Words are Subjective

Words don’t have single, specific meanings. It’s just the way words work. If you look around, you’ll see that people are all interpreting words differently. When I say “stick,” you and I both imagine a stick, but the sticks we imagine are different. Every single person will think of a slightly different stick.

The same goes for every word. When I say “run,” we both get the idea, but what one person calls a run, another might say is only a jog. How about the word “happiness”? Everyone’s right to pursue it is part of our national identity in the United States, but the word “happiness” is much, much more ambiguous than “stick” or “run.” Happiness means dramatically different things to different people, and no one can say which meaning is the “right” one.

Now imagine how much more ambiguous this gets when we string together multiple words into a sentence or a command. Let’s make a peanut butter jelly sandwich. First, you’ll need some bread, jelly, and peanut butter. That seems like the simplest thing in the world, but if you’ve ever had someone else buy groceries for you, you know they’ll always find a way to bring back the wrong thing. Who makes a PB&J sandwich with extra crunchy peanut butter and a french baguette? Gross.

If we have trouble communicating about sandwiches, think about how iffy the complicated doctrines that run our society are. In the U.S., the Constitution is our founding law. They’re the instructions that have guided everything in our country for over 200 years. If any set of words needs to be clear, it’s this one. I’m sure James Madison was trying his best to be clear when he wrote it, but to this day, we constantly disagree on the meaning of the Constitution.

Even the nine people who are supposed to understand it best, the Supreme Court Justices, disagree about what it means in 1 of every 5 cases they hear. Different versions of the Court have made some confusing decisions over the years. They defended journalists’ rights to free speech in 1931 but denied students in schools in 1986. First they ruled that the Constitution allowed segregation in schools in the 1890s, but 60 years later they reversed their decision. After centuries, our country still can’t decide what its Constitution really says! Could there be better proof that words are all vague?

After centuries, our country still can’t decide what its Constitution really says! Could there be better proof that words are all vague?

Maybe an even older, even more debated set of words can strengthen the evidence. The Qur’an has a verse that reads like this in English: “So when you meet those who disbelieve [in battle], strike [their] necks until, when you have inflicted slaughter upon them, then secure their bonds, and either [confer] favor afterwards or ransom [them] until the war lays down its burdens.” Some have used this verse to justify bloody and unprovoked beheadings. But not everyone sees it that way. Many Muslims believe this verse references an era when Muslims were being violently attacked for their religion, and this verse was meant to prepare them for the Battle of Badr, a battle they were forced to fight. To them, the verse is only saying how to defend yourself from attack. Both sides, the beheaders and the defenders, are reading the exact same Arabic words, but they’re reaching opposite conclusions.

Let me ask you: after so many generations, why can’t people agree on what the Qu’ran or the U.S. Constitution really means? Because we can’t even explain a peanut butter sandwich properly. In other words, because words are ambiguous, and there’s no getting around it.

The Dog Doesn’t See His Cage, Because He Was Born in It

Most people never realize that words themselves are the source of so many misunderstandings. That makes sense, because we’re indoctrinated to the conspiracy from all sides, for our whole lives. From the time you could walk, to the time you’ll die, you’re told that some people’s words are the absolute truth, and others are lying. We’re taught to put our trust in words, and we’ve become so dependent on them that we can’t even recognize when they’re failing us.

We’re taught to put our trust in words, and we’ve become so dependent on them that we can’t even recognize when they’re failing us.

We all begin learning right from wrong as toddlers, when our parents tell us which is which — as if they’ve got the facts on the matter. They tell us that it’s wrong to lie, it’s wrong not to share, it’s wrong to eat dessert before dinner, and dozens of other simple lessons. Later, we realize things aren’t so simple. Lying a little is part of life. When you’re having an awful day and your boss asks how it’s going, you don’t usually spend five minutes complaining. You say “I’m good” and move on. Generosity has its limits, too. Am I wrong if I don’t share my money with everyone who asks for it? And is it really wrong to eat ice cream for dinner now and then? Let’s be reasonable here. These rights and wrongs are all more ambiguous than we’re told as kids.

In school, our textbooks teach us one version of history, and our teachers tell us it’s the true version. But there is no one true version of history. Christopher Columbus was not the heroic explorer many kids have been taught he was. The closest we can get to Columbus’ true story is the artifacts and documents left from his time, and judging from them, it would be more fair to call him a greedy, genocidal killer. But that version of the story still isn’t the absolute truth. It glosses over the details of Columbus’ life and it’s full of ambiguity, as all words are.

No matter how honest your favorite radio hosts or your local politicians are trying to be, and no matter how close to the truth they might get, there is no way they can get all the way there, any more than a school textbook can tell the real story of Christopher Columbus. It may feel good to agree with the people we trust about their version of the story and laugh about how wrong the other versions are, but we don’t notice that our version of the story still isn’t the whole truth.

It may feel good to agree with the people we trust about their version of the story and laugh about how wrong the other versions are, but we don’t notice that our version of the story still isn’t the whole truth.

As soon as we choose which words to use, we’re trapped by those words, along with all their bias and ambiguity. We are so trapped that even now, as I try to write about the conspiracy, I have no choice but do it in words, the very things I am warning you about!

The Weight of the Problem

Luckily, most of the time words’ ambiguity don’t cause much harm. Everyone has little misunderstandings at the dinner table and throughout the day. They’re frustrating, but they aren’t important. The conspiracy of words, however, doesn’t just influence small, insignificant events. It has affected huge events in human history since we first began to speak, and as technology has changed, words have only grown in influence. Today, it’s frightening to see how the problems of words have grown out of our control without us even realizing it.

The conspiracy of words, however, doesn’t just influence small, insignificant events. It has affected huge events in human history since we first began to speak, and as technology has changed, words have only grown in influence.

Let’s go back in time to the Roman Empire. Rome profited hugely from conquering its neighbors, but in order to continue this behavior, Roman leaders needed to justify it to their citizens, just as today’s countries justify their conflicts. Julius Caesar’s accounts of the Gallic Wars, for example, paint him as a hero and the Gauls as barbarians, in order to show the nobility of Caesar’s leadership. The accounts are deliberately manipulative and because they were written down, they could be copied and spread among the Roman people more widely than spoken words ever could. We can never know exactly what effect these accounts had in their day, but we do know that Caesar’s reign continued long past the Gallic Wars.

When the printing press was invented in the 15th century, the power of propaganda like this increased even more. Words were still as imprecise as ever, but now they could be reproduced and spread like rats. Martin Luther’s writings were printed 300,000 times within a few years after he wrote them, and that was the axe that split Christianity, the religion that had unified Europe for a thousand years. Caesar would have been jealous. Luther’s writings spread so quickly that Christian leaders couldn’t stop the split between Catholics and Protestants, and they are still separate today. All this proves how indoctrinated we are: the conflict between Protestants and Catholics is about how to interpret the Bible, which is a set of words. Both groups think theirs is the only true interpretation, but there can’t possibly be one true interpretation, because that’s not how words work!

Caesar’s war journals and Luther’s religious arguments aren’t just examples of how language can be persuasive, they are examples of how willing we are to be persuaded by it. Neither man had any real evidence of his claims, and there must have been many people in both their times who claimed they were liars. Yet the Roman people kept Caesar in power, and thousands of Protestants followed Luther in the face of vicious persecution and violence. This is propaganda at work, but propaganda only works if you believe in the conspiracy of words. And the conspiracy continues today, to terrifying effect.

Propaganda only works if you believe in the conspiracy of words. And the conspiracy continues today, to terrifying effect.

Look at the radio in Nazi Germany, used to spread anti-semitic thought at a frequency and speed that had never been seen before. The Nazis could broadcast new programs to their entire country every day, when just a single writing by Luther took years to do the same. These Nazi broadcasts had direct effects. They increased support for the Nazi party and increased anti-Jewish persecution by Nazi supporters. Many people in Germany must have been ready to believe the Nazis’ words, and they were spurred into action by them.

Today, words are spread even faster on the internet than can be on TV or radio. Social media makes every one of us the author of our own propaganda, which can be created instantly at any time and spread like an epidemic virus, with each person infecting everyone they know, again and again, exponentially. And we still fully believe in the conspiracy of words. When our ears and eyes are full of the most passionate claims, often written or shared by our close friends, it’s almost impossible to resist believing some of them. Why would our friends lie to us? These are people we trust and love. But they’re also posting tweets like this about the Presidential election:

“I want to go back in time to before Breitbart and the Tea Party when the US was sane.” (This tweet was deleted)

“Trump is exploiting victims for political agenda!”

“Obama arrogantly lies to us all the time, because he truly believes the American ppl are stupid.”

“Catholics have been added to Hillary’s #BasketOfDeplorables”

The 2016 U.S. Election was a hurricane of claims, mostly without evidence, multiplied and twisted through millions of social media posts. The danger of believing in the conspiracy of words in the age of the internet is to be to caught up in this hurricane. Everyone thinks they’re the only sane one left, and it does seem insane when everyone says they’ve got the truth, but none of the truths agree. That’s only insane, though, if we believe that the one, real truth can be put into words. Once we realize that’s impossible, that the conspiracy is a lie and all words have flexible meanings, the hurricane becomes harmless. The words are only words, and none of them are the full truth.