Cheapening

Over the many years of my life, I’ve seen new words added to our vocabularies while others have lost popularity or been discontinued. New terminology has been created to cover the increasing complexity of inventions and our changing world. But what I am worried about is the cheapening of the real meanings of words. Too many people casually use words that are being hurled in playground episodes of name calling. When individuals or groups of people can no longer rationally debate their differences or are unwilling to act reasonably toward each other, they begin to use thoughtless phrases or toss offensive words at the other.

Take the word “racist.” It was a term to define someone who asserted differences in character, intelligence, etc. by skin color or ethnicity. It asserts that one person feels superior and prejudges another based on those differences without actually knowing the other person. Too often it has become an epithet to be used when another person doesn’t agree with your view and has nothing to do with one’s view on race or ethnicity.

The same is true of the word “bigot.” When someone can’t be won by reason the other person may resort to calling the opposition a bigot. When a person cannot be swayed or persuaded to a similar view or opinion the opponent is oft times called bigoted.

Using the term “Nazi” seems to be the most recent term used when another disagrees with the ideas being espoused. The term is by all means a despicable term describing the tyrannical political party that foisted one atrocity after another on dissenters and on a specific race. Fascist is another term closely associated with Nazi and is running parallel to it. Hitler was at the helm of this demented political party and his name is another insult randomly hurled when someone refuses to believe the argument or stands against the opposing belief. Hitler and his followers committed the most horrendous attacks on mankind. They herded men, women, and children into box cars, hauling them to concentration camps to be slave labor. They were either worked to death or murdered in massive numbers in gas chambers. At time the dead’s skin was used to make lamp shades. The gold teeth extracted from their mouths and sold. Even their hair was used to stuff furniture. The dead were buried in mass graves and forgotten like trash.

When the people of today casually toss around words like Hitler, Nazi, Fascist, and concentration camps loosely, they cheapen the real meaning of everything that is concentrated in these terms. They lessen the true historical facts and gravity of those words. People need to be able to argue, defend, and debate their points of view without denigrating or cheapening the true meaning of history and those words.