THE LANGUAGE THAT YOU USE

When you find a moment, you may want to have a quick perusal of this stunning Michelle Goldberg piece in the NYT.

It will demonstrate why, as I keep arguing, the political is personal always, and the personal is rarely political. Because political power, not personal leanings, is what rules the world. 

What Goldberg leaves out is that politics has turned conservative if not reactionary, and is crushing the personal of identity politics for the precise reason that the "progressives" grossly misjudge the real needs of people in societies as they are and have been for millennia!

 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/23/opinion/progressives-republican-censorship.html

The Left can and will NEVER match "the political strength" of the Right, as Goldberg calls it, because the Left idealises the needs of the vast majority of people, which are very material and very narrow and..."practical".

One thing I learned at Uni and as a lawyer is how inner city types think they can change REALITY by simply changing how they DESCRIBE it! (That's Goldberg's point - something on which I focused 40 years ago.)

An example: I am and always have been "a walking dictionary" (at least since my brother bought me The World Encyclopaedia Dictionary in 1975).

But I never knew the word "TEAL" because it is a very specific colour hue adopted by architects and painters, perhaps. So you can see how these people totally distort political reality by simply giving themselves a new LABEL! 

NOTHING CHANGES! NOTHING WHATSOEVER! If anything, things get worse - "things fall apart". But these people delude themselves and others that they are in control. They will find out soon enough the real state of affairs...

Goldberg:

"Progressives sometimes seem to believe Breitbart’s maxim as well, acting as if the way to change the world is to change how we describe it. At best, the left’s ever-shifting language rules can push social norms in a more decent direction. At worst, they’re obscurantist and alienating. Either way, they reflect a choice about where to focus political energy."

And “political energy” is exercised most powerfully by expressing the material practical needs and interests of people, not by seeking to deflect attention from them through empty slogans and labels. Ultimately, reality catches up with dreamy ideologues…