17. Listen for Dangerous Words
Be alert to the use of the words extremism and terrorism. Be alive to the fatal notions of emergency and exception. Be angry about the treacherous uses of patriotic vocabulary.
-Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny
Any Word Can Be Weaponized
“Listen for Dangerous Words”? As a writer, I actually find that idea kind of dangerous, at least on its face. It’s not the words that are dangerous; it’s what we do with them.
As Benjamin Bergen argues convincingly in his fascinating book What the F, the only kinds of words that reliably do injury are outright slurs; the rest of the language (any language) isn’t sortable into neat categories of “safe” and “dangerous.” In fact, just about any noun, verb, adverb or adjective you can think of can be used to wound or to heal. That includes profanity, which can be used abusively, enthusiastically or even lovingly. (In my hometown of Philadelphia, you’ll sometimes hear all three applications in a single sentence.)
So we ought to be cautious about putting the blame on the words themselves; it’s generally not their fault. Besides, attempts to ostracize certain terms lead to all kinds of problems: punishing people who are using the words in helpful or culturally-specific ways, forcing people with malicious intent to hide their malice rather than allowing us to confront it directly, opening the door to future bans of our own preferred terms when power shifts hands and so on.
In sum, with all due respect to Timothy Snyder, I don’t think it’s productive to keep an ear open for “dangerous words” since the vast majority of a language is, all else being equal, innocent.
That said, words are powerful, and they can certainly be employed to cause harm, especially when we use them dishonestly or insidiously. Which is to say that we need to be on the lookout for dangerous usage. (The same is true when it comes to handy tools like electricity, hammers and scalpels.) Snyder, for example, is certainly right to note that fascism-inclined politicians sometimes throw around words like “extremism” and “terrorism” to try to scare us into giving up our freedoms. “Patriotism” can be weaponized to try to suppress dissent. And we’ve seen politicians use racist dog-whistles like “DEI hire” to describe presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Words can obviously be rallied for the purpose of manipulation or to plant the seeds of bigotry or enmity.
So, if usage is the problem, how should we respond to it?
Instead of shutting language down, I think the best thing is to open language up — in other words, to talk energetically and publicly about how words are being used and about the potential consequences of those uses. We need to be sensitive to the potential power of language, and we ought to highlight and articulate that power for ourselves and others. We should be alert for linguistic manipulation and bullying. When we encounter these abuses, we need to point them out, and we need to reframe issues in more accurate language. We should make the effort to reclaim words that are being misused, using them helpfully and properly ourselves.
For instance, I think we need to wrest the acronym “DEI” out of abusers’ hands. First of all, we should shine a spotlight on misuse, as when bigoted people try to diminish highly accomplished people with the “DEI” label. At the same time, we need to reclaim the acronym and use it right, which probably involves breaking the acronym down. Instead of shying away from talking about diversity, equity and inclusion, we need to talk more about the urgency of all three. We need to remind people that we need a world where barriers and injustices are removed and needs are met (equity), so that everyone has the wide-open opportunity to participate (inclusion), bringing the full richness of their talents and perspectives with them (diversity).
I’ll admit: What I’m arguing for is a difficult and active kind of listening — harder than just making a list of bad words — plus a difficult and active kind of responding. But it’s only through this effort, I think, that we can keep language from getting dangerous.
