By Rick Feinberg
Anthropologists have long recognized that language can affect the way we think about important issues. And all too often we use words without considering what they convey. This truth pervades all aspects of our lives but nowhere is it more the case than in the world of politics.
To take one prominent example, feminists have argued that the use of “he” (or “him” or “his”) as both the masculine and neuter singular pronoun creates a sexist bias among English speakers. Consequently, many of us now use “he or she” (or the grammatically awkward “they”) for members of a category that includes both males and females.
Less political but equally ubiquitous, one often reads of modern thinkers “building off of” their predecessors’ work, an expression that shreds the initial metaphor. (One constructs a building on—not “off of”—its foundation.) I’ve largely given up my battle to protect the world from such offensive utterances. Still, to me they feel much like the legendary fingernail on chalk board. (Come to think of it, I wonder if contemporary college students can recall chalk boards. But that’s a story for another time!)
Likewise, even talented professionals frequently say “more than” when they mean “as much as.” I might read that China, with a population of almost 1.5 billion, has “five times more” people than the US, with just over 300 million. One may demonstrate the fallacy of that locution with a fairly simple illustration.
If you have $100 and I have $100, I don’t have one time more than you do. I don’t have any more than you, since we both have the same amount. If you have $100 and I have $200, then, I don’t have two times more than you. I have one time more, or twice as much. If I have $300, I have not three times more but three times as much. And China has five times as many people as the US—or four rather than five times more if one insists on that mode of expression.
Contemporary political discourse offers a reminder of how language is misused to sow confusion. In certain circles, anyone displaying empathy is pilloried for “political correctness.” But surely, we do not want people acting in a way that they, themselves, consider inappropriate. When we disparage those around us for “political correctness,” we really are disputing their sense of social propriety. But rather than discuss our differences and try to promote mutual understanding, we vilify our interlocutors and cut off dialogue.
All of this leads to what may be the most misused expression in modern American politics: the word, “conservative,” for politicians like Roy Moore and Donald Trump, or pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Their opposition to “the establishment” and self-proclaimed determination to turn our political, social, and economic order upside down is anything but conservative. For our president to trade insults with a nuclear-armed adversary, declaring that his button is “much bigger & more powerful … than his,” is about as far from conservative as one can imagine.
A conservative approach is careful and cautious; it does no more than is necessary to solve a real problem. Merriam-Webster [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conservative] lists: “tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions”; “marked by moderation or caution”; and “marked by or relating to traditional norms of taste, elegance, style, or manners.” Other dictionaries offer similar characterizations.
If you go to your doctor with a headache and are advised, as your first line of treatment, to undergo brain surgery, you probably would not regard your physician as taking a conservative approach. Yet, that is exactly what so-called conservatives are doing with our tax code, minority rights, environmental protection, access to medical care, international alliances, and other policies essential to Americans’ well-being.
I’m not opposed to change per se. I’ve worked throughout my life to promote peace and justice, civil rights, and freedom of expression. At times I’ve risked arrest, assault, or worse to bring about the changes needed to ensure our shared prosperity and happiness. But let us call things what they are. Right-wing extremists are exactly that. They may be elitists, racial bigots, anti-Semites, even neo-fascists. Whatever they are, they’re not conservative.
Rick Feinberg is professor of anthropology at Kent State University.