Manipulating Language

The most dangerous weapon isn’t developed in a lab or manufactured at a plant. It is the misuse of language with the intention of influencing our behavior, our decisions, and our beliefs. Language is something we take for granted. We take what is said at face value, never really looking past the spoken or written words to determine what is actually being said. But it plays a huge role in shaping our lives. Two vastly different, but related and relevant examples come to mind.

When we think of a weed, we picture an unwanted guest. A pest. Something that if left unaddressed, will take over. A garden filled with weeds is an unpleasant and messy visual. One that might indicate laziness, or bring embarrassment or shame from your neighbors. But really, isn’t a weed just a plant that has figured out how to grow and survive in any condition without the need for human interventions like watering, pruning, and fertilizing, or the careful placement for just the right amount of sunlight?

By framing a weed as an invasive and unwanted pest with no place in your garden, instead of just a plant, makes it easy to rationalize killing them. Whether that be by force (pulling), fire (blow torch), or poison (like Roundup). I see people all around my neighborhood wearing gloves, and sometimes masks, to protect themselves while they spray Roundup around their property. The desire to kill weeds, programmed in us over decades, outweighs the innate knowledge within us that spraying poison is a bad idea. If you don’t want it on your skin or in your lungs, then why use it at all? Because weeds are pests, and pests need to go.

An illegal immigrant is the human version of a weed. An unwanted and unruly pest that just keeps popping up. Placing the word illegal in front of the word immigrant immediately turns a human seeking refuge and a better way of life into an outlaw with no regard for the rules, and makes it seem more likely that they will commit other illegal acts again in the future. An illegal immigrant sounds dangerous and ruthless. Someone with a checkered past from a sketchy place. But when compared to just an immigrant, what’s the actual difference?

Usually nothing. In both cases, the illegal immigrant and the immigrant fled their country to escape poverty, famine, war, or persecution, maybe all four, and came to this country, or any country, in search of a better life. They both traveled long and far to put themselves and their family in a better position to survive and prosper. Two people from the same town, in the same country, fleeing for the same reasons, and one is illegal, and the other legal, all because of how they got here, and whether or not they received the correct permissions or paperwork. But otherwise they are the same.

Maybe one had the means to get the correct permissions and the other didn’t. Maybe one had the time to wait for the paperwork to come through, and the other person’s situation was so dire that they couldn’t afford to wait or else it might cost them, and their families, their life. There is no difference really. But there is a difference in how we view and accept each of them based on their designation as illegal or legal.

By using the word illegal it makes it easier to accept mistreating them. By using the word illegal it makes it easier to rally support for waging war against them, and the country they came from, and forcing them to leave. And it makes it easier to convince us that we need to spend hundreds of millions and billions of dollars to fix the illegal immigration problem. Money that could have been spent fixing our own communities, instead being spent to round people up and kick them out, when all they wanted to do was come here and work.

In college I once didn’t take a job because I had to explain three different types of butters to the tables I would’ve been waiting on. That’s embarrassing to admit. But these people are willing to put their lives in danger, walking thousands of miles across dangerous terrain and through treacherous jungle, to come here, all because the danger they are trying to escape is greater. And when they get here we tell them no thank you, you did it the wrong way. Go back. Try again. We call ourselves a democratic capitalist society based on meritocracy, but that only applies when we approve of how you’ve come to be here. It doesn’t matter if you’re willing to work longer and hard than the people who are born here (like me).

I say all this, and I realize that the war on illegal immigrants is just as much a facade as it is real. Yes, there are thousands of people actually being detained, arrested, put in jail, or deported. But it’s mostly an act, because the same people who claim to want to close the border and send illegal immigrants back to their home countries, are the same people whose fortunes were built on the exploitation of their cheap labor, and who’s every day lives depends on their presence here. So it’s also just a facade to draw our eyes away from the real tragedies gripping our communities that continue to go unaddressed. 

If we’re focused on illegal immigrants, and worried about how they’re infiltrating our country, then we can all rally around illegals as the enemy, and we forget that nothing else is actually getting done. Look around your community and think about what the actual issues are facing you and your neighbors. In my community food insecurity and food deserts are a huge problem. Opioid addiction, substance abuse, and homelessness is another one. Pollution, radiation exposure, and degradation of the land is causing chronic diseases. An aging population who can’t get the help or care they need to maintain an active and productive life. Military veterans either handicapped or traumatized by their experiences without access to resources to get better. That’s what I look around and see, and illegal immigrants have nothing to do with any of it.

Language has always been used to shape the conversations we’re having and influence our beliefs. It is the most deadly weapon in the arsenal because language is what is used to convince us that what we’re seeing and feeling is not actually so. Designating a plant a weed is rationalizes the use of poison around our houses to kill it. Designating a human as illegal rationalizes why they shouldn’t have any rights and don’t belong in this country. Understanding the weaponization of language and it’s impact on our communities is the battle that determines all of the other battles, and it’s the most important one to be aware of.

Disconnect and Make Better Decisions

I recently realized how easy it is to be manipulated. What all of the advertising, marketing, and celebrity sponsorships is all about. Because for the first time in my life, I was the unknowing victim.

I love the UFC. I think it’s the greatest American sport. I also love Dana White. He is a sports marketing genius. There is no one, in my opinion, better than him at promotion. He’s no bullshit, and I enjoy the brand of entertainment he’s created.

I don’t love Donald Trump. I don’t hate him like most people, half the country, do. But then again, it takes a lot to make me hate you. It takes an equal amount to make me like you. But I’d say I’m at best neutral on him, in that I don’t think he’s any better or any worse than any of the other options. I didn’t want him to be president the first time he won, or the second time. But I also didn’t want Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden to be president. Maybe I’m just tough to please.

But the first time I saw Donald Trump sitting ringside at the UFC chatting it up with Dana White I immediately thought, “Maybe he’s not so bad. Maybe I got it all wrong.” I quickly became aware of what was happening and snapped myself out of it. But, it happened. For a moment, I was convinced he was an ok guy, and not a word had been spoken.

But that hasn’t happened with Mark Zuckerberg, who has become as frequent a sight at UFC events. The more I see him sitting ringside, the less and less I like him. But I digress.

But it’s an amazing thing really, to be influenced just by association with something or someone you like. And it’s scary because that’s happening to us all day.

It’s part of what Chase Hughes spoke about on the Joe Rogan Experience. The openness and suggestibility of certain people, and how easy it is to manipulate them as a result. It’s what he’s built his whole career on. It’s part of what I’m reading about in The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell.

In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell points to a study that showed how Peter Jennings’ facial expressions alone when discussing Ronald Reagan were enough to sway his viewers to vote for Reagan in far greater numbers than viewers of CBS or NBC. Despite all three stations producing programming that was unfavorable to Reagan. According to the study, Peter Jennings’ face lit up when talking about Ronald Regan versus Walter Mondale.

When participants were asked to score his facial expressions on a scale of 0 - 21, with the lowest being “extremely negative” and the highest being “extremely positive,”  he scored 13.38 for Mondale, and 17.44 for Reagan. The other anchors, Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather, scored fairly evenly for both candidates (~11.00).

The result? On average viewers of Peter Jennings voted for Ronald Reagan 70 - 75 percent of the time, compared to 50 - 60 percent of the time for viewers of CBS or NBC. We are way more susceptible to manipulation than we think. 

If facial expressions are enough to unknowingly tilt someone’s decision, then what would we estimate the impact of social media, the 24 hour news cycle, and reporting that focuses on biases and curated narratives instead of facts? How much could that be influencing our choices and opinions? All day screens are hurling suggestions at us, trying to convince us to take a certain side, and meanwhile we think that we’re voting for Reagan because he’s the better candidate.

I see it as an advantage that I don’t have social media and I don’t watch the news. Everything that’s important in the world still makes it in front of me anyway, but only 1 percent of what isn’t important does. I see the elimination of social media and news as being as advantageous as eliminating processed foods, drugs, alcohol, toxic relationships, or an unfulfilling job. As advantageous as sleeping 8 hours per night.

If you’re looking for a path out of the rabbit hole, disconnect from the noise, and pay attention to see if you start making different, better, decisions. Decisions that benefit you, not someone else.

I can guarantee you will.