{"id":84644,"date":"2016-12-26T12:00:30","date_gmt":"2016-12-26T12:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=84644"},"modified":"2017-01-02T13:50:13","modified_gmt":"2017-01-02T13:50:13","slug":"how-the-everyday-use-of-militaristic-jargon-makes-us-more-combative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/12\/how-the-everyday-use-of-militaristic-jargon-makes-us-more-combative\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Everyday Use of Militaristic Jargon Makes Us More Combative"},"content":{"rendered":"

20 Dec 2016 – <\/em>\u201cWar is merely the continuation of politics by other means,\u201d wrote the Prussian Gen. Carl von Clausewitz. Lately, it\u2019s been sounding like the other way around. That\u2019s not likely to change soon, since the language of warfare and violence pervades Americans\u2019 discourse, even\u00a0when we\u2019re not talking about war. But as we struggle to come to terms with what wasn\u2019t heard during the campaign, we need also to reckon with what was.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cThe country has descended into full partisan battle mode,\u201d proclaimed the Washington Post <\/em>in typical campaign coverage, while journalism sites warned against relying on such warlike clich\u00e9s. Warn away; they were everywhere.<\/p>\n

Candidates targeted, took aim, opened fire, attacked and counterattacked. They engaged in scorched earth verbal warfare and exhibited a take-no-prisoners style as they shot from the hip. Those who were losing made excuses when they bombed, yet, they soldiered on as long as they had a fighting chance because, in the primaries at least, it was a war of attrition. But when they were out-gunned, they bit the bullet and, bloody but unbowed, thanked their armies of volunteers for fighting the good fight.<\/p>\n

Campaigns focused on battleground states, sent in attack dogs and ran attack ads paid for by money bombs. They deployed their secret weapons with which \u2013 or more likely whom \u2013 they bombarded voters, hoping all the while to find the smoking gun or, better yet, a bombshell with which to ambush an opponent.<\/p>\n

Apparently, few news outlets could resist \u201cbombshell\u201d when describing a potential new FBI investigation into Clinton\u2019s emails dangled before voters\u2019 eyes at the end of October. \u201cBombshell\u201d appeared in headlines in the New York Times, New York Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Herald, Baltimore Sun, Charlotte Observer, Christian Science Monitor, <\/em>Politico, Reuters TV, CNBC, CNN, NPR and Fox, and that\u2019s just a start. Fewer bombs were detonated when the FBI announced nine days later that no investigation was necessary.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a given that this campaign was particularly combative, but I\u2019m not talking about what the candidates said to each other or to their followers. I don\u2019t mean to beat up on the media, either; they\u2019re doing a good enough job of that themselves. What I am talking about is how we talk about campaigning and selecting our country\u2019s leadership. I\u2019m calling out the violent, militaristic, belligerent language, memes, metaphors and images that have become so commonplace in our speech that it\u2019s nearly impossible to get through a routine conversation without resorting to them.<\/p>\n

It has continued since the election, albeit not quite as regularly. A Washington Post<\/em> headline on Nov. 12 asked, \u201cWhat\u2019s next for Democrats? For starters, a battle for the soul of their party.\u201d An NBC News headline on Nov. 28 announced that \u201cTrump Meets Petraeus as Battle Over Secretary of State Continues,\u201d while in another headline on Dec. 15, Fox News pondered, \u201cSettling Scores? Trump team resumes battle with press.\u201d And Columbia Journalism Review<\/em>, a site not high on the belligerence scale, noted in December that although the phenomenon of fake news is hardly new, \u201cOne factor unique to our modern discontent is the terrain upon which that battle is fought.\u201d Sure I\u2019m cherry-picking, but examples are not hard to come by.<\/p>\n

Why does this matter, especially now that the voting is over? Well, in addition to a lack of imagination and a surfeit of generals proposed for the next administration, when we talk as if we\u2019re always embattled and as if vanquishing is the only form of winning, that threatens to become the lens through which we see the world. It also makes not just politicians but everyone who sees the world differently from us into the enemy who must be vilified. And look where that\u2019s gotten us.<\/p>\n

That process is similar to what happens in wartime, where military jargon \u2014 that twisting of language for propaganda purposes and the jazzy, Orwellian names for weaponry, tactics, and missteps \u2014 becomes code for behavior civilians wouldn\u2019t understand and wouldn\u2019t want to if they could. In the bone-chilling book \u201cOn Killing,\u201d Dave Grossman, a psychologist\u00a0and former Army Ranger, argues that it becomes easier to overcome the humanly innate reluctance to kill people the farther one moves away from them. The language we choose to describe people and events can be a form of distancing too.<\/p>\n

I know that words are not actions \u2014 that talking about battleground states is not the same as calling up militia, that \u201cbombshell\u201d never meant the same thing as \u201cbomb\u201d \u2014 but if we demonize political opponents as we demonize military opponents, any form of useful discussion becomes impossible. I\u2019m not advocating some anodyne healing, false comity, or hushing of grievances. There are ways to resist other than declaring war, and to do that, it would benefit nearly everyone to find different words to describe how we got here and how we will go forward.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been at real war for a long time \u2014 more than 15 years in Afghanistan \u2014 without counting the numerous shorter incursions into other countries over the past 50 years. I\u2019ve spent the last nine years reporting on people who fought those wars, many of whom have come to regret it. We\u2019re all weary of war \u2014 the wars of tactics and the wars of words. When I find myself talking about fighting for peace, I fear the battle is lost.<\/p>\n

____________________________________<\/p>\n

Nan Levinson is a writer, teacher, and journalist, covering civil and human rights, culture, and the military. Her latest book,<\/em> War Is Not a Game: The New Antiwar Soldiers and the Movement They Built, is now available in paperback with a new preface<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 wagingnonviolence.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWar is merely the continuation of politics by other means,\u201d wrote the Prussian Gen. Carl von Clausewitz. Lately, it\u2019s been sounding like the other way around. That\u2019s not likely to change soon, since the language of warfare and violence pervades Americans\u2019 discourse, even when we\u2019re not talking about war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-militarism","category-in-focus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}