Power in a Word

There is power in a words, sometimes the wrong kind: Terrorist. This word is ambiguous; it does not clearly communicate the user’s meaning to all listeners in the same way, for two reasons. First, there is imprecise usage, and second, there is variable meaning across cultures, by choice.

Successful communication depends upon clarity, whereas the use of ambiguous words muddies meaning. Not to pick on the “media” which, due to the ever increasing inaccuracies of broadcast, print, and choice-stream content, makes itself ever an easier target, but there is pervasive misuse by media celebrities of the word “terrorist.” This is especially true for suicide bombers and anyone organizationally affiliated with sociopathic criminal groups like Al-Qaeda.

There is no doubt of the deep tragedy of WTC, USS Cole, Marine barracks in Lebanon, and similar acts, but for most people the reaction is not one of terror, but of a mixture of anger and sadness.  (There are cynical elected and law enforcement officials who would prefer we behave like terrorized sheep to obey their every whim, eliminating their duty to serve us and replacing it with authority to shepherd us, but, we’ll save that issue for later.)

But, please, a confused, socially retarded kid with combustible briefs as a terrorist? Doubtful. He evokes pity, humor, and ridicule. Come on, the sad boy tried send himself to an afterlife of 72 virgins with a detonated manhood.  It is likely only Richard Reid who feels something different, like gratitude or relief, that someone else is now the front-most butt of “terrorist” humor.

One-step up the inbred, sociopathic family tree of bomber-dom, are the handlers who incite the impressionable into becoming their patsies. Do we feel terror at them? No. We feel revulsion and a species of anger akin to that of other frauds, like Enron, or when a potentially promising life is perverted by a mentor, the moral equivalent of a murderous-pedophile. Terrorist is the wrong word.

The variability of meaning across cultures is something we should be aware of more acutely. Sometimes it is human nature, and other times it is social or political choice.

It is in the perversity of human nature and the often gray-scale of morality that we love a bad guy. Jack Sparrow, pirate, bad guy: we root for him on the silver screen.  Someone mentions how a bank robber is caught and chances are the listeners will offer suggestions about how he could have avoided whatever tripped him up.  We root for the underdog, the scoundrel, the dashing man against the faceless system. Che’s image sells t-shirts on the free market, yet Che used to murder innocent people, farmers tied up and kneeling in the dust, campesinos who just wanted to be left alone. One man’s traitor is another’s revolutionary hero.

Why are we confused about bad guys and good guys? Romance, coolness, élan, the dashing image, the noble hero, and the faceless-corrupt the hero is supposedly against, are all emotional or image buttons that we respond to.  How many parents call their “hell-raising toddler” a terrorist? Lots.

Terrorist, politically, has a similar confused connotation. It sometimes seems to convey some aura of legitimacy from some point of view. However, allowing ANY legitimacy is a problem because there is none for criminal acts of human sacrifice-by-explosive. Calling such a person a terrorist does a disservice to everyone but the bomber, whom it elevates upon a pedestal to their sympathizers, while besmirching the victims and smearing Islam with the excrement of the criminal act.

A skilled rhetorician might point out that any term can be chosen as a badge of honor. That may be true if we don’t think it through.  For example, if we were to coin a term, say, “bucket-of-diarrhea,” and then we were to say that your religion’s holy book is a “bucket-of-diarrhea.”  We don’t think our listener from a different cultural or social background would spontaneously decide that we meant their sacred scripture is as sweet as honeysuckle or as fragrant as jasmine.

If our listener is Jewish, it is likely the JADL would haul us into court so fast our lawyer’s grandchildren would have whiplash. If the listener is Muslim we might get Theo-van-Gogh-ed, and with some Christian listeners we might awaken with our freezer shotgun blasted, our tires flattened, and a cross burning outside our barn.

Therefore, the logical and most direct conclusion is to avoid the use of the term terrorist and replace it with something more fitting: a term that separates the bomber from his native religion or cause, such as Islam, in the case of Al-Qaeda.

With all the bright and clever people out there, we are sure we can find a number of terms that are more appropriate and less ambiguous.  Ideas?

- E=MC²