THE MOST DANGEROUS WORDS IN AMERICA

In the new autocracy where war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength language itself is now weaponized against us

- 

FOR THE BETTER PART of the past twenty-odd years, I've begun most of my classes with a prompted freewrite. A statement by 20th-century Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein is not only a go-to prompt but an oh-so-apt declaration for our times: “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” Wittgenstein’s words stress how language defines what we can and can’t think, tantamount to shaping our reality. And the man should know, as he lived during the Third Reich, a regime that achieved its cruel success in no small part by controlling German discourse.

The American regime in power for a precipitous second reign is working overtime to not only disappear words but to pervert their meaning—no less than a hallmark of authoritarian rule.

Within the first 100 days of that rule, MAGA made clear that certain words were to be expunged from federal websites and communications—obvious Goebbels-esque shit—were to be disallowed for use by damn near everybody engaging the federal government for funds. At the time, the effort was much written about—recall a thorough, interactive account in The New York Times. But akin to many of this regime’s egregious transgressions, the story came and went.

The story did—but not its impact. For example, the literary world. Most of the writers I know (me included) have courted and/or been the beneficiary of a literary grant or fellowship. MAGA’s draconian rules on language have resulted in nixed funding for literary organizations and writers themselves, including the jeopardization of prime resources like the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as yielding strict terms on the language used to describe any academic or artistic endeavor seeking government aid. Its mandate couldn’t be clearer: Write about what serves the regime or be unfunded. Or worse.