The Importance of Political Language

On National Review Online, Daniel Foster touches on a very important point in the never-ending debate between the Left and Right:  vocabulary.  Foster explains this here:

One of the biggest challenges of the Left-Right debate about the proper size and scope of government is that we are, in some fundamental sense, not speaking the same language as the Left — and because Big Government basically won the 20th century, the language of the Left has been internalized to a certain extent by all of us. In a world where the reflexive response is to equate government with society, folks may quite literally lack the vocabulary to understand conservative principles.

This essay on progressivism by John Moser, Associate Professor of History at Ashland University, also highlights the same important point.  Here is a key excerpt:

For liberals, progressivism is a set of policies, from the industrial regulations of the early 20th century through the welfare measures of the Great Society. Such initiatives were attempts to address real problems that emerged in the development of an urban, industrial society. What’s more, they insist, these policies have brought about immense tangible improvements in the lives of ordinary Americans. Only a dangerous extremist, therefore, would want to reverse them.

Conservatives, meanwhile, regard progressivism as an ideology, a set of beliefs developed by men such as Herbert Croly and Woodrow Wilson. According to these thinkers, the ideas of the Founders had no relevance to modern industrial society, and concepts such as limited government, separation of powers and even inalienable individual rights had to be cast aside in order to meet the challenges of the modern world. Moreover, since our society is so complex, day-to-day operations of government had to be taken out of the hands of the people themselves and entrusted to trained experts. All of this led some conservatives to find similarities between progressivism and another political response to the problems of the 20th-century world, namely fascism.

The problem is that both sides are right, but neither seems willing to consider the other’s definition. This is the source of much of the rancor in today’s politics. While using the same words, conservatives and liberals are practically speaking different languages.

Language is a key factor in contributing to confusion on politics today, because both sides have succumbed to using the language of the Left (e.g., the number of conservatives always talking about restoring "traditional family values."  The trouble is is the word values is itself subjective and implicitly denies permanent truths which apply to all people and all times.  Conservatives thereby undercut their own arguments when they use the language of the Left).  This is a major problem, because it is so subtle and most of the time goes unnoticed by both the speaker and listener.

For conservatism to continue to gain ground, conservatives must make language their own again.