hairsplitting

Here is a stunning and close to the bone Phil Nugent post, reminding us how naturally the art of turning substantive arguments into arcane 'to me, the word 'terrorism' is about...' hairsplitting contests over buzzwords comes to people with entrenched ideological views.


Here are some nuggets, but you really need to read it:

It's always interesting when someone, in a tone of righteous indignation, says something that's obviously the exact opposite of the truth, whether it's "My kid isn't stupid" or "FDR's New Deal programs prolonged the Great Depression." It's not necessarily the case that you're listening to the single dumbest person who's ever lived; often, someone is revealing their most fucked-up personal issues or exposing their tenderest spot...

...They think they're brave because they set off bombs and set fires, but they have no stomach for the kind of fight that tries to roll back simpleminded propaganda and heightens clarity, and they're definitely not going to take the bullet of saying "Okay, I'm a terrorist, now what does that really mean?" any more than Dick Cheney, for all his supposed indifference to the verdict of history, is ever going to just say, "Screw this shit about 'heightened interrogation techniques', I obviously support torture, T-O-R-T-U-R-E, and I'm not ashamed of it."

Also fantastic is this contemporary review, which Nugent links to, of ex-terrorist Bill Ayers's narrowly pre-9/11 'look at me I'm proud of and profitting financially from having been so into being radical in the 1970s that I set off bombs and robbed people' masterwork. 

The question is, it it worth totally avoiding emotionally laden, hairsplitting-vulnerable words like 'terrorist', 'freedom', 'racism', 'power', 'resistance', 'solidarity' etc when talking about politics?

From an aesthetic point of view the answer is certainly yes, as these words are pretty bad anyway. There is something really ugly and inelegant about the way they brazenly but sneakily put an opinion where there ought to be a fact. They are graceless in the same way as a policemen's use of 'utilised' instead of 'used' or an acquaintance who doesn't remember your name but says 'hi buddy how've you been!' before selling you something. There are far less clumsy ways of being manipulative.

There are also 'doing the right thing' reasons not to use these words, but I'm not sure they are decisive. There is the intrinsic admirableness of the straight talking the avoidance might encourage, the clearer thinking that might ensue and the pernickety arguments that would be avoided. I also think there is something about avoiding semantic arguments that makes people respect others' opinions more, at least to the extent of sometimes seeing genuine disagreement rather than misunderstanding or maliciousness.

On the other hand, maybe sometimes it's worth using these words, or even engaging in tactical hairsplitting oneself, just to be more convincing. Hmm...