Maybe it’s because I’m obsessive about words and enjoy overthinking things, but I do this a lot with common words and phrases that we use. The one that horrified me today was the phrase “cost of living”. It’s right in front of our faces that it literally costs money to remain alive. Did we know this already? Of course! But the fact that it’s so deeply woven into every aspect of our lives and people don’t even pay attention to what’s coming out of their mouths is wild to me. Wild, and wildly upsetting.
I hope this wasn’t a weird post or a post that doesn’t belong! I will delete or accept a removal of the post if it doesn’t fit. Thanks for reading all of this.
To preface: you are not overthinking. Quite the opposite. There are many terms and phrases that get thrown around, whose definition is just kind of “generally understood”. Freedom. Democracy. Justice. Try asking a liberal for a definition. They will most likely glare at you, glass eyed, for a second, because to them such terms don’t require a definition - they are instinctively accepted.
That is one of the great things Marx and Engels had done - they started digging into such generally accepted terminology from a scientific standpoint. To not be empty worded - in “Critique of the Gotha program”, Marx takes apart, one by one, specific points of the social democratic party’s program and shows why they make zero sense. “All workers must receive just pay” - and what does “just” mean? Who decides what is “just”? Etc.
And back topic of the thread, comrades have covered some examples that get me already, but there’s one specific (I think) to corporate speak. Back when I worked for a yankee corporation, we had these annual “training sessions” - a series of 40-minute-or-so-long courses with a test attached. The topics were “Sanctions” (aka why you must follow the US policies against sanctioned countries), “Workplace harassment”, “Slavery” (aka what to do if you think there’s slavery afoot), etc. The latter two sound reasonable, right?
But here’s the kicker. The courses had a general name of Compliance. Perhaps even “Compliance course” or “Compliance training”, my memory is a bit fuzzy. Such a scummy term. Like being threatened with a shotgun, but it’s pink and made with eco friendly materials. Compliance. Comply, wage slave. Bow down. Kiss the ring. Or else.