The Boy Who Cried Socialist and Related Tales

Spoiler Alert: The moral of the story is that concept creep is a serious obstacle to building a better world.

“Instead of helping us ponder the state of the world today, impassioned political labels rather lead us astray.”

-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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There once was a Boy with an interest in politics.  An avowed capitalist with a growing shepherding business, he was quite concerned about a Local running for office that had somewhat different ideas.  The Local favored higher taxes and a more robust social safety net, and the Boy did not.  The Boy was concerned:  he believed that his positions were right and that the Local was wrong, but it was so hard to explain exactly why.  But then, the Boy had an idea:  “What if I don’t explain anything at all, what if I just call him a ‘Socialist.’”  Now, the Boy knew that the Local did not favor replacing capitalism with a socialist economic system, but the boy also knew that The Gulag Archipelago was popular in the Village, and that his friends and neighbors were afraid of Socialism.   So he screamed and he shouted and he branded the Local a socialist.  And the Local lost the election, and the Boy was happy. 

The next year, a Politician decided to run for office in the Village.  Like the Local before him, the Politician also favored higher taxes and a more robust social safety net, and the Boy still did not.  Again, the Boy screamed and he shouted, and he labeled the Politician a Socialist, and again, it worked.  The people in the Village were still reading The Gulag Archipelago, still were afraid of Socialism, and they did not vote for the Politician.  And the Boy was happy.  

But the Village was changing.  Some people knew that the Politician wasn’t a Socialist, and they didn’t believe the Boy anymore.  And the people who believed the Boy, they had a different problem.  Neither the Local nor the Politician were Socialists, not really, but some people now believed that they both were.  That contradiction made them uncomfortable, but only for a little while.  Pretty soon, the people who believed the Boy had changed the meaning of the word “Socialist.”  To them, a Socialist was no longer someone who wanted all means of production to be owned by the workers, it was anyone who wanted more taxes and a more robust social safety net.  The word now had two meanings, and it got harder and harder for the Villagers to talk to each other because they weren’t using the word the same way.  

The third year, an Actual Socialist decided to run for local office.  The Actual Socialist wanted to make big changes in the Village.  He wanted to require that all businesses be owned by workers, and wanted to make it illegal to invest capital in private businesses.  And the Boy did not like that.  Just as before, the Boy screamed and he shouted, and he labeled the Actual Socialist a Socialist, but a funny thing happened.  Some people didn’t believe the Boy because they thought he was a liar.  Other people had gotten used to the word Socialist, and they weren’t scared of it anymore.  They liked the Local, and the Politician, so they forgot about The Gulag Archipelago and voted for the Actual Socialist.  And some people believed the Boy, and they voted against the Actual Socialist.  

We don’t know who won that election.  We don’t know if the Village is capitalist or socialist today.  But we know this:  The Village is a scarier, darker, more divided, and less friendly place then it used to be.  The people have a hard time talking to each other.  Often times, it seems like they are talking past each other.  They don’t agree on what words mean, so they can never agree on anything else.  And maybe the Boy is happy, but I hope not. 

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Definitions matter.  They matter a lot.  That is why negotiated documents such as contracts, laws, and treaties start by defining key terms.  Without agreeing what words mean, it is not possible to negotiate.  

Shifting the definition of a term to win an argument is a common persuasive tactic.   It’s also a logical fallacy, but that doesn’t seem to bother most people.  And its so simple and easy, anyone can do it!  All one needs to do is pick a word with a loaded meaning, change its definition so that it fits those you disagree with, slap the label on and let outrage, fear and disgust do the rest.

Contorting language in this way seems to pay off.  I’m sure the reader can think of numerous examples of figures on the other side of their issues who engage in this behavior—and, in moments of introspection, perhaps even admit that it happens on their own side as well.  

Such semantic distortions may be effective, but they have serious and dangerous externalities.  Over time, they create partisan dialects, spoken only by members of each vying faction.  Words come to mean different things to people with different politics, and then we wonder why it seems harder and harder to negotiate across political divides.    

If that sounds like an exaggeration, try the following.  Find someone you trust and respect who holds different political views than you do (no small task these days) and then see if you agree on the meaning of the following terms:

·      Capitalism

·      Socialism

·      Racism

·      Anti-racism

·      Violence

·      White supremacy

·      Patriarchy

·      Equity

·      Woke

·      Woman

·      Critical Race Theory

·      Liberal

·      Authoritarian

The list could go on and on, but those examples are sufficient to demonstrate the point.  There has yet to be an obstacle that humans can’t overcome when they work together, sharing ideas and information while building on common understandings. In addition to a common language, that process requires a willingness to engage with uncomfortable ideas and to critically reflect upon one’s own assumptions.  It’s a lot of work, much of which may be uncomfortable.  The alternative—well that’s another story.

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The Tower of Babel

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.   As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.”  They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.  Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building.   The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.   Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.   That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world.  From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

-Genesis 11:1-9

-Ryan C. Mullally

Educator, Lawyer, Husband, Father