Cheapening
Over the many years of my life I’ve seen new words added to our vocabularies while other words have lost popularity or been discontinued. New terminology has been created to cover the increasing complexity of inventions of the changing world. But what I am concerned about is the cheapening of some words’ meanings. Too many people casually use words that are being hurled in playground episodes, epithets or name calling. When an individual or group 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 each other.
Take the word “racist.” It was a term to define someone who asserted differences in character, intelligence, etc. judged by skin color or ethnicity alone. It asserted that one person was superior prejudging another based on those differences without knowing the other person. Too often it has become an epithet used when another person doesn’t agree with another’s ideas 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 win arguments by reason, another person may resort to calling the opposition a bigot. When a person cannot be swayed or persuaded into a similar view or opinion an opponent is often times called bigoted.
Using the term “Nazi” seems to be the most recent term being used when someone disagrees with the ideas being espoused. The term is a despicable term describing a tyrannical political party that foisted one atrocity after another on dissenters and on a specific race. “Fascist” is another term 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 barbaric and horrendous attacks on mankind. They herded men, women, and children into box cars, hauling them to concentration camps as slave labor. They were either worked to death or murdered in gas chambers. Sometimes the skin of a corpse was used to make lamp shades. Gold teeth were extracted 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 or loosely toss around words like Hitler, Nazi, Fascist, and concentration camps, they cheapen the real meaning of the horror that is concentrated in those terms. They lessen the true historical facts and gravity those words imply. People need to be able to argue, defend, and debate their points of view without denigrating or cheapening the true meaning of history found in those words.