Texas Scorecard
Words Matter
The language we use to define issues often determines how we will solve them.
### Words Matter
by Michael Quinn Sullivan
The key to winning a fight isn’t found in the fight itself, but in defining what the fight is even about. The great military philosopher Sun Tzu understood this, warning his students not to let their enemies pick the times and locations of battles. He wrote, “The clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him.”
When you fight on your enemies’ terms, it rarely works out well.
You’d think this would be self-evident, but time and again, American conservatives have allowed liberals to define the fights. It is no wonder the war for our culture and republic has been in such shambles!
Words matter; they shape how we approach the world and its problems. In culture and government, language also determines how we will solve them. And all too often, conservatives have allowed themselves to be backed into rhetorical corners, letting the left define the debate by dictating the very words used.
Conservative politicians will say they are adopting the language employed by the cultural and political left as a reasonable concession to civic dialogue. In many cases, though, they are instead revealing their own insecurity or laziness … Or, maybe, they are just revealing their true beliefs.
Take the barbaric practice of surgically and chemically mutilating the sex organs of children to achieve the appearance of the opposite gender. The left wants to call this “gender modification,” leaning into a worldview that devalues human life to little more than a knock-off Lego set.
Nothing is being modified on those children, but rather mutilated. Only by calling the practice of gender mutilation what it is can we hope to see it stopped.
That culture has been at war with marriage for a long time is not news. From “no-fault divorce” to “gay marriage,” holy matrimony has devolved into little more than a casual legal arrangement. The latest verbal assault is on the way spouses are referred to culturally. Gone are “husbands” and “wives.” Now they are “partners,” putting your husband on the same rhetorical footing as the fellow who services your office’s copy machine.
The examples go on and on. Consider the invasion at the southern border … or the problem of “undocumented migrants.”
“Undocumented migrants” is addressed in a vastly different manner than “illegal aliens.” One presumes a paperwork problem created by a bureaucracy; the other defines an existential threat to our national survival.
How we describe any problem goes a long way in dictating how we will solve it.
If conservatives want to be competitive in the war for culture and government, they must stop letting leftists define the terms used to describe the world. Conservatives must discipline themselves and not allow the manipulated language of the left to cross their tongues.Â
Conservatives must impose on the national conversation honest language to describe the issues of the day if we are to save the republic.
