As of late, I’ve become increasingly aware of how specific words have been infecting our consciousness. How the oversimplification of language and, hence, concepts has been doing harm to our society and discourse. I call that: Word misappropriation.
This phenomenon occurs when groups of people pillage a particular word or term, declare their own definition of it and then insist that the rest of us accept that very definition and all the beliefs systems that follow it.
These are often the beliefs, and definitions, of very specific and aggressively vocal groups of people and often have little in common with objective reality. In this way, at worst, words become weaponized. At best: Objects of mass confusion. If we can’t even agree on the definitions of words and discuss them openly, how could we possibly begin to approach discussing what it is that they really mean for us? What happens when words are robbed of their true meaning?
