One of the most frightening and appalling things I've witnessed recently was a State Department briefing where the media was admonished for improper word choice. Improper according to who? The government?
As reviewed on the Jimmy Dore Show
https://youtu.be/EUUcnPDs1LM (3:09 in the video) the State Department is admonishing the media and advising them they should stop referring to Juan Guido as the "opposition leader". Clearly instructing the media that since the US government decided that Guido is the rightful leader we must all capitulate to this narrative by using their words.
This was chilling to watch because it is, at its core, the government choosing the words we are being TOLD to use, and therefore the government telling us what we are allowed to think. By dictating the very words we use they are attempting to control our very minds and opinions on this issue.
I will close by saying that we have to increase our awareness of this element of tribalism in our politics both for how it is being used against us and for the limitations we place on ourselves when we become monolingual in our political speech.
I am not suggesting we each should adopt the inflammatory rhetoric of the other side, but rather, we should examine our own word choice and it's meaning our tribe as well as how it is recieved by the other tribe. We should develop more awareness of our tendency to listen more closely when our own language is being used and our tendency to shut down when we hear the language of another tribe. To solve problems we have to be able to cooperate and to do that we have to stop retreating to our tribes and learn to communicate with one another in the language of compromise.
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