I know that a certain fastidiousness about words can come off as snobbish in this day and age -- I mean, less than thirty percent of California's fourth graders are reading in accordance with grade level. A lot of us like to play fast and loose with words -- and that's cool -- to a degree. I love neologisms as much as the next guy.
The thing is, eventually you have to own your word choices. In my lifetime, I think the most horrifying while popular collection of words to be mustered must be, "Silence is violence."
Okay, so...what do you mean by that?
Maybe you're talking about people who know that domestic abuse is happening and don't say anything. Maybe you're talking about somebody who knows that a person is imminently dangerous and simply walks away. I haven't seen the phrase used in that context very often; but, I'll acknowledge that it has been used that way. When it is used that way, I think that there is validity to the statement. I still think that there's a better choice of words. To say, "Your silence is complicit with violence." would be more accurate; but, it just doesn't hit the ear all that well.
Over the last few years, most of the uses of the phrase have come from activists who demand that their slogans be repeated, their hand gestures flashed, and their calls for change echoed. Basically, it's a mob of George Dubya Bush's who got converted to Marxism, and the only idea that they held on to is, "You're either with us, or against us."
Yeah, some people who say that silence is violence simply don't think about what they're saying. It's a verbal ejaculation. They don't see any depth to it, and expect others won't either. What's more, they'll be offended, and accuse their critics of a certain amount of pedantry when pressed on their choice of words.
The thing is, there are people who claim that silence is violence, and have thought it through. These are the most dangerous people in the world, because they have constructed an independent clause as an expression of a normative value held by every violent, authoritarian regime in human history, and made it attractive.
Those three words, in the context regularly expressed, do two evil things.
Obviously, it's a call for compelled speech. When we talk about free speech, we always talk about what people can or can't, or should or shouldn't say; but, it's a whole different level of Orwellian thought to start to map out what people "must" say.
What's more, these people are saying that you must say certain things, lest you be subjected to violence for not saying it. If failure to speak is violence, then a violent reaction is justified. If you've come to the point where you actually believe that a person keeping his or her mouth shut is doing violence to you, you believe that you have a right to do real violence to that person.
So, if you say "Silence is violence." I'm gonna be pretty fucking pedantic. I'm gonna question why you chose those words. I need to determine whether you're an idiot or a fascist.