Corrupted language, in fact, is rarely innocent or well intended. It is frequently pretentious and takes unearned license. It feigns academic pretense, even when at its most base level of jingoism. It is loud, demanding, and has a very simple and obvious purpose: to achieve ideological or political ends. Corrupted language often veers into propaganda.
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Political correctness is the conscious, designed manipulation of language intended to change the way people speak, write, think, feel, and act, in furtherance of an agenda.
Words are just a means to an end, the end being actual changes in how we live our lives. Those changes flow first from our thoughts (and even how we formulate our thoughts), then to our issued words (spoken or written), and ultimately to our actions. The examples provided in this essay make this clear; there is no clear dividing line between language and action, between our thoughts, words, and acts. All are interrelated, and those seeking to impose language understand this.
Who owns and controls language? Ideally, governments, politicians, academics, think tanks, journalists, religious leaders, or elite institutions should not possess this tremendous power. Like market processes, language should evolve without centralized design or control. Only this natural evolution, across time and geography, can reveal the preferences of actual language speakers in any society. Evolution is just; evolution is efficient. But language is an institution, and like any institution, it is subject to corruption and even capture by those with political agendas. This essay urges greater awareness and understanding of the distinction between evolution and corruption, between spontaneous linguistic changes and the imposition of language to serve an agenda.
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