Have any of you ever played the game “Telephone”? My family and I were visiting my uncles in Boston during our summer vacation, and we took the opportunity to play that game. When you add in a seven-year-old along with an adult who speaks English as a second language (his primary language is Japanese), you get some funny outcomes. The message tends to creep. The individual diverse viewpoints and maturity levels also help the narrative change as the idea is passed on. A twelve-year-old boy is going to recognize and enunciate “penile colony” differently than a 45-year-old female would. Interpretation, understanding, innuendo, and mispronunciation all affect the group’s ability to effectively communicate each time the words are whispered into the next person’s ear. Words have meanings and sometimes they can be distorted. When people redefine words intentionally, they lose or gain meaning, and all our understanding is even less clear.
It is important to note the specificity of words and facts in how our great Republic started. Our founding fathers used words to describe their plight and shape our nation’s course by acknowledging candid exchange of ideas. In our Declaration of Independence, the signers noted when addressing their grievances to the king of Great Britain that, “To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.” Notice they capitalize “Facts” and speak to a world where meanings are not twisted to suit purpose, rather, plainly read. When words are corrupted by misuse we are divided, and the framers of our Republic knew that.
Jamie Ruehl grew up in Erlanger. He graduated from St. Henry District High School, earned a degree in business administration from Xavier University, served the US Army on an ROTC Commission in 2001, attaining the rank of Captain and serving overseas. Back home, he graduated from Northern Kentucky University’s Executive Leadership and Organizational Change Master’s Program in 2018. He served as a Law Enforcement Officer for 8.5 years and was inducted into the American Police Hall of Fame. He has been a staff insurance adjuster since 2019 with a large carrier headquartered in Cincinnati. He is attempting to be the best possible husband to his wife of 15 years and best possible father to their 3 children. They live in Edgewood with their two dogs. He is a life-long distance runner.
The inability to effectively relay information is comical in the “telephone game” but in everyday life the same kind of challenges possess more gravity. I’ve recently noticed some key words being intentionally and incrementally changed in public discourse: Racist. Healthcare. Justice. Equity.
These words are being debased or outright misused and the results take the form of tribalism which cause societal degradation:
Racist. It has become popular to label others as “racists”” when someone doesn’t agree with an opposing opinion. There should be a chilling effect on any conversation if someone is called out for using racist words or is espousing racist ideas, but that is not what is occurring. Instead, people are using the label only to silence opposing viewpoints but with no legitimacy to their claim. This weakens the word and enables true racists to hide behind the now watered-down label. In some cases, true racism exists, but because the accusation is overused and misused, the racist person gets a podium instead of the proper retribution. Justice creeps away.
Healthcare. Primum Non Nocere. My high-school Latin tells me that the mantra of healthcare professionals is: “Do No Harm.” I find it hard to believe that people who misuse the word “healthcare” can believe the propaganda they espouse. In many cases much harm is perpetrated on the supposed patient. I’ve noticed a small minority of people tie the word “healthcare” to whatever new physical procedure is en vogue. Take for example, trans surgeries. Elective surgeries that remove/plasticize organs of the human body. Activists will insert the word “healthcare” in front of these cosmetic surgeries and expect normal people to just follow along with the new definition. Never mind those recipients of “trans healthcare surgeries” are literally 20 times more likely to attempt suicide. So much for “do no harm.” Another misuse of the term “healthcare” happens when it’s applied to ending an infant’s life. There is much irony when extremists pair the words “reproductive” and “healthcare” as they attempt to describe terminating a young human life.
Justice. This word has been used to add legitimacy to any cause-celebre. Much like the misuse of the word “racist,” “justice” has been used to leverage emotional control of any conversation. Recently in a column in the NKyTribune, an author described a situation where they paired “environmental” and “justice.” No one wants to live in a polluted world; however, applying the word “justice” to the environment treats the environment like a person with their own inalienable rights. As if the environment requires its own special courtroom. Likewise, “social” and “justice” have been paired in an attempt to redefine societal norms outside our official justice system. The arbiters of “social justice” tend to be uneducated self-appointed activists who have a superiority complex and they attempt to impose their twisted view of the world on everyone else around them. By pairing the word “justice” with their cause, they espouse a “higher moral ground” from which they lob accusations and attempt to gain political advantage.
Equity. This word has incorrectly supplanted “equality.” Our forefathers in the U.S. rightly advised that “all men are created equal” and that our rights are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This part of the Declaration of Independence speaks to equality of opportunity, not equality of results. No matter where we start in life, we have the opportunity to pursue happiness here in the U.S.A. “Equity” is the cornerstone of Marxism. It implies that “fairness of outcome” is a right. The deliberate replacing of “equality” with “equity” is a form of Critical Theory, a tool used by Marxists to tear apart the fabric of any free society. When people are tricked into believing that everyone should have equal outcomes (equity), rifts are then created between the different “classes” created by this ideology. When Critical Theory is paired with immutable characteristics such as race or ethnicity we get more societal division, more tribalism.
There are other words being misappropriated, but the four above I’ve noticed a high frequency of misuse in public discourse. These incorrect definitions or misuse of words inject either a sense of urgency or emotion into almost any conversation which then invades our modern vernacular. I believe we are getting dangerously close to speaking past each other because of the creep of these definitions. Critical Theory has taken root and we’ve started to devolve into a form of tribalism. Where is the justice in that?
It is one thing to banty about with words in a game, but when a society either errantly or intentionally misuses a word that is considered a cornerstone of our ethos, it can have devastating effects. Instead of using a diverse language to unify, these Critical Theorists are attempting to divide us with our own language by diluting our definitions and confusing us, so we turn on each other.
United We Stand.
