Mere Rhetoric: Destroying Memory By Destroying Language

Making suitable adjustments for nuance at the edges, how we publicly remember and mourn the past is a function of the words we have to talk about it. Linguistic invention and destruction happen all the time, of course, but it happen sslowly and jarringly. As Orwell knew, losing a word very often means losing the concept that goes with it. Last year we wrote about the Orwellian underpinnings of the term "anti-Semitism". It was created out of whole cloth by German racists who wanted to make institutionalized Jew hatred seem respectable and scientific. And they more or less won - "anti-Semitism" is how you label Jew hatred in English.

We've also talked a little local and global campaigns to dilute even the term "anti-Semitism". From the UN to local letters to the editor, people want to change "anti-Semitism" from meaning "hatred for Jews" to meaning "hatred for Semites". There are two goals here: (1) to make it impossible to specifically accuse Arabs of anti-Semitism (because they're Semites too) and (2) to make it impossible to talk about hating Jews in any general way (since the specific word for it would be gone).

And just in case you were willing to consider that these campaigns are the result of innocent linguistic naivety: Bill Poser over at Language Log has caught one in a moment of startling and unintentional honesty:

Some time ago I wrote about an argument often used to defend Arabs charged with anti-Semitism: pretending to think that "anti-Semitic" refers, as its etymology suggests, to hatred of Semitic people in general and that therefore Arabs, as Semites themselves, cannot be anti-Semitic... we generally can't be certain that it is a rhetorical ploy rather than ignorance... In this post a blogger who goes by the name "Dr. Maxtor" makes the familiar fake argument. When a commenter points out that [t]he word "anti-Semitism" was coined in Germany to mean "hatred of Jews"... "Dr. Maxtor" responds... I'm aware of that George, but its time the word was redefined to include all semites.

Ahmadinejad has been going about this all wrong. Denying the Holocaust is an uphill battle - if you want to destroy people's ability to remember it, it's much easier to destroy the language they have to talk and think clearly about it.

References:
* The Nizkor Project
* "Dr. Maxtor" and Anti-Semitism [Language Log]
* The Orwellian Origin and Development of the Term "Anti-Semitism" [MR]
* More Evidence of New Anti-Israel Rhetorical Strategy: Orwellian Destruction of Language [MR]
* Ahmadinejad target of Holocaust Remembrance Day speakers

Previously:
* Over 100 Iranians Condemn Iran's Holocaust Denial Conference
* Europe Remembers the Holocaust
* Reuters Coverage Of Iran's Holocaust Conference: Sigh

Cross-posted to:
* The Astute Bloggers