EP. 99 – Words Are Losing Their Meaning – Are You Keeping Up?

[Intro]

"In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible, things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs in Japan can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. This political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question begging and sheer cloudy vagueness." Politics and the English language by George Orwell. Page 14.

 Guys, this is one of my favorite books that I have ever read. I promise it's one of the books that it's going to blow your mind, especially because it's been written a long time ago. It was written a long time ago by George Orwell. And it's incredibly impressive. The the how accurately it can it can talk about today's day and age.

It is incredible to think that Orwell is talking about the way of the media and the newspapers in 1945, and we are seeing it happening today. It is really impressive, George Orwell, someone ahead of his time. And, you know, it's just a good read that everyone should should definitely have on their list.

But anyways, today's quote is a little bit about being vague and being imprecise and using euphemism and and and trying to explain what shouldn't be explained, trying to defend, which shouldn't be that shouldn't be defended by should be defended by using. Language that is vague, using language that does not convey real meaning, and this is something that happens every day and you may not even notice, but I want you to think a little bit about it. Right. I want you to think a little bit about what's happening around the world right now. I'm not I'm not even going to say it. Well, I'm not going I'm not even going to say what it is. You just think about it.

And I want you to think if people are being clear with their message, just think, you know, do words mean what they really mean? Right? Let's let's take the word democracy, that's a good word. It's a lovely word. Do you know what democracy is? And if you if you can definitely and precisely say what democracy is, do you think we live in one? Hopefully, yes. Do you feel like you live in one? Hopefully, yes, but do you do you feel like it. So don't you think that the word democracy itself has kind of lost its meaning? Like it's kind of it's it's a little vague, isn't it? Isn't it weird that one of the countries that says I'm talking about the United States here, that says that they're the biggest democracy in the world, they go to other countries and drop some bombs? Isn't it a little bit weird? Shouldn't they be peaceful?

Another weird thing, for example, let's take the word fascist, you know what a fascist is, you know what fascism is. Isn't it weird that it's really hard to define these words nowadays, nowadays? Don't you see it being thrown out every day in public discourse? During, you know, heated political discussions, don't you see that everyday people saying to out to others, oh, you're a fascist, and then you say, well, what what is it? What does it mean? And that's the true the true problem. Of political discourse and conversations around the world today, especially about sensitive topics, and this is going to talk a lot about tomorrow's episode. I'm going to go a little bit further into this, but today I want to talk about this, about the vagueness of the words, the words.

It talks about the true the true problem is that words have become vague because the people in charge want them to. The politicians that you you you love and trust. They profit from the words being vague and imprecise because then they can say that they never said it. They can't pretend that they meant something else. And they can they can change their minds according to whoever has paid them the most. And you will not be able to argue against it because. Well, because they said something vague. This means that you can one day be at fight with someone and call them a fascist. And then on the other day, maybe they they've done something good. And then you think, well, you know, that's not what I meant by fascist. I meant something else because the word is not that clear. You know, whatever. You know, I'm just giving some examples here. You know, maybe one day one dictator of a country is hated by everyone. But on another day, he did something good for the cause. And then now he's loved. And now how do you explain that?

You know, maybe one one president is is a real president of a country, never done anything that is authoritarian, but people call him a dictator. Isn't it weird? So the thing is, words have lost their meaning and it's not. It's not by mistake, words have lost their meaning on purpose, and this is what this quote is about, is about political language and and vocabulary. It has become full of euphemism, full of question begging, full of sheer cloudy vagueness as as George Orwell put it 60, 70 years ago. And that is true today because today political language, vocabulary conversations have become loaded with empty, empty, empty words that mean nothing, and it's on purpose because it helps promote whatever agenda it may fit.

So this is a little bit of a complicated podcast today, a little bit of a sensitive topic to talk about, but I really hope you get what I mean here. And that's it for today. Hope you enjoy your day today. Hope you're listening to this in the morning. Hope you enjoyed it. If you're listening to this in the afternoon or at night. I really hope you enjoyed it. Remember, you can read it if you want. Just check out our telegram group or just go on the link in my Instagram bio. And that's it for today. And I'll see you tomorrow.