Has anyone noticed that people on the Left keep changing the definitions of words? It’s a problem.
Sometimes these redefinitions seem blatantly strategic and premeditated, like when Cecilia Rouse, the president of one of President Biden’s economic advisory councils, suggested that we need to “upgrade” our definition of the word “infrastructure.” Rouse’s comments come as Democrats try to ram through a $2.25 billion infrastructure bill that pumps money into a variety of projects that have nothing to do with infrastructure—like childcare.
The same thing happened with the term “court-packing” during the last election cycle. Biden and Harris dodged questions about court-packing for weeks—until they realized that they could just change the phrase’s definition and accuse Trump of court- packing. (According to Democratic politicians, court- packing no longer referred to the practice of adding more seats to a court to water down the influence of a previous politician’s appointees; it suddenly meant any attempt to fill judicial vacancies quickly.) Dictionary. com bought the new narrative and changed their definition of court-packing to “the practice of changing the number or composition of judges on a court, making it more favorable to particular goals or ideologies” (emphasis mine). In other words, any attempt to appoint a judicial nominee, especially a nominee who differs ideologically from their would-be predecessor, is now considered court-packing. That is absurd, dishonest, and a distraction from the threat posed by real court-packing.
It’s not the only redefinition that happened during Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination fiasco. Hours after Coney Barrett used the phrase “sexual preference” during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Miriam-Webster added a line to its entry for the word “preference” denoting that, when used in regard to sexuality, the word “preference” is considered offensive. Coney Barrett was then accused of bigotry.
Sometimes though, definitions change more subtly. The word “violence” no longer refers to physical harm. It can now refer to intentional emotional or verbal harm, too. And in recent years the Left has radically changed the definition of “gender,” separatingit from the biological concept of sex. By arguing that gender and sex are inherently different concepts, they shut down debates about gender theory.
Constant redefinition is super problematic. For one, it’s a butchery of the English language. It’s also blatantly dishonest and fallacious: one cannot simply change the definition of words to get what one wants. (Although the strategy seems to be working for the Left.)
Redefinition isn’t just dishonest; it also makes it impossible for people to reach consensuses or develop viable solutions to legitimate issues. An essential prerequisite for having a productive conversation about public policy—or any serious topic for that matter— is an agreed-upon linguistic framework. Given the nuanced nature of most policy issues, precise, well- defined terminology is especially important. And so, when politicians, journalists, and policy advocates change the definition of a particular term in order to sell legislation, drum up concern about an issue, or smear political opponents, they generate confusion and prevent productive, bipartisan conversations. How can we develop effective infrastructure legislation if we don’t even have a shared sense of what infrastructure is?
Nowhere is the danger of imprecise and shifting language clearer than in current conversations about racism and white supremacy.
Once upon a time, there used to be a hierarchy of racist sins. At the top of the list was white supremacy. “White supremacy” referred to the belief that white people were biologically superior to other people; it often led to violence, attempts at ethnic cleansing, and other atrocities. Examples of white supremacist groups included the KKK and Nazis. Below white supremacy, there was racism: according to the OED, racism also involved a belief that one racial or ethnic group was superior to another; it generally manifested itself in some form of discrimination, the use of racial slurs, etc. Below racism was racial prejudice. Racial prejudice typically referred to beliefs that certain people had about individuals in other racial or ethnic groups. Those beliefs could inform actions, and thus feed racism. But being prejudiced (thinking a particular way) was different from being overtly racist (intentionally acting a particular way because of someone’s race or ethnicity). Finally, there was racial bias—the innate tendency to prefer people who looked like oneself. Bias, unlike other racial sins, was usually less intentional and more implicit than prejudice.
But in the last several years, the hierarchy of racial sins has been obliterated by proponents of Critical Race Theory, who have pushed for much broader definitions of terms like “racism” and “white supremacy”—definitions that encompass, well, just about everything. Suddenly, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the SAT, and even attempts to ignore race are all considered forms of, or are rooted in, white supremacy.
Using terms like white supremacy or racism with impunity can raise awareness about the prevalence and harms of racism, which is a noble motive. And yet, it’s kind of like a doctor calling everything “terminal,” regardless of whether or not it’s actually terminal: sure it might push patients to re-evaluate their lives or pursue more aggressive treatment, but it’s also dishonest. It can lead to ineffective solutions, and—in the long run—can lead people to take serious diagnoses less seriously. If everything is white supremacy, we run the risk of people believing that nothing is white supremacy. And then we lose the capacity to address real racism.
I’m convinced that this problem is playing out in real time across the country, hampering America’s capacity to heal racism and other divisions that bifurcate the nation. When activists like Ibram Kendi and Robin DiAngelo toss out allegations of white supremacy and racism like candy at a parade, they push reasonable people to stop taking allegations of racism seriously. Even when people do want to address racism, confusion about what racism actually is adds unnecessary conflict to public discourse. As a result, instead of addressing, say, the influence of white supremacist groups on social media, we bicker about metrics that gauge the health and stability of the Black community (like high school graduation rates), because somehow those metrics— which can and should inform public policy—are racist.
As a final note—I’m willing to concede that language changes over time, that old definitions can be clunky and outdated, and that, sometimes, we need a richer understanding of what a particular word means. But I do not buy that the meaning of words does (or should) correspond neatly with the Democrats’ policy agenda. Furthermore, if a word’s meaning does need to shift, then let’s actually have a conversation about terminology. Let’s debate whether or not sex and gender
are different, whether or not infrastructure includes childcare, or whether an affinity for capitalism makes a person racist. Even middle-schoolers are taught that, in order to make an argument, they need to define their terms accurately. Why can’t we start holding politicians, journalists, and academics to the same standard?