No matter which way you cut it, we’re in a lot of trouble. One of the primary yet most overlooked root causes of this trouble is the fractured state of humanity, and one of the behaviours that sustains this fractured state is the tendency to blame the “other side” for causing it in the first place.
Many tricks of words are being employed to perpetuate this division, both in how we diagnose and discuss social problems, and in how we talk about the people we blame for causing them.
This is especially true in the religious and political arenas, where gatekeepers of truth stoke the fires of destabilisation and destruction in order to preserve their sphere of social influence, and where each perceived “group” continuously fall for the same kinds of rhetoric that has been imposed on people for centuries, allowing themselves to be used for grander nefarious purposes in a trade-off for small, illusory gains.
Here is a brief examination of four ways that language is being used and abused with the goal of keeping us divided, primarily amongst deluded lines of us and them, but also within ourselves as individuals as our perceptions and concepts clash with reality.
How many of them can you recognise around you, in your families, your peers, your politicians, your religious leaders…
