Israeli foreign ministry posts video of Thunberg’s arrest; vessels carrying about 500 activists intercepted about 75 miles off coast of war-torn territory
Israeli foreign ministry posts video of Thunberg’s arrest; vessels carrying about 500 activists intercepted about 75 miles off coast of war-torn territory
I’m not saying don’t call it out. I wish more people would. But I’d like to go further to eliminate this type of propaganda as even an option whenever possible. Some words are too linguistically useful to eliminate but some things like kidnapped vs arrested are literally the same action just different context. There’s no need to ever use the word arrest and its elimination or undermining would weaken abusive authorities and their ability to spin the narrative in ways people don’t question.
Yeah. We just fundamentally disagree then. These words are not interchangeable. I would not say a pedophile was “kidnapped” by the state. The context matters. There is a difference between materialism and dialectical-materialism. You seem to be removing the tool of dialectics and saying only the material action is what matters. The way words are used to shape material actions (or lack thereof) and concent matters.
I mean you can think it’s good for people to be abducted under some circumstances. Maybe you are right, maybe not, but at least then you’d have to justify it. “Arrested” already means justified in most people’s minds. It’s a thought-terminating cliche, and as long as we make that distinction, it will be abused as in this case.
Using less savory words like kidnapping or abduction more accurately relays the severity and violence that’s happening. And yes, violence is sometimes necessary, but it’s still unsavory.
You (I hope) recognize that
vs.
are different beyond just the material action of forcefully taking someone against their will. There is context that matters. So we use different words to describe the different contextual relationships. This example is a clear difference. I really hope we don’t have to debate that. It’s why I’m using it as an example. So we can remove the moral ambiguity and agree to this distinction.
There are obviously less extreme examples of this. That is the why understanding how language is used is important. In reality we say “the child was kidnapped” and “the pedophile was arrested”. It is vocabulary that describes the relationships of morality that we as a society assume to uphold.
By your reasoning they “are both acts of violence and taking someone against their will and imprisoning them”. I get that mate. But the world you want to live in where we describe both these actions as “kidnapping” does not exist.
Like, in what reality is your opinion even useful to reality? We don’t live in a world where language is used the way you want it to be. You need to understand the world you live in and the way language is used.
Understanding how and why the media uses words like “arrest” vs. “kidnap” to infer a false justification is significantly more helpful than saying “well we should simplify language”. Human language isn’t a programming language. It can’t be. It needs to deal with significantly more ambiguity, emotions, and morals.
Like, how are you even trying to apply this type of reasoning to the world? It’s useless for describing reality. Language isn’t used the way you want it to. And it never will work that way. What you’re trying to argue for isn’t useful to describing reality.
Language is always subject to change and evolution. I can’t predict the future and neither can you. I think explaining that context verbally is less harmful than implying it with weasel words.
And even if my desired change doesn’t happen, I think it’s valuable to challenge the assumptions built into these words to make people think about them and the way they are used instead of just blindly accepting “the criminal was arrested”.
Weasel words? Kidnapped and arrested literally both have implied meanings related to innocence. What is a non weasel word for that to you? I feel like you’re just arguing to argue at this point.
Abduction implies someone secretly being taken away and kept at an unknown location, their fate unknown and probably someone trying to ransom them to their family.
Here we have pictures of the IDF taking her, we know exactly where they’re taking her and what’s going to happen. They’re not going to physically harm her, going to give her an inconsequential slap on the wrist, and put her on a plane back home.
It’s ok to feel that’s wrong, but trying to make it seem more horrible by using words invented for something else just seems petty.
Do we know that?