Liberals seem intent on winning the battle of new terms over the war of ideas
“Again and again we create new terms hoping to get past negative associations with the old ones, such as ‘homeless’ for ‘bum.’ But after a while the negative associations settle like a cloud of gnats on the new terms as well, and then it’s time to find a further euphemism. With no hesitation I predict that ‘unhoused person’ will need replacement in about 2030.” - John McWhorter, “It’s time to let go of ‘African American,” The New York Times, July 10.
Upon reading this quote, a dear old friend wrote, “Do (liberals) really think people on the street care if they are referred to as ‘homeless’ or ‘unhoused’? It is only the white, housed ‘performative ally’ lefties who have time to indulge in this nonsense … It is this sort of language police stuff that allows the MAGA crowd to lampoon wokeism, and it (angers me) that so many liberals sign up for these meaningless battles.”
My friend is an old lefty himself, yet he is a business executive. He is always engaging with more conservative associates, from workers at the sites he visits to the suits in the boardroom. He doesn’t adopt their ideology but knows what drives middle-of-the-road Americans to the right.
Performative social media clashes and virtue signaling turn off the public
Former President Barack Obama was concerned about doctrinaire phrasings among his fellow liberals.
In 2019, during a speech at the Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago, he said: “I get a sense among certain young people on social media that the way of making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people. If I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself because ‘Man, did you see how woke I was? I called you out!’ That’s enough. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you are probably not going to get that far.”
And you’ll probably help your team lose elections.
Obama was concerned that performative social media clashes turn real issues into personal virtue signaling based on parading the latest fashionable terms. As McWhorter says, there is no appreciable difference between homeless and unhoused, other than that over time, homeless became associated with degraded lives, which unhoused apparently does not signify. Not yet, anyhow.
My friend nearly became apoplectic upon coming across a new term, “transfronterizx.” It originates in the term Spanish-language word “transfronterizo/a,” which “came into academic borderland literature in the mid-1990s and combines the term border and the prefix trans — resulting in a neologism, transborder, which in Spanish is transfronterizo.” The author added the “x” to indicate inclusive gender identity.
I’m interested in rhetoric, a fundamental aspect of English studies, my field and McWhorter’s. Pronounceable words like unhoused have entered the American vocabulary, albeit in contested ways. Meanwhile, the world awaits an influx of “transfronterizx” to its conversations about immigration, race, language and sexuality.
Shine at an academic conference or win the hearts and minds of the people?
I hope that my record of opinion does not suggest that my concern is with the people framed by such language. It’s with the constant new terms that are fashionable in academic journals and on social media but are annoying to people who might agree with the sentiments, if not the means of expression.
They want to investigate the issues, not argue about the terms. And academics can become very weary of one another’s jargon, even that within their own field, so it’s a problem in many areas.
As my old friend believes, using exclusionary terms enhances the possibility of winning admiration at the academic conference podium or in the social media post, yet losing the war with the public.
It’s easy for the right wing to mock these terms and the people who use them, in the process gaining the political advantage.
In no way am I ignoring right-wing political messaging, which has caused a revival of interest in George Orwell, the late British author of “1984″ and “Animal Farm.”
My concern is that people who share my perspective use terms that turn people in the middle of the political spectrum away from their ideas.
My appeal is to people who share my ideology. What is the endgame when it comes to the terms of engagement? If it’s to grow in stature among the people within your sphere of influence, then you will prosper among its residents.
If it’s to help convince the general public that you have good ideas, then you might consider using terms that laypeople can understand, and that have a longer shelf life than a loaf of bread.
Peter Smagorinsky is a retired professor of education at the University of Georgia and frequent contributor to the AJC.
