Musing #1: Word Debasement

The following is not finished. I haven't even proofread it yet, but I'm tired of getting halfway finished with an essay, and then putting it "temporarily" on the shelf to be perfected at a later date. So you'll have to deal with the mistakes and inaccuracies. Sorry!! I am of course always open to criticisms and suggestions.

This semester (Winter 2011/12), I have a course called Freedom is not for Free. Despite the name, it is actually conducted in German. One of the questions dealt with is the meaning of freedom. There are a plethora of possible meanings, including:

• the absence of power
• the ability to make one's own decisions
• wealth
• equality

and many more that are not coming to me right now. Basically, the debate seems to center around morality of holding a gun to someone's head to extort money, services, or anything else from him. That is of course what the State does in effect. There are naturally people on both sides of this issue and everywhere in between. But regardless of whether you believe this kind of action is moral or not, you cannot just wish it away. If your definition of freedom is the absence of such behavior you might be called a libertarian. If your definition of freedom is the use of such behavior to establish equality, then you might be called a liberal.

Here's the rub, how useless is a term such as Freedom if it can be applied to both viewpoints? Here's the power of language. 

1. There exists a Worthy Ideal (in this case: the absence of the state of affairs of being bossed around, plundered, killed, etc)
2. This Worthy Ideal is assigned a name (in this case: Freedom)
3. This word comes to represent a Good Thing in the minds of most people (although perhaps not in the minds of those doing the plundering)
4. Along comes a second concept, diametrically opposed to the first worthy ideal (say, the Welfare State). Whatever its other benefits, this second concept is in direct contradiction with the first. But its proponents cannot admit that this new proposal would eliminate or reduce the availability of the first. So they undertake to convince people that they can have their cake and eat it too. Thus they apply to their concept that very same word that rings so true in the people's ears. Once they have convinced enough people of the new meaning of the word to have sufficiently muddied the debate, they are well on their way. For now, every time they describe their program, it is very difficult for the opposition to argue against it, for who, after all, can be against this Good Thing? Why, you must be heartless! And forever thereafter, people will argue over the meaning of Freedom.
5. Sometimes it becomes necessary for the original Worthy Ideal to take on a new name in order to re-establish the distinction between two polar opposites. (This happened in the case of modern terms "libertarian" or "classical liberal." People who today carry these titles would have simply been called a "liberal" right up until about a hundred years ago.)
6. Sometimes no new name is discovered and the blind debate rages on, each side laying claim to a word that denotes a Good Thing. This allows allows politicians to claim that we are fighting wars "for freedom." Well who could be against that? It allows demagogues to promise freedom from fear, hunger, want, and on and on. 

This would be essentially impossible, but what if we could just assign new names to these two concepts? From now on, we have to use the following two ridiculous words instead of the wrecked term Freedom:

• Clipwobble =  the absence of the state of affairs of being bossed around, plundered, killed, etc. In other words, it is immoral to hold a gun to someone's head in order to extort money, services, or anything else from him. It it moral to defend oneself against such behavior.
• Stribswop = the state of affairs of where one group of people is legally and morally allowed to boss around, plunder, etc in order to get what they want. In this state of affairs, it may of course be possible to all to plunder all, with no one having a good idea of who's actually coming out on top after it all.

It would be obvious from now on that one either supports Clipwobble or Stribswop. You can't support both. See how much clearer that is? This is a silly example, but it should illustrate an important point. 

Give it time though. Eventually, Stribswoppers will claim to be Clipwobblers, and the whole cycle will start again.