On Contempt for Semantics

Posted on April 12, 2003 in Thinking

What does the word “War” mean to you?

Did Gandhi “war”?

Gandhi didn’t use the word “war” to describe what he did in any of the articles that I have read by him. He took pains, in fact, to distance himself from the practice of “armed struggle” so that there would be no doubt that his cause was nonviolent. Gandhi repeatedly investigated the semantic roots of the words he used.

When I mentioned that an exhibit called “War on George Bush” might be attracting attacks by its very name, I got put through a wringer of anti-political correctness by Jeremy at Acts of Conscience. He’s angry with me (welcome to the club) but hasn’t really offered any solid defense other than the “different people have different definitions for things” argument that, as is often the case, doesn’t wash.

When I call for nonviolent action, I want to make it damn clear that the means that I intend to use to promote change are as different from that being used by George W. Bush as day and night. I checked several dictionaries and not a single one used the term “nonviolence” or “nonviolent struggle” to define war. The closest fits suggested that war is “conflict” or a campaign to end something.

End something? End George W. Bush? That sounds like assassination to me. Is it OK to be misconstrued that way?

Back in the early eighties, a cell of the nonviolent Communist Workers Party — not be to confused with the RCP — held a “Death to the Klan” rally. The KKK showed up and shot four people. It took years of struggle for the survivors to see justice done because those words “Death to the Klan” were trotted out by the KKK’s lawyers and used to justify a plea of “self defense”. The state and the federal government could not persuade juries to convict these men. And this was despite the fact that they had video tape showing that it was anything but self defense!

I’m personally tired of going through the same mistakes over and over again. The peace movement needs discipline as much as an army does: in fact, it needs more discipline. A few weeks ago, Jeremy and I agreed that we wanted to distance ourselves from the people who threw molotov cocktails and damaged property. When we call what we’re doing a “war”, we invite people to commit these acts. And we invite violent retribution which will be applauded by some and overlooked by the many because, after all, we “asked for it”.

Jeremy’s upset at the threats of vandalism and violence are understandable and justified, but in the language of those who did it, the promoters of the art show had announced that it had come to something more than an exchange of words, something in which vandalism and violence were the rule of the day.

War is the thing we’re trying to prevent here. It is in all our best interests to use the right word(s) that zeroes in on what we’re trying to do.

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A parallel to ponder:

A few years ago, General Motors discovered that its Nova was the butt of jokes in Latin America because the phrase could be rearranged slightly to suggest that the car “doesn’t go”. Sales were slow. They changed it.