Beware of ‘Snakes,’ ‘Invaders’ and Other Fighting Words

'[Philosopher Lynne] Tirrell writes, “in Rwanda, boys are proud when they are trusted to cut the heads off snakes.”' The authors decapitated Tirrell's sentence, which reads in full: "_Few cultures like snakes, but_ in Rwanda, boys are proud when they are trusted to cut the heads off snakes."* And Tirrell does not say that "In Rwanda, snakes are public health threats." In fact, there are non-venomous snakes in Rwanda**, so that example reduces Rwandans to people too ignorant to distinguish different kinds of snakes. Further, Tirrell never explains in her paragraph how snake-beheading by "proud" Rwandan "boys" caused Hutus to commit "genocide" while Tutsis became their victims. So Tirrell appears to be committing a whole-part fallacy, because, according to Tirrell, ALL Rwandan "boys are proud when they are trusted to cut the heads off snakes." * See Google books: "Speech and Harm: Controversies Over Free Speech" edited by Ishani Maitra, Mary Kate McGowan ** "Snakes of Central and Western Africa" by Jean-Philippe Chippaux, Katherine Jackson.

Likewise the war talk , Sabre rattling re: the menace that is Iran is a slow subliminal drum beat we have been hearing for years — who drums it and send the signals and casts it thru the media relentlessly? To what end ? To whose benefit ?

It’s quite simply really: referring to a group as “murderers”, “rapists”, “animals “, “infestation”, “criminals”, and an “invasion “, as 45 is doing, is getting the people ready to participate in genocide - or to stand by while it happens. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. We’ve seen this movie before, and it didn’t end well.

'Subjects were told that the study “was about the effects of a change in environment on how consumers express opinions about products,” ...' IOW, the "researchers" lied to their subjects. Any result can be obtained with enough lying, deception, group pressure, sex, money, threats, sleep deprivation, torture, etc.* The "researchers" should have been completely honest and explained that they were studying how "hypothetical questions influence behavior". Even better, the "researchers" should have given the subjects some training in critical thinking.** Indeed, such training could have been an experimental condition. And it could have shown that with a little training and practice, anyone can recognize and rebut propaganda. * See, for example, the Asch conformity experiments in which a group of actors persuaded a subject that what the subject was seeing was wrong. ** There are numerous books on critical thinking. See, for example: "Critical thinking skills for dummies" by Martin Cohen.

Trump has certainly mastered the art of manipulating people with hateful rhetoric. His first wife said he kept only one book by his bedside for years––a compendium of Hitler's speeches. And though comparisons to Hitler are often fraught, in this connection, even the dwindling number of Holocaust survivors recall that Trump's rhetoric mirrors that of their youth.

"If you can convince someone that they ought to do what you want them to do, your power is genuine authority." The authors should have consulted a dictionary before writing that sentence, because it is redundant: "authority: power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior" (Merriam-Webster) Thus, authority is a power *by definition*. And the authors should have analyzed the distinction between "genuine" and "counterfeit" authority. If a beggar persuades a passerby to give her money, does the beggar have genuine authority or counterfeit authority?

Entitled white American liberals generally do not think about immigration for the mere fact that it doesn't really affect them really. I am Hispanic. My father spent time hard time in a labor camp (in a communist country) for us to be able to leave our homeland and come to the US. We were poor; but we did not the break rules. We respected the fact that we were allowed to immigrate. And even though we did meet some racism here, we never disliked this country or its people. Instead, we worked hard, lived lawful lives and added to the communities we lived in. My parents never once took any government hand-outs or welfare. But now, we're noticing tons of illegal immigrants doing just that: depleting the system for all they can. And, even worse, not they’re not really liking this country nor its people.

“Invaders” describes exactly the action committed by the people coming to this country uninvited. They are taking our resources making our schools and public places crowded. Close to half the country voted for Trump so he could build a wall to keep them out. Yes INVADERS is the right word to describe them

While the authors are certainly correct in their assessment of the ways language can frame and thereby change how people experience themselves and others, they also unintentionally demonstrate their own susceptibility to such manipulations. Using the phrase “ethnic cleansing” without quotes blunts the emotional impact of mass murder by unreflectively accepting the metaphorical framing of the perpetrators themselves – that the despised ethnic group is indeed a kind of social dirt that must be swept away to maintain the imagined purity of the dominant one.

Any decent salesman has a wide array of "tools in his bag" to induce you to act the way he wants ... this is no secret. The question then becomes (and this has been true throughout the ages): How do you keep from getting bamboozled? The primary successful method is education: The education of all. Both the ABCs of elementary school through to the humanities (usually found in college). And - Yes! - history is my favorite teacher.

Okay, I get the idea that people are not "snakes." That is certainly true, and calling anyone a "snake" is certainly inaccurate. But what do you call people who cross the borders of your country illegally? Certainly, "invaders" is a correct word in that case. You could, as the bien pensant do, refer to them as "undocumented immigrants," but that, while true in many cases, is designed to hide the true nature of their presence in your country, which is as "invaders." Unarmed invaders in many cases, but invaders nonetheless.

Immigration is an orderly, legal process controlled by the host country. It is an invasion when tens of thousands of people, told not to come at home and during the journey, come anyway, pay criminal gangs to get them to their destination, exploit asylum laws with bogus claims while ignoring international law that states they must claim asylum in the closest safe country, and then immediately hop onto the public benefits gravy train.

And let's look at similarly manipulative rhetoric on the left: illegal immigrants are merely "undocumented" (as in, it just happens that they don't have their "documents"); laws permitting late-term abortion are merely attempts to secure "reproductive rights"; when the Executive Branch objects to a subpoena from a co-equal branch, it's a "constitutional crisis." The left often uses rhetoric to cut of debate and silence people, such as saying that critics of Islamic doctric are guilty of "Islamophobia." Progressives have been doing this stuff for decades. The author doesn't like "invasion", only because in this instance it goes against his own political views about immigration.

There are criminal "superpredators". Have you ever heard of serial killers? Career criminals? Criminals with long strings of arrests and convictions? Like money, there is inequality in crime: A few criminals commit a disproportionate number of crimes, probably because once having crossed the ethical and practical barriers, there is little incentive to stop (a robber of a hundred victims will probably only be convicted of one), and plenty to continue. Molesters and abusers are also usually serial offenders. It has nothing to do with race or ethnicity, the NYT's obsessions. It has to do with public safety, and the best use of police resources: catch one repeat offender, and many crimes will be prevented.

Dehumanizing and rendering "toxic" the targeted other through carefully constructed rhetoric is even more common than the NYT may susect. Take a look in the mirror. The piece rovides a good list of "hateful rhetoric" that targets the sort of scaegoats the angry looking for a target to fume over and blame for their situation seeks out. But there is one very imortant omission - the current "time in the barrel" the NYT is directing to China and the Chinese. If you want to see "vitriol" directed at "others" just skim through the endless hammering of China and the Chinese in these pages and the carefully chosen trope reinforcing vocabulary and carefully chosen photos. (infestation, locusts, cruel etc...) And if you want to see it get really ugly just look at the comments section of the Chinese pieces. The NYT knows exactly what it is doing with regard to the perception of the Chinese created with their carefully chosen subject matters to report, headlines and accomanying images. But clearly geoolitics is geoolitics and the NYT is nothing if not a good soldier in getting the US preferred narrative on China across.

"Death tax"

This is another argument for education. People need to be taught critical thinking skills. Republicans oppose education. They subscribe to indoctrination. If Democrats are to prevail they must appeal to the emotions of the people. Righteousness checkmates selfishness.

Words have power. Even those words that are false or misleading have power. Lewis Powell knew it. His memo planned it. Corporate America executes it. We are propagandized by it. The power structure endures.

"But do words really have power to change our behavior?" A silly question. Say "stop"--and (often) the listener stops. Linguistic charity demands a different interpretation. What? Perhaps-- 1. Can word-tokens/occurrences create habits? Obviously repetition is better at conditioning/habituating. But there are "teaching moments" when timely words-tokens "sink in"--with lasting effect. 2. Can word "types" (abstracted from all occasions--like the 26 letters of the alphabet--abstracted from all tokens) change behavior? Again--obviously yes. As a rule the meaning/interpretation of word tokens/occurrences is due to the type. "Indexicals" are rare exceptions.: "here" "now" "I" refer to the place.,time, speaker of the token. 3. Can behavior be due to confusion, mistake, error? Yes! Can word-types be sources of of that? Yes! The well known Whorf-Sapir hypothesis is that language determines thought--which determines behavior. In many ways--Yes. "Empty" can mislead you into putting a lighted match into a gas tank. Empty of liquid needn't be empty of gas. "Gas" can be fumes, or an abbreviation. The prefix "in-" often means not. But "flammable" and "inflammable" are synonymous. Word-types can have many senses. Different senses can have the same referents. Figurative uses allow multiple interpretations. Contronyms are most confusing--words-types with contradictory senses. But "excessive charity" makes lying and stupidity impossible--"He didn't/couldn't mean that".

I am glad that you included the example of what went on prior to the Rwandan genocide. It's an important, relatively recent example. Words matter more than we care to admit, and we become immune to lies we hear repeated over and over (does this remind you of anyone famous because it ought to). Media studies should be mandatory in any high school in any country. If we don't understand what people are trying to do with their hateful words, how can we understand what is true and what is just hate speech?

This is not just a phenomenon on the right, so why paint it as such? Let's talk about slurs like TERFs, shall we? And the ubiquitous "phobes" of all stripes? And the deplorables? The argument would be so much stronger if it acknowledged that the urge to dehumanize through language knows no political boundaries.

I don’t buy anything right away. Concerning McCain, I would wonder why that question was being asked and then not play.

Chocolate cake or fruit salad? They both sound disgusting. Could I have a cup of tea instead? I'd feel the same way if you asked me a hypothetical question aboutGeorge W. Bush or John McCain. Thanks but I'd rather not. I believe language has power. The power is often subtle and manipulative. However, rhetorical power is almost like propaganda. You have to want to believe the lie. The speaker or artist is simply exploiting and exaggerating a resentment which is already there. I'm sorry but you don't hack a room full of Tutsis to death with a machete because someone told you they are like snakes. There was already a grievance. Calling Tutsis snakes simply directs the grievance towards a specific end. The act is manipulation, yes. However, someone needs to be hungry before the decision between cake or fruit has any significance.

The best approach against such ugly "far-right nationalist political leaders around the world" is to "attack" with a steady barrage of biting sarcasm and wit. ( Tip - make it simple and folksy. Use videos?! )

Think of the transition from "gay marriage" to "marriage equality". Or "illegal alien" to "undocumented person". Or "separation of church and state" to "religious liberty" or "freedom of belief". Or (God help us) "pro-life" and "pro-choice". (Both are bad.) Language matters, whether it is direct or indirect. It can clarify or manipulate. It can be a crucial factor in moving us forward.

When it comes to the southern border, how are we supposed to discuss the obvious problems of drugs coming across, human trafficking and the thousands of illegal crossings per month? Mere mention of these things brings accusations of bigotry and racism. An obvious attempt to shame people into silence. Unfortunately, ignoring a problem usually gives it time to get worse.

The kick masterful deceivers get over successfully manipulating their friends and neighbours attitudes must be somewhat diminished over nagging worries over who may be messing with their own attitudes, and why.

Unfortunately, all the actual evidence that Trump is a horrific human did not get through to voters. Despite hearing a range of evidence, voters only believe the terms that mesh with their preconceived notions of race.

Hmmm..."Would you be more or less inclined to vote for Trump or McConnell if you found out that as undergraduate students they had had sexual relations with another male?" I didn't say anything bad or untrue here...

We are already seeing the effects of the president’s lethal rhetoric: self appointed armed militias at the border “arresting” migrants, violence and a murder in Charlottesville, schools, and places of worship — and an uptick and normalization of vulgarity and hate speech in children on online platforms, in classrooms and the playground.

The cited “research from marketing,” is ludicrous, and a gorgeous example of the kind of social psych “data,” that turns out to be basically unreproducible. It’s perfectly logical to say, “well, if I knew cake woudn’t make me fat and didn’t threaten my health, I’d probably eat more of it.” Nothing to do with the power of words at all. Come on, guys. As philo guys, you’ve got a perfectly-good argument to make about Aristotelian rhetoric and, say, Sophism. Why bother with this “video games cause violence!” sort of pseudo-science?

I thought only real Americans from the heart lay mattered?

If the so-called atrocities in Germany would be happening today... I believe, the media and politicians would be dismissed of the tragedy, and would be making efforts to normalize it. In the United States of America, we are galvanized by atrocities, we accept these atrocities as occurrences, or an invented word by the military “collateral damage” As 2019 the United States of America has turned into a war of words. Racially charged words? are called free-speech. Minor children of undocumented immigrants jailed in cages? We called this “family-separation” (regardless of the inhuman purpose, as a tool to be used as deterrent for undocumented immigrants) Countless black men killed by the police and some vigilantes? We called reasonable defense, believing the life of the police officer was at danger by the black men... “holding what appears to be a gun” Children, adults, killed in mass shootings? We called Freedom of the second amendment. A crook in the White House? We calling him Mr. President.

The power of rhetorics works for all sides. Those favoring other policies need to carefully choose what terms and words to deploy to affect public opinion and/or to "combat" (neutralize?) hateful language. Language has the potential to be "weaponized" by all sides and for a wide range of purposes. Awareness of that potential is important but it work in conjunction with other attitudes and passions that it may simply amplify or restrain. So many actions are portrayed these days as "wars" on, in militaristic terms. It is exhausting.

Although I totally disagree with his tactics, Trump is the first politician to clearly point out that we have an immigration problem, and attempt to do something about it. We have 11 million+ ILLEGAL immigrants in our country, and tens of thousands of them knocking at our doors every month. Does no one see this as a problem of national security? Now, I believe, might be a good time for the D's to work with the R's to forge a comprehensive immigration program. Three elements I see as critical are: 1) A path to citizenship for "Dreamers", 2) Giving permanent Green Cards (but no path to citizenship) to immigrants here illegally in our country, and; 3) Implement E-verify and a crackdown, with stiff penalties, for employers who employ illegals.

'Merely urging subjects to “think carefully before you respond to the question” to prepare to justify their answer, later increased cake selection from 48 percent to 66 percent. ' Maybe the need - to justify their answer - caused them to need more "energy" (sugar or chocolate?) to continue with the study?

I think a fundamental error is the failure to distinguish between fact and opinion. Determining which is which can be taught at an early age. Finding the facts is a life long process and not just for researchers, but is a mental discipline worthy of all.

I have some doubts that the cake experiment proves what is claimed in the article. The preparatory question strongly suggests that research shows cake is not so bad for one's health. It doesn't explicitly say there is such research, but unless you listen to it very carefully one can easily think it does. How many test subjects felt much less guilty about eating cake because of what they heard, and then choose it? Were they manipulated? perhaps not- perhaps they made a rational decision based on evidence they believed was given to them by an authoritative person - the researcher. That conclusion is very different from the one the researchers make. Their study was not about fake evidence; it was a study into the effects of non-evidentiary influences. The researchers thought their question was purely hypothetical and based their conclusions on that. I doubt that all those who heard the question shared that view of it.

This article fails to underscore the true peril we face in not understanding how profoundly lacking people are respecting the power of language. When I first started teaching English in 1982 the move away from facts toward critical thinking was well under way. Grammar was suspect because students and teachers found it tedious. As a Speech and Debate coach I witnessed how school clubs were diminishing the role of debate and expanding the Individual Events of speech, such as, Oratory and Dramatic Interpretation. Why? Because debate is fact based, requires research and takes a lot of time, and both our society and our schools have been turning away from hard intellectual work for a long time now. My son, a California public school teacher tells me his department does not assign nightly reading to regular students, only accelerated students. I'm not shocked. I couldn't count how many department meetings I have sat through debating whether or not to assign summer reading to the poor dears. Of course I believe in the necessity of critical thinking. But we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Being unfamiliar with and even contemptuous of facts and the complexities of rhetoric will be our undoing. We no longer get our inspiration from Shakespeare, Homer, Sophocles or the Bible, but from Madison Ave.

Here's another dangerous word, censorship, If you've been reading this paper lately, the privacy project in particular, you'll realize they're all for it. They can't really say it out loud, So you get pieces like this. I appreciate how they're manipulating us by warning us against being manipulated it's a nice touch I like to imagine it was purposeful.

I have been the recipient/target/victim of many political "Push-Polls" during past elections. Some are very sophisticated and manage to mask their intent until well into the exercise. These have come predominantly from the Democratic/left candidates. I feel insulted by this technique and (despite being a registered Democrat for many decades) have actively spoken out against the candidates who resort to this 'low' tactic

We also have the ability to use this same logic to have people think and act in more positive ways. Having taught both martial arts and software engineering for several years, the difference in wording makes a tremendous impact in the response and attitude of the student. We can use the knowledge of how humans operate as evidenced by this study any way we wish: for positive or for negative. I can get you to buy more soft drinks, or to drink more water. The marketing departments of most soft drink companies want the former and they have the money and access to media to manipulate us. Advertisers do not spend billions a year because it is ineffective - they spend the money because it gives a very handsome return on investment. In the same way, a political campaigns and push polling is just advertising to get us to eat more cake even though it might not be the best thing for us or the community at large.

One person's hate speech is another's telling-it-like-it-feels. The trouble with "studies" related to human behavior is twofold: The micro-focus on a binary response to loaded, generalized questions is already foreign (in the sense of not being native) to the human psyche--it imposes an either-or, black-or-white requirement; also, no account seems to have been taken of the level of nutritional knowledge or power of critical thinking a test subject may possess. Also how bought-in to the prevailing misconceptions/ideological one is about food. Some people would make the calculation that, if the fruit were not washed, or was stored improperly, while the chocolate cake was made with dark chocolate and first-rate ingredients, the cake may be healthier. Most people these days, would, at first blush, say that salmon was healthier than a steak. But, if the question were more specific: organic, grass-fed, beefsteak vs farmed, dyed, soy-fed (instead of a natural diet) salmon, many more people would eat the steak. I shudder to think that human beings are as manipulable over matters of life and death as they are about cake vs salad; and the power of words is closely related to authority or charisma of the speaker. People also may say one thing out loud while being convinced of and acting on another idea.

I hope people involved in this kind of research are looking for ways to counter-act the effect. It was very interesting that in the cake experiment, there were in-depth interviews afterwards. Most of this kind of research seems to end with the statistically changed behavior. (Or at least, that's what we read in the newspapers.) But it's fascinating that people actually didn't recognize the effect the "preparation" had on them. I'd have expected they would have at least noticed that they had cake on their minds due to the previous interview. But, the next question is, once you point out to people how they have been influenced, showing them the videos etc, are they at all less likely to be influenced the next time? Is there anything systematic about people who are influenced versus those who are less influenced? You can easily see how a self-image as "seeing through the influence" can be part of being the most easily influenced. ("Try these red pills!") More research, please!

Thoughtful article. As once Rosalyn Carter said, “I think he [Regan] makes us comfortable with our prejudices.” Trump is making us proud of our prejudices. Yes, language does matter more than people would like to admit. Within the language, there is a gradual incremental and insidious normalization of hate and bigotry. It may starts by saying that there are good people on both sides, then claiming that we are being invaded and other religions hate us. Then it moves to erecting barrier and building walls, etc. Then, proudly proclaiming that one is a nationalist, and welcoming Hungry's far-right nationalist prime minister to the White House (the people's house) just a couple of days ago. It is not just a mere coincidence, it is a way to desensitize the populace for what comes next!

1974 Loftus and Palmer experiment:Participants were shown identical short videos of car crashes, and were then asked one of the questions: About how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other? About how fast were the cars going when they collided into each other? About how fast were the cars going when they bumped into each other? About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other? About how fast were the cars going when they contacted each other? The only difference is the wording. Yet it was able to produce a statistically significant result: People WILL believe what they hear.

Excellent piece. This is chilling stuff. Thank you for using a number of specific examples to illustrate how hearing certain words directly influenced attitudes and actions. What is extra disturbing is that subjects of these studies strongly denied the possibility that mere words had had an impact on their actions. It reminds me of the denial that I see in diehard Trump supporters who cannot be reasoned with. This piece begs the question: what is to be done? The people who are influenced by dangerous far-right rhetoric are probably not reading this.