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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   37165 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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There's obviously an extent to which words matter, and symbolism matters, but that extent is not infinite, and I suspect that if you're very good at wordsmithing, or in a language-focused industry (like journalism or much of academia or much of politics), it can be easy to overestimate the power of words, or indeed to confuse words for reality.

Agreed. See also the terminally online, and anyone in an industry where their paycheck hinges on the belief that propaganda is decisive. There's the saying it's very hard to convince someone that the job that pays their paycheck is unnecessary, and it's equally hard to find someone in the convincing-people industry that too much money is currently being spent on trying to convince people.

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