The War on words

 Re-engineering Reality

Language is not just a mirror of public life; it is part of the engineering that makes shared life possible. Societies rely on stable meanings to interpret evidence, evaluate policy, and coordinate action. When language is deliberately destabilized, disagreement does not simply intensify — common reality itself becomes harder to maintain.

In earlier decades, many politically charged terms carried relatively stable reference points. Words emerging from social movements described experiences of injustice; economic and political labels referred to defined theories; scientific terms reflected empirical consensus about observable phenomena. Disagreement existed, but it took place within a shared vocabulary.

That stability has eroded.

Over the past two decades, public discourse has increasingly treated meaning itself as contested terrain. Across contemporary discourse, familiar terms are routinely stripped of their original meaning and colonised as political weapons by corrupt corporate machines. Woke, once a call for social awareness of racism, is recast as a synonym for extremism. Diversity and inclusion are reframed as threats to fairness or competence, obscuring their original purpose of expanding participation and reducing structural exclusion. Socialism is used to describe any public policy expanding social welfare, regardless of its economic definition. Fake shifts from describing false information to dismissing inconvenient evidence. Scientific terms like climate change and global warming are framed as ideological claims rather than empirical findings. Indoctrination is applied to education that examines inequality, while censorship is reframed as “protection.” 

Through repetition, these distortions replace description with accusation, transforming language from a tool of understanding into an instrument of control. Words are not only debated but strategically redefined through repetition, emotional framing, and selective usage. Complex ideas are compressed into slogans; descriptive terms become identity markers; disagreement is recast as threat. When definitions shift faster than evidence can be evaluated, argument yields to reaction.

This process does not require centralised coordination to be effective. It operates through incentives embedded in contemporary information systems. Political actors benefit from framing opponents as existential dangers rather than interlocutors. Media ecosystems reward emotionally charged language over precise explanation. Digital platforms amplify content that provokes response rather than reflection. Under these conditions, distortion becomes adaptive behaviour rather than aberration.

The consequences are measurable. When scientific terminology is recast as ideology, policy responses to environmental risk become politically negotiable rather than evidence-driven. When educational content is framed as indoctrination, institutions tasked with transmitting knowledge become objects of suspicion. When moral or religious language is selectively invoked to frame policy disputes, political disagreement acquires the force of existential conflict. When labels replace descriptions, individuals and groups become abstractions rather than participants in shared civic life.

Censorship, whether formal or informal, frequently follows semantic destabilization. If ideas can be framed as inherently corrupting, dangerous, or illegitimate, restricting access to them becomes defensible. Book removals, curricular restrictions, and reputational stigmatisation are then interpreted not as constraints on knowledge but as acts of protection. The redefinition of terms alters the perceived boundaries of acceptable action.

Media and commentary institutions occupy a pivotal position within this environment. The aspiration to neutrality can unintentionally legitimize distortion when misrepresentation and evidence are treated as symmetrical positions requiring equal amplification. Reporting that transmits contested language without clarifying its meaning does not merely describe a dispute; it participates in shaping the terms through which the dispute is understood. Precision is not advocacy. Clarification is not partisanship. The refusal to distinguish between definition and assertion leaves audiences to navigate competing realities without interpretive guidance.

The proliferation of alternative “facts” illustrates the systemic risk. A shared informational environment depends not on universal agreement but on minimal consensus about how claims are evaluated. When that evaluative framework erodes, collective decision-making becomes unstable. Public health, environmental policy, education, and democratic governance all rely on the ability to distinguish description from distortion. Without that distinction, societies cannot reliably identify threats or coordinate responses to them.

The issue, therefore, is not simply misinformation. It is epistemic infrastructure — the network of practices that sustain shared understanding. Language is a foundational component of that infrastructure. When meanings become fluid instruments of strategy rather than tools of reference, power accrues to those who can most effectively shape interpretation. Control of communication channels then translates into influence over perceived reality itself.

Resistance remains possible because meaning is not infinitely malleable. Journalists who define terms rather than merely repeat them reinforce shared reference points. Educators who contextualize contested ideas maintain continuity of knowledge. Librarians and cultural institutions that preserve access to materials sustain the conditions under which claims can be examined rather than asserted. These practices do not eliminate conflict; they make conflict intelligible.

The responsibility of institutions that mediate public understanding is therefore not neutrality between clarity and distortion, but commitment to intelligibility. To describe phenomena accurately. To distinguish definition from rhetoric. To provide context where compression obscures meaning. To recognize that language is a public resource whose degradation imposes collective cost.

When words lose stable meaning, reality becomes negotiable. When reality becomes negotiable, power determines what counts as truth. And when power alone determines truth, democratic deliberation gives way to manipulated perception.

Protecting language is not a symbolic exercise. It is a practical defense of the conditions that allow societies to recognize danger, preserve knowledge, and act together. A public that cannot rely on the meaning of its words cannot rely on the stability of its world.