kudos to Cole for not giving the gender cult an INCH on language.
21/
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) May 30, 2024
The battle over meaning and language is no small matter. If one group can unilaterally and arbitrarily define the meaning of the words and the terms of the debate, then that group can control the entire narrative for all of society and get whatever they want.
23/
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) May 30, 2024
You have to understand the game that is being played here in order to stop it. The woke redefinitions and reframes only work if they can get everyone to accept the legitimacy of their redefinitions and reframes, so you can't let them go unchallenged when they redefine terms.
Understanding the game is the first step in fighting back.
25/
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) May 30, 2024
You can't let woke activists control the discourse, you have to fight back and contest the meaning of the terms in play and rules of debate. If woke activists will beat you at the language game, they can linguistically rig the debate so that they win.
Don't let them.
/fin
It is a critical battle.
And we can't let the obviousness of many of these manipulations fool us into thinking they aren't effective. They are. And no one understands that better than another Twitchy favorite, Jesse Kelly:
Mock this vile communist all you want, but he understands the power of language and repetition in a way the Right does not.
— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) May 31, 2024
Half the Right now calls illegals “migrants.”
Language matters. The communists understand that. We do not. https://t.co/0TIfyBRvdA
People flooding the southern U.S. border right now are not 'migrants.' Don't let even conservative media get away with calling them that. Everything they do from the moment they step over the border is illegal.
People, even on the right, want to be nice. So we're tempted to go along with softer terminology.
But make no mistake: the left does not introduce those 'softer' terms because they are being nice. They do it because it helps them control the discourse and, eventually, control everything and everyone.
As Wokal Distance said, we can't let them.
