Trickle Down Linguistics?

[castiron]

In the last fifteen years, through overexposure and lack of alternatives, liberals have learned a neo conservative lexicon as thoroughly as have conservatives. In fact, through language, neo conservatives have nailed in some planks in the Democratic platform, where Democrats have refused to do this for themselves. Neo conservatives have spoken and continue to speak of tenured radicals, political correctness, big government, welfare states, socialism, tax and spend liberals, the quota system, campus speech codes, tree-huggers, anti-family values liberals, and everybody’s favorite femi-nazis (if this last one has outlived usefulness for Limbaugh, I know it is still in vogue with his listeners). We can call this collection of phrases the “Neo-Conservative Derogatory,” and it is now, arguably more than ever, both street-level, mainstream shorthand and default for political discussion and understanding issues. Thomas Frank asks what is the matter with Kansas, but we must honestly review the evidence of our own friends and enemies having used these phrases in support of their politics wherever they may live. And then we must ask ourselves: how can we get some of that there trickle down linguistics for our OWN selves?

Who claims to have no personal examples of a 1980s Gen X’er adopting Rushist values (circa the first Gulf War), voting for Bush Number One, and spouting neo conservative rhetoric as if it were the whole cloth of original thought? This was the dawn of a strong, new political language for the masses, emanating from the realm of Amplitude Modulation, Reason Magazine and, shudder, David Horowitz, and born of a fear that someone, somewhere, was blocked from becoming rich as God.

What if liberal pundits and press, bloggers and voters, generally, agreed on a small crop of new phrases for the next 10 years or so? These are a few intrusive thoughts I’ve been having recently, partly inspired by the chattering debates surrounding George Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant and partly through outrage over the possibility that America’s only viable progressive party may be fumbling progressivism. Consider this another chapter of soul-searching, post election.

First, and because I am at this point a single-issue liberal voter, which issue is The Environment, I am proposing that “eco terrorism” must become at all times and in all cases “eco justice”, because there really should never be allowed the “terrorist” label anywhere near our side: this is much too dangerous now. The efforts of Neo Conservative groups to associate environmentalism with terrorism and conflate sabotage and civil disobedience with a desire to spread terror are well documented. The very phrases “eco violence”, “eco terrorism” and “eco extremism” belong to the Neo Conservative movement and groups such as The Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, whose executive director, Ron Arnold, first coined the term “eco terrorism” (according to Wikipedia).

A case in Maryland in which over $10 million worth of starter castles that had been built on environmentally sensitive land were torched, is the latest case in which Neo Con language has been used by all media across the political spectrum. With investigations underway and the ash still smoldering, NPR and the New York Times have already labeled the perpetrator a possible “eco terrorist”. Could we not have, with this news story, practiced a more savvy turn of phrase, such as “Eco Justice” on a massive, liberal-spherical scale?

The reasons for doing so, in this specific instance, rest in the Give An Inch And They’ll Take A Mile law of politics. When we think about it for a few seconds, it seems hugely irresponsible for the liberal press to use the phrase “eco terrorist”, as it is only a matter of time before smaller acts of environmental activism are blacklisted as such by anti-environmentalists, i.e. the Republican Party, causing all manner of mass hand-wringing, encouraging and justifying more public anti-environmentalist sentiment, and generally giving a rollicking good reason to demonize an ethic that stands in the way of Unrestrained Corporatism.

We already have seen the vulnerable nature of environmental activism in the era of the War on Terror, with the recent allegations of FBI infiltration and harassment of environmental organizations. Can anyone honestly say that it is such a stretch to imagine a new chilling effect on anti-WalMart town meetings and other anti-sprawl or pro-animal rights (read “anti-free enterprise” in the Neo Conservative Derogatory) activism? What will become of donations-based groups like PETA when it becomes too dangerous to be listed as a donor of such a domestic terrorist organization? And when we begin to really struggle with dirty air and when clear majorities activate on behalf of anti-SUV organizations, will we still be asthmatically fighting over the philosophy of free enterprise and the rights of the auto industry to do business? If neo con thinkers in tanks and their politicians are able to live in cleaner parts of the country while ozone days leave sun-belters housebound and gasping, one can well imagine the debate remaining unchanged.

Furthermore, describing an outright act of eco-terrorism, say, the Hummer dealership arson, as “eco justice”, is politically safe, even in mainstream media. It carries the whiff of innocently having used the language of tolerance, the language of the justice-seeker himself as he acts on behalf of the ozone in a selfless and symbolic act of moral principle. Some environmentalists, animated by the spirit of their beliefs, can do no other in the name of clean air and clean water. Hardly a terrorist, the activist is a driven believer, upholding the inherent value of Nature and of God in a culture that doesn’t value these things any more – the safety of a clean country in which to live our lives, make our money, achieve home ownership, worship as we see fit.

Eco-vigilantism deserves a certain respect, while never letting it get any closer than the arms length at which it should be officially held. Certainly, we don’t condone it, but neither do we go out of our way to mouth the planted, neo conservative derogation for it.

Sticking with the environmentalist agenda, my next proposal concerns climate change. It is not any longer helpful to curse so and so Republican senator or president as a “flat earther” because he or she rejects the mainstream science that makes the global warming case. The “flat earther” bit is a good one, and we smile whenever someone can fit it in, but it is essentially whimsical and reminiscent of the playful things we do to make our case, like walking on stilts and launching Buy Nothing Days (both of which I dig, but hardball must eventually be played).

Those who reject global warming as a great hoax are not just flat earthers (how many 20 year old “swing voters” will even understand this phrase?) but “anti-environment”. Republicans, in fact, and it should be okay to say this in public “do not like the Earth”. What if we all practiced, all of us simultaneously, from Alternet to the New York Times, on our cable commentary and when we call in to our local public radio talk show, painting any Republican deregulator, non-enforcer of EPA standards, or non-believer in human-induced climate change an anti-environment, as in "today, the anti-Environment Senator William Treecutter (R, Oregon) said in a press briefing . . . "? If pro-choice Democrats are increasingly anti-life (or pro-abortion) in the Neo Conservative Derogatory, why cannot rabidly pro-business Republicans be anti-environment, based solely on the fact that they haven’t specifically spoken of being pro-environment? Republicans need to be automatically “anti environment” until proven pro environment with a litmus test of believing in global warming (or at least believing that emissions are dangerous for breathing and should be controlled) and supporting legislation to curb it. The argument for letting corporations regulate themselves is a bit out-dated and lacking in proof, wouldn't we say? Have Republicans not done enough to deserve this plank in their platform? For a Senator McCain, ta "pro-environment" prefix can be substituted.

Touching on the fundamentalist factor, I'd like to submit that “Secular” is destined to become a mainstream slur in the Neo Conservative Derogatory. Secularists and non-fundamentalist Christians need to memorize a handful of core philosophical sound bites where religion and morality are concerned. Primary among them to keep in mind is this rhetorical question: Do you need religion to be moral? The answer is no. Not only do you not need Jesus as your personal savior to have morals, to act ethically, you needn’t believe in any deity, savior, prophet or god. Secular morality is just as good as religious morality, though more stark. As British lecturer and freethinker Charles Watts wrote in 1880 in an essay called Secular Morality: What Is It? An Exposition and a Defence, “ . . . fidelity to principle and good service to man should win the right to participate in any advantages either in this or in any other world.”

This leads to a final suggested semantic shift. We desperately need a more damaging phrase than “Radical Right” for our esteemed opponents. Clearly, though the taboo is still in place, Republican voters are increasingly proud of belonging to the Radical anything. It gives them something to be a part of, as American mainstream life swims in an otherwise increasingly homogeneous aesthetic. Along with the Neo Conservative Derogatory there has grown up this sense that belonging to the Radical Right ain’t a bad thing. It feels good to be related to an old boys network of power and exclusion, especially if you feel powerless in real life, on your commute, at your dinner table, while writing that credit card payment. Like Christian Identity movement members, the members of the Radical Right get to be, like, all radical and shit, and that's really cool, especially when you're gunning for Jesus.

Can we not appellate using some other blackening word that will paint all Republicans with the black mark they work hard to deserve? “Fascist” won’t work – strangely, saying “fascist” now makes the speaker seem unthinking, knee-jerk and fascist themselves. It’s an empty Johnny Rotten slur. One new name for Republicans might be “The Corporatist Party”. Why? Because some part of the future success of liberalism depends on advertising the darkness of global, corporate capitalism.

Neo Conservatives so thoroughly rallied to the task of teaching even the most bone-headed Americans how to always, no matter what, support the Right Of Free Enterprise and the Freedom To Do Business Without Excessive Regulation, that anyone with AM radio probably knows that Adam Smith had something to do with it. Neo conservatives gamely and with great success agreed upon a surprisingly small number of simple arguments to teach Americans. These Americans are now millions of foot soldiers for the ideals of unregulated corporate America. These arguments, which draw no distinction between mom n’ pop entrepreneurial spirit and global corporate interests, have taught millions of Americans to see beauty in the architecture of sprawl, to sympathize and identify with their wealthy employers, to spend with credit as an act of patriotism, to accept debt as lifestyle, and to think of a minimum living wage as an impediment to the economy. Unfortunately for Americans, these same people were also trained in always, no matter what, linking environmental protection with hating the American way of life and impeding the free market.

But I am confident this same majority of Americans could come to see the wisdom in regulation and restraint. Yes, the Democratic Party must take on the roll of teacher about capitalism’s failings with particular efforts to educate average Americans that the corporate ethic is different from the capitalism of yesteryear, that at some point big free enterprise works against the people who work 50 or 60 hours a week for it, and that there is a lot more to America than profit.

But changing a few phrases, even if lockstep language consensus were achieved, and even if liberals were given all of AM radio to use as they saw fit for the next ten years, won’t convert anybody who voted for Bush in 2004, all other things staying the same. The “American standard of living to which we are accustomed” and “our way of life”, the late capitalist status quo, is the province of the Republican majority, and folks still stand to profit from it, unabated. The progressive message will not make sense to conservatives (or to the unpoliticized) until the built-in failings of late capitalist culture reveal themselves. Some futurist progressives like James Howard Kunstler, author of books Geography of Nowhere and Home from Nowhere, seem sometimes to be driven insane on their blog entries in an effort to understand how Americans can ignore all the warning signs of their unsustainable society: how is it that anyone can justify an hour and a half commute through a corridor of aesthetic ruin in a state of large personal debt, let alone majorities of Americans justifying it?

Indeed, like progressive prognosticators before me, I believe one of the following things needs to happen in a satisfactorily permanent way before majorities begin making connections to politics. You need only pick one: spiraling gas costs, shoddy construction on a massive scale leading to personal financial ruin, massive job losses for suburban commuters with mortgages, spiritual crisis directly related to the bankruptcy of the consumerist religion, nuclear terrorism in the United States, widespread killer air or water pollutants and/or abrupt climate change. I believe these things are prerequisites for decisive progressive election majorities. Not landslides, but clear-cut victories that usher in new eras of liberalism and ecosophy.

I realize this takes the will of the Democratic Party out of the equation somewhat. But I also think at least one of these tragedies is inevitable. Do Americans have a Democratic Party courageous enough to be that progressive alliance that millions of voters turn to on a fateful day, as they recognize the solutions have been being spoken of all along?

[Cats Against Frist]

1. Too true:

These arguments, which draw no distinction between mom n’ pop entrepreneurial spirit and global corporate interests, have taught millions of Americans to see beauty in the architecture of sprawl, to sympathize and identify with their wealthy employers, to spend with credit as an act of patriotism, to accept debt as lifestyle, and to think of a minimum living wage as an impediment to the economy.

Amazing, isn't it? Those who have power set the parameters for language -- and, think, for a minute, about how little much of that language would change, even if the Dems were in control. We speak the language of corpo-fascists, mostly -- and they're a threat, all the time, no matter what administration is in charge.

[firefox]

2. Why do you say "climate change"?

my next proposal concerns climate change

Climate change is the misadministrations way of avoid the term global warming. It seems strange that you would use the term when you are talking about linguistics.

But I agree that language used by the USG is chosen very carefully from death taxes instead of estate taxes to insurgents instead of Iraqi patriots.

[MostlyLurks]

3. "Global Warming" is a misnomer.

Whenever it is colder than normal for a period, place, etc, the Republican masses universally cluck about "Well, that certainly casts a shadow of doubt over global warming."

Plus, it's not about strictly warming anymore. It's about changing the climate in ways more expansive than just temperature.

Mostly