Just semantics

More and more we live in a virtual world. I’m not talking about the virtual reality of computers and the internet; I’m talking about the virtual world of language and semantics. No longer do the mental constructs with which we judge the world around us come primarily from our own experience. It’s the subtle semantics of the media, politicians and other public broadcasters that build our moral views by associating words with certain connotations to events in the world in order for us to perceive them in a certain light.

Terrorists murder soldiers, Suicide bombers kill bystanders, and the Israeli army liquidates a senior Hamas operative. We’re talking about 3 more or less similar events here, which is taking the live(s) of someone outside of any possible lawful context. Still no western media would accuse the Israeli government of murdering Hamas operatives, nor would they say terrorists have liquidated our soldiers. Why?

Prisoners in Guantanamo are detained, the CIA uses extraordinary rendition when dealing with certain prisoners, Hamas have kidnapped an Israeli soldier, and the Israeli have captured senior officials in the Hamas government. Again we are talking about comparable events; impairing someone’s freedom outside of any lawful context. And again no one reports the capture of an Israeli soldier by Hamas. Why not?

While this may all seem very futile, I think it is tremendously important. And although in general people tend to say “it’s just semantics” I think semantics is really nothing trivial at all. Have we liberated Iraq, or are we occupying it? Is Hamas a terrorist organization, or are they freedom fighters? Is there an axis of evil, and does that imply that whoever is fighting the axis of evil is good? Is George Bush a religious fundamentalist when he asks god to bless America?

I think it’s time we become more aware of the little word games that are played by the powers that be. Subconsciously they are dividing the world in to good and bad, black and white simply by finding different labels for similar events. In stead of being able to use our own subjective judgment on an objective experience, we are now reduced to consuming someone else’s predefined subjective classification of events. You could wonder if we even have an opinion, or if we merely pick one from the opinions on offer. And with the single sidedness of the opinions on offer, I think that is a worrying possibility.