Broadcast personal gravely intone the perils of it. Newspapers spill barrels of ink explaining and exploring it. Researchers pour over reams of data seeking to quantify it. Prominent personalities label reports critical of their behavior or policy it. With distressing regularity, individuals file anything that does not fit their personal paradigm or worldview under it. Intellectually flabby thinkers call challenging information it. Many blogs and social-media platforms traffic in it. Politicians of all types relish using and decrying it. Fake News, the scourge of current society, seems to insert itself everywhere. Yet, we frequently either miss or, more likely, choose to ignore one particular format of fake news, misuse of language.
We abuse the English language, ignoring the definitions of words, trying to bend them to our purpose in the hope of inducing someone to embrace our particular thought on a subject. A fine example is the word crisis. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) offers three definitions for crisis; a time of intense difficulty or danger, a time when a difficult or important decision must be made, and the turning point of a disease when an important change takes place, indicating either recovery or death. A crisis is a dangerous turning point, a situation fraught with peril, and a time in which the fundamental order of things may change in unforeseeable ways. Unless a situation or circumstance entails grave peril or danger to label it a crisis is inappropriate and ignores the proper definition of a crisis. Yet, we see men and women in positions of responsibility regularly do this to strengthen their position.
They seek to rally people behind their position, even if it is one of dubious import. They raise a hue and cry over some relatively minor issue, calling it a crisis. Through exaggeration they make themselves seem much more important and capable than they truly are. After all, if they solve the “crisis” then they must be trustworthy and powerful individuals indeed. They adhere to the maxim of many historical dictators and strongmen, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Ironically, though this quote is often misattributed to Joseph Goebbels, Hitler appears to have coined something like this in Mien Kampf while seeking to blame the Jews for Germany’s loss of World War I. No matter the source, it is true that by misidentifying something as a crisis often enough liars soon convince their audience that doom approaches. As reported in the BBC and other sources, recent research indicates that repetition creates an almost unshakeable belief in a lie.1 Practitioners of this particular brand of fake news depend upon our use of social media to make this effective. Inadvertently, due to our own predilections and intellectual laziness, we fail to engage in any fact-checking. We repeat the same falsehood because it fits our own viewpoint becoming their witless dupes in spreading “fake news.” And this is, perhaps, the most pernicious and iniquitous fake news of all, the abuse of language.
Once we embrace this deceptive twisting of the meaning of words, we inhibit effective communication. We find the search for a common understanding of the issues more and more difficult. We believe a relatively minor problem a crisis, expending an inordinate amount of societal energy on it while other truly serious issues remain unaddressed. Deeply foundational fissures wait for serious consideration. Vexing problems that threaten the viability of our democratic institutions linger in the anteroom of government, hat-in-hand as it were, while we engage in acrimonious debate over a non-existential threat. The malefactors, the bullies, win. They’ve successfully diverted us from the salient issues of the day; we often join them in their endeavors.
Mislabeling an event or circumstance is a form of fake news and perverts the truth, skewing our perception of reality into a form of shared delusion. When we share in the misuse of language, redefining a problem as a crisis, we share in the “big lie.” We join in the chorus and become part of the problem. We must willingly exert the mental effort required to understand the issues of the day. This takes time and effort, requiring us to go deeper than the memes and headlines. Of course, a democratic society rests on the foundation of an educated populace; one that is willing to delve into the details of an issue in order to adroitly handle seemingly intractable problems.
We must also willingly call those who manipulate language in such a deleterious fashion into account. They do not deserve our trust or confidence. Their actions should make us question their motives. If they cannot bring themselves to embrace the truth, then why should we embrace anything they say or propose to do? Our success as a nation rests on our willingness to engage in the continual work of educating ourselves. Part of the promise of the Internet was making information readily available for all. Sadly, what might serve as education instead provides a lever or wedge to drive us further apart. The resulting rifts make solving the true, intractable, problems we face even harder. In this age of rapid communications and slipshod messaging we must discipline ourselves to ensure that we speak truth. We must not rebroadcast those things that misinform no matter how nicely they reinforce our own opinions. The truth and our nation’s future require this.
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