The Corruption of Language; L. Snyder

Leslie Snyder ........................ The Corruption of Language........................ JOHN LocKE said ((Language is the great bond that holds society to gether." Language is the common conduit whereby knowledge is con veyed from one man and one genera tion to another. It accomplishes this crucial task by enabling us to record our own thoughts and to communi cate with others. Today we are witnessing a corrup tion of our language, effectively de stroying the bond that holds society together. There are several reasons for this, but all of them have a common goal-Uto darken truth and unsettle people's rights," as Locke put it. To appreciate the crucial and in dispensable task that language per forms, one needs only to understand Leslie Snyder has specialized in finance and eco nomics, business and investments. Her latest book, Justice Or Revolution, was published in 1979by Books in Focus, Inc.

what language is and how it func tions; that is, language is primarily a tool of cognition. It provides us with a system of classifying and or ganizing knowledge. It enables us to acquire knowledge on an unlimited scale and to keep order in our minds, which means, enables us to think. The principal consequence of lan guage is communication. Thus it is by the retention of con'cepts, Le., language, that man re tains knowledge. And to the extent he files his knowledge efficiently, the easier it is to recall it, add to it, change it, discard it, and communi cate it to others. Locke, who thoroughly appreciated this, en couraged mankind to think clearly and concisely, so that all should know what their rights are, that progress could take place, and man kind live in peace. Why do some people choose to cor537 538 THE FREEMAN September rupt words? Perhaps to persuade others of a certain point of view or to win an argument at any cost, re gardless of where the truth lies.

Some do it simply to sell a product or to make a profit. But we are con cerned here with those of evil inten tions who wish to ~~unsettle people's rights." They will employ any means to gain their end, such as obscurantism, obfuscation, decep tion, and falsification. Other techniques of corrupting language, according to Locke, are to abuse words by either applying old words to new and unusual significa tions, introducing new and ambigu ous terms without defining either, or else putting words together to confound their ordinary meaning. The Dollar Devalued To illustrate the technique of ap plying new and unusual meanings to old words, here is how the stand ard of value-the Dollar-was cor rupted. Prior to 1933, the Dollar was a ~~standard unit of value," of twenty-five and four-fifth grains of ninety percent fine gold. Since then the United States government has phased out the gold standard and substituted its own absolute control over the value of the currency (with the resulting depreciation of the dol lar, Le., inflation).

As a result of the corruption of this crucial standard, other values have been likewise corrupted: productiveness, self-reliance, hon esty, independence, and integrity. For the promise of security, many Americans have sold their birth right of freedom. This is clearly deceptive for while government promises to pay for security-free education, health in surance, social security, and the like-it is corrupting the very medium ituses as payment, namely the currency. Eventually there will be no education, no. health insur ance, no employment, no real cur rency, no security, and no freedom. Another method of undermining a free country, to udarken truth and unsettle people's rights," is to cor rupt the citizens' sense of justice. Frederic Bastiat's The Law ex plains how governments use laws and justice interchangeably, be cause most people view law and jus tice as one and the same thing. Thus it is only necessary for a law to decree something and it appears just and proper. Examples of using laws to sanction injustices are compulsory education, progressive taxation, conscription, welfare programs, and legal tender. Once the distinction between justice and injustice has been· obscured· the citizen has been placed in the tenuous position. of choosing between justice and disre spect for such laws and those who passed them.

Justice, however, is a state where men live honestly, hurt no one, and 1980 THE CORRUPTION OF LANGUAGE 539 give to every one his due; it is not an excuse to rob Peter to pay Paul. An unjust society not only darkens truth, it leads to an unhappy and discontent society. The corruption of words is an insidious process which spreads like a cancer, corrupting and destroying everything around it. At Whose Expense? The word ttfreedom" has also been perverted. It once meant to be free from political oppression. Now it means freedom from wants and needs-from hunger, unemploy ment, sickness, illiteracy, old-age worries, and the like. The question to ask here is, at whose expense? Then it becomes obvious that these new freedoms are at someone's ex pense, and are not really freedoms, but irresponsible promises by gov ernment. Related to these newly promul gated freedoms is the ambiguous phrase ((economic rights." Thus the new freedoms have become political ((rights." But while government promotes nefarious Heconomic rights," it is actively destroying our true political rights: life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Because someone must pay for these tteconomic rights" we are actually enslaving some part of the populace in the name ofand benefit for some other part of the populace. But there can be no right to enslave another. Either the nation is free or it is not. As Albert Jay Nock said in response to Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms: ((There is no such thing, four or forty. Freedom has no plural. Freedom either is, or isn't."

A second technique of corrupting the meaning of rights is quite sub tle, but highly effective, because it seems to call attention to them. Locke called this Upretending to in form." Nowadays it takes the form of advocating Hhuman rights." We hear this phrase constantly, and yet, what does it mean? Do we hear any thing about the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness in connec tion with it? We get the feeling that somehow it is an empty phrase, de void of any worthy meaning. As there can be no other rights than to sustain, protect, and enjoy one's life, any slogans advocating other rights are in fact ((anti-rights." They necessarily abrogate the very essence of a right and substitute instead privileges or favors, which are bestowed on one group at the expense of another by a higher au thority, in this case the government. Confounding the meaning of words can successfully corrupt them. As for example, the meaning of the word Ucontrol" has been dis torted by connecting it with an ob ject such as price, wage, gun, or credit. But to control an inanimate object is nonsense. The real issue is ttpeople" control. Under the guise of 540 THE FREEMAN September ~~regulating" certain vital segments of the economy, the government has acquired control over individual lives.

Control of People All knowledgeable people will admit that wage, price, and credit controls can never end currency de preciation. They merely suppress symptoms. They distract the unin formed person from the cause of in flation, which is government's monetary policy, to focus on the ef fects, which are the continually ris ing cost of labor, products, and money. The government gives the false impression of taking positive action. But, in fact, it is only inter fering with free markets, which are trying to .cope with a depreciating currency. In reality, the government has acquired control over people. One should always be .on guard against any political phrase which contains the word ((control" in it. For whenever a government decides to control some thing, it invariably means to control some one. Regulations are used in the same manner. To regulate a business, to license a practitioner, is to regulate and control a person. The horror becomes obvious when regulations and licenses are applied to the arts, where individuals deal directly with abstractions. The alarm is quickly sounded when authors, composers, news media, artists, and the like are threatened by any loss of freedom.

Although the principle holds true for every businessman, professional, laborer, and trader, the issue has been successfully obfuscated by gov ernment calling for some kind of Uregulation." But individuals should never be regulated. When a government promises to insure quality products, honest businessmen, competitiveness, and integrity by utilizing controls and regulations, it only insures higher costs, lower standards, and the waste of resources. All forms of human rights, economic rights, the Four Freedoms, wage-price-credit-gun-controls, free education, legal tender, welfare pro grams, regulations, and so on are in reality, different ways of corrupting the things they are supposedly de signed to protect. By employing var ious forms of obfuscation, obscuran tism, deception, falsification, and by pretending to inform, the American Republic has been successfully cor rupted from within-morally, politi cally, and financially.

This state of affairs is properly termed socialism, where individual rights have been replaced by gov ernment bureaus and bureaucrats who enforce the decreed regulations and controls. This is the definition and essence of tyranny. It makes little difference whether our rulers are domestic or foreign, American or Russian, whether they are called 1980 THE CORRUPTION OF LANGUAGE 541 secretaries, leaders, commISSIons, presidents, or departments; individ ual freedom has been confined and limited; government power has been unchained and is unlimited. We are an oppressed people. Improve the Understanding Where lies the solution? Or should we ask, with whom does the solution lie? How can we sift through the morass of deceptive meanings and corrupt language to reach the truth? To begin, individuals must as sume their own responsibility for acting as thinking, judging citizens. They must question unclear and ambiguous pronouncements coming from politicians, educators, and news media. Fuzzy thinking must not be allowed into the reasoning process. If the general public is satisfied with half-truths, lies, and distortions, this is what it will re ceive. So we must raise our stand ards of acquiring knowledge; then these deceptive practices cannot be used against us.

Furthermore, since plain and di rect words cannot be ((employed to darken truth and unsettle people's rights," as Locke aptly put it, we ought to simplify our lives and the words we use. Long, hard-to-define, ambiguous words, like those coined by bureaucrats and pseudo intellectuals, are no longer impres sive or appropriate. By ambiguous we mean terms like ((national wealth," ((national state of the econ omy," and ((general welfare," when there are no such things, only indi vidual wealth and individual wel fare. We should not want the wool pulled over our eyes nor our emo tions comforted with familiar catch-phrases. We must demand the truth in all matters, for the truth always gives a favorable impression to the mind and spirit of man. In The Federalist No. 37, James Madison said, ((Theuse of words is to express ideas. Perspicuity, there fore, requires not only that the ideas should be distinctly formed, but that they should be expressed by words distinctly and exclusively appropri ate to them." When we return to using specific concepts to declare our meanings, then our writing, speak ing, and language will once more acquire the force of truth and use fulness it should possess.

The Individual Is Responsible for the Freedom Sought Actually, to end the corruption of the language, individual rights, and our wonderful lifestyle of freedom and productivity, needs merely the desire and willpower of the people who are the victims being hurt by this insidious process. As in all acts of irresponsibility, it requires the assumption of the responsibility by the individual, who is sanctioning his own destruction, to continually judge issues presented to him, to 542 THE FREEMAN seek the truth, and to settle for noth ing less. Dishonest individuals and groups will always try to gain their ends by any means available. So evil can only flourish where the good is ignored and left unattended. What all of this boils down to is ethics and morality. The corruption of the language is merely a reflec tion of the corruption of the morals and ethics of the general public. Therefore, just as morality is a per sonal responsibility, so is the use (or abuse) of language. Keeping Ian',.,. ..~~~}~~:;;:;:~>s;£:;;J;:~:··: guage pUre~ meaningful,and accurate is thus the responsibility of every thinker, speaker, writer, lis tener, and reader, in addition, every reporter, journalist, publisher, newscaster, and editor.

A free people require individual integrity of purpose· and justice in all things. That is what it took to win our liberty. That is what is required of us today to reclaim our liberty, and to make sure that lan guage is indeed the bond that holds society together. i IDEAS ON LIBERTY Liberty is Limited Government LIBERTY is limited government. I know that is not the philosophical definition but it is the practical definition. I go along with the theologi cal experts who will say-and I agree-that liberty is merely my right to do what I ought to do. I am not at liberty to kill the man next to me. I may have the power but not the liberty to destroy his right. But practically, liberty means limited government. What is the opponent of liberty throughout history? Is it the big corporation, the big union? No. The only institution that has destroyed human liberty irrevocably is big government. The Founding Fathers looked over 6,000 years of human history, and saw the God-given rights of man burned to a crisp at least once in every generation by the fire of government .

. . . We couldn't get along without government, because we are a be nighted race. But at the same time, unless you keep government as you keep fire, under control, checked and balanced, separated, divided, tied down, government will destroy you. That is the rationale of our Consti tution. It doesn't make sense otherwise. CLARENCE MANION, "Right and Wrong Not Right and Left"