{"id":84065,"date":"2022-12-13T06:55:58","date_gmt":"2022-12-13T12:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=84065"},"modified":"2022-12-13T06:55:58","modified_gmt":"2022-12-13T12:55:58","slug":"in-which-i-pummel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=84065","title":{"rendered":"In Which I Pummel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n<p>Big Left&#8217;s latest atrocity against the language &#8211; a perversion that looms large in the &#8220;Twitter Files&#8221; story &#8211; is the debasement of the terms &#8220;Attack&#8221; and &#8220;Safety&#8221;. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Elon Musk publicly attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci and Yoel Roth, Twitter\u2019s former head of trust and safety, over the weekend. His jabs may resonate with far-right audiences, but are likely to deter wary advertisers. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/mVsRh6CR5g\">https:\/\/t.co\/mVsRh6CR5g<\/a><\/p>&mdash; The New York Times (@nytimes) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nytimes\/status\/1602332522947510273?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 12, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The &#8220;attack&#8221; was more commonly or germanely known as &#8220;showing evidence of wrongdoing on Fauci and Roth&#8217;s parts&#8221;, of course.   And the fact that Roth was Twitter&#8217;s &#8220;Safety&#8221; czar, with &#8220;safety&#8221; in this case meaning &#8220;insulation from conservative dissent&#8221;, closes the circle on my lede.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the larger point is, Big Left is actively debasing terms that used to have fairly vivid meanings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Attack&#8221;:  Leaving out actual physical assaults, it meant a malicious verbal or written aggression &#8211; not &#8220;building a case for someone&#8217;s malfeasance&#8221;. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Safety&#8221;:  The state of being protected from or preventing harm &#8211; once upon a time.  Now: the existence of an informational echo chamber. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The list goes on:  Fascist, Holocaust, Nazi, Hitler, Man, Woman, Family, and on and on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s not accidental, of course &#8211; controlling language is a key part of controlling society, and removing the redolence in language that harkens to the lessons of the past ensures that any future tyrant can dispense with any foreknowledge of what they are up to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s pretty brilliant, really.  Also evil. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Big Left&#8217;s latest atrocity against the language &#8211; a perversion that looms large in the &#8220;Twitter Files&#8221; story &#8211; is the debasement of the terms &#8220;Attack&#8221; and &#8220;Safety&#8221;. One example: The &#8220;attack&#8221; was more commonly or germanely known as &#8220;showing evidence of wrongdoing on Fauci and Roth&#8217;s parts&#8221;, of course. And the fact that Roth [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[128,426],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-battle-for-the-language","category-orwell-overestimated-democrats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=84065"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84066,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84065\/revisions\/84066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}