Language is one of the most incredible tools that humanity has. I love it. I only know one language, English [obviously], and I know that English gets a bad rap for not making sense, having strange spellings and contradictions, but I love it. I do. Human beings have contradictions!
Anyway, whatever language you speak, the purpose of language is to communicate with one another. You have a thought, you want to share that thought with another person, so you make a series of noises or write a series of characters on a paper or a screen, and there you go! You’ve shared part of your mind with someone else! It’s really quite beautiful. Or, it can be beautiful. Some thoughts are clearer than others. And some people are better at using language in certain situations than others. It’s a tool, after all. The goal should be to express clearly, but some people do sneaky little tricks with language.
People lie, of course, but that’s just knowingly saying something that’s false. Other tricks are much more sneaky, and since I want language to be used well, I wanna talk about some of these tricks. Some sentences are used to express a thought, but their full meaning is dependent on the context. Let’s just get into some examples and I’ll explain.
Climate has always changed, and it always will
This is a really common example of a sentence that really needs context to derive its meaning. Anthropogenic climate change is one of the biggest issues of our time, so people talk about it. This sentence is true. It is an accurate statement. Now let’s take a look at that phrase being said in different contexts.
Let’s say I was a university professor, teaching Environmental Science 101, and after I first explained the difference between climate and weather, I said, “The climate has always changed, and it always will.” Then I go on to explain the climate over millions of years, and how it works, and how anthropogenic greenhouse gases change the climate, and so on. In that context, the meaning of the phrase is: “Hey, the Earth is really, really old. And the climate [temperature, precipitation, oceans, atmospheric content, etc.] has changed a lot and fluctuated a lot in that time. Currently, a big part of the change is due to human activity. But not all of the change is due to human activity. Also, because we have some understanding of previous climate change, we may better understand the current climate change,” and so on.
The purpose of the sentence is to educate, to explain, and to explore how our world works.
Now let’s say I’m watching a YouTube video about climate change, how dangerous it is, how we need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions soon to mitigate the damage, and here’s how we can do that, etc. Let’s say I make a comment that says, “The climate has always changed, and it always will,” and nothing else. It’s the same sentence, and it’s technically correct, but its context gives it a different overall meaning. In this context the sentence seeks to un-explain, to obscure, and to limit understanding of the world.
I mean, why would someone make this comments? It adds nothing. The fact that the climate has always changed is not in dispute. No environmentalist claims that the climate stayed the same for 4 billion years, then just in the last 100 years, it started warming up. The context, a video advocating environmental action, gives the sentence a different meaning. The meaning is: “Hey, this video wants us to change society to address climate change, but the climate has always changed, so we don’t need to do anything!” Totally different meaning, but it’s the same sentence. It’s a sneaky little trick.
Everybody makes mistakes
Another perfectly true statement. Yes, everybody does make mistakes from time to time. I’ve yet to meet someone who’s never made a mistake. But the mistake in question, and the context in which the statement is said, really matter here. “What’s the mistake?” is an important question.
Like I got a new job, and I like it, but it’s kinda difficult sometimes. We’re building a lot of stuff, and I’m getting better at it, but sometimes I still mess something up. I’m tempted to just think that I’m a stupid idiot and horrible at my job, and I’m a worthless person, but then I say, “Hey, everybody makes mistakes,” and I continue on. It’s just a little mistake at work. Nobody died, I didn’t bankrupt the company or lose millions of dollars. I just did something slightly wrong, that’s all. So in that context it means “Hey man, don’t beat yourself up, you’re good.”
But let’s say you commit some horrible misconduct in your workplace, like assault or something. And your boss is firing you, and you’re like, “Hey, everybody makes mistakes.” In that case your boss might think, “Sure, everybody makes mistakes, I’m not denying that. But your actions warrant a termination from your position, and the fact that everybody makes mistakes doesn’t really apply here.”
It’s a useful phrase, but only sometimes.
“Disagree”
This is a word I hear from “all sides” [another phrase that gets used too much]. The right says “everybody I disagree with is a communist,” and the left says “everyone I disagree with is a racist.” I encourage everyone to resist using these phrases and to ignore anyone using them because they don’t add anything of value to political discussions. It can be funny, sure, but it does nothing. It’s not provable or disprovable, it just makes you feel good when you say it about the other guy.
It’s similar to the previous one, where you’d want to ask, “What are the mistakes?” With the whole disagreement thing, you immediately should ask, “What is the disagreement about?” You could say, “Ah, college kids get all up in arms about anyone they disagree with.” And yeah, sometimes they get pretty passionate about stuff, but sometimes they’re disagreeing with, you know, Richard Spencer, who deserves to be disagreed with, to say the absolute least. To simplify it as “disagreeing” diminishes the seriousness of the situation, and it allows the people with the most extreme, vile ideologies to use the same excuse. Everyone you disagree with blah blah blah.
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism
I agree with this statement, but I understand that it’s not nearly as universally accepted as the first two. But there definitely are different contexts in which to say this. One is as a provocative little slogan that you say when you’re trying to get someone to think about why capitalism is bad maybe. You say it, then you explain why you believe that, and then you have a nice little discussion, a polite back-and-forth on political thought, hopefully.
That’s fine, then maybe another context could be a discussion about the environment. And one guy’s going off about all the different things you’re supposed to buy and do to be a perfect environmentalist consumer, and he’s getting all mad whenever anyone does something that’s environmentally damaging. And you’re like, “Yeah, I get it. And I have a gas-powered car. And although I am generally opposed to fossil fuels, I need my car to get to work, and I can’t afford an electric one, and there isn’t sufficient public transport in my city. So I’m gonna keep driving my car. I’d like to be more eco-friendly, but there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.” In that context the meaning is basically, “Hey, get off my back. Our society makes perfect consumption impossible.” And then hopefully you work together to try to change society.
Lastly, there could be someone abusing this phrase. They say, “Look, since there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism, I might as well consume as immorally as possible for my own benefit. Might as well not give a shit.” And then they buy the most unnecessary, environmentally destructive things in the world. They just use that phrase as a poor excuse to act shittier than they need to. And that, in my opinion, is bad.
It’s one of those gray area things where it’s hard to know when you cross the line from reasonable to unreasonable. Such is life, as they say.
Lefty Forrester 