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The dark side of vocabulary evolution

Reader comment on item: Academics Who Fabricate: This Time, It's about Canary Mission

Submitted by James Luce (Spain), Aug 1, 2016 at 03:27

Words are normally intended to assist communication because they are supposed to have the same meaning for all speakers of any particular language. Unfortunately, there is a class of words for which this is not the case. I call this class "Emotives", such as "discrimination", "love", "freedom", etc. For example, the word "peace" in the context of the Israel means (if one is an average Arab or Academic) "the obliteration of the Jewish people" but means "the end of invidious hatred of Jews by Arabs, Academics, and others" (if one is not anti-Semitic).

Similarly, the meaning assigned to the words "hate speech" can be "unsupported, ignorant, hurtful statements made against a group" or "any statement that is not in line with what fuzzy-brained people believe". The former is the traditional meaning. The latter is the new Academic meaning. Thus, those who signed the anti-Canary Mission petition and accused Mr. Pipes of hate speech were not "fabricating", but rather were simply demonstrating the fuzziness of what passes for thinking in their brains. Academia has always been against freedom of speech and thought.

For example, the Athenian Academics condemned Socrates to death because he spoke intelligently against "accepted wisdom". Medieval clerical Academics condemned free-thinkers to death by bonfire. Today student and faculty Academics hound politically incorrect professors and drive them from campus. Why? Because to them freedom of speech belongs only to the majority or the powerful. How sad.

Submitting....

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Reader comments (12) on this item

Title Commenter Date Thread
3Very Helpful To The Military [82 words]DaveAug 6, 2016 17:23231229
1Canary Mission for Academics and Authors, Too? [84 words]
w/response from Daniel Pipes
ElaineAug 3, 2016 02:50231164
1Sure of their cause [20 words]T KAug 1, 2016 23:26231147
dirty work [28 words]Michael SAug 3, 2016 06:14231147
God bless the Canary Mission [409 words]
w/response from Daniel Pipes
Michael SAug 1, 2016 19:47231144
Coincidence? [87 words]PezDispenserAug 1, 2016 14:44231136
BDS Supporters Condemn Blacklisting [35 words]DannyAug 1, 2016 14:43231135
Canary Mission [45 words]Mitchell LipkinAug 1, 2016 14:32231133
1very useful information here [101 words]Paul AckermanAug 1, 2016 08:54231121
1Academia [69 words]WartyAug 1, 2016 06:00231119
The dark side of vocabulary evolution [237 words]James LuceAug 1, 2016 03:27231117
"From Jerusalem" [32 words]L. RivlinAug 1, 2016 02:55231116

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