ArtemisMar 20

When you get taught about scary, scary communism as a kid, they make it sound as though it means you couldn't even own your teddy bear.

No one explains (likely because they themselves believed the same when they were taught) the difference between your teddy bear & a factory.

Show threadArtemisMar 20

Maybe people could enjoy their own personal objects WITHOUT us having to allow some people to hoard resources. Maybe those two things really aren't the same type of thing. Maybe the fact we call them both "property" obscures their differences.

We can share the resources in common for the common good AND you can have your very own teddy bear that is just yours. I promise.

Show threadTzimisce FleshMar 20
@artemis Yeah, "use the same word for two different adjacent things" is an absolute blight for discourse.
Show threadMcPoopsMar 20
@flesh @artemis it's very much intentional too. There is no question that private property doesn't mean personal property in economics and the ruling class scaremongering people against communism know that, and it's so very blatant when they also patronizingly use economic concepts to insist their privilege is just or necessary. But they always conveniently leave out anything beyond basic "supply and demand" slogans like externalities or the fact that there are several schools of thought.
Show threadTzimisce Flesh
@McPoops @artemis Not even the only case where words are conveniently defined in a way that supports the power structure.
Mar 20 at 2:31pmWeb
Show threadMorgan ⚧️Mar 20
@flesh @artemis @McPoops yup, some other examples of words with multiple meanings/uses whose obfuscation conveniently supports the power structure:
- respect (humanity/authority)
- income (wages/ROI)
- abuse (person/drug)
- pedophile (thought criminal/child molestor)
- incest (kink/CSA)
- groomer (predator/queer person)
- narcissist (mentally ill/supremacist)
- anti-Semitism (bigotry/anti-colonialism)
- immigrant (moved here/Indigenous)
I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot more!
Show threadTzimisce FleshMar 20
@raphaelmorgan @artemis @McPoops I feel like some of those examples are more ingrained than others, but thanks for the list.
Show threadMorgan ⚧️Mar 20
@flesh of course. There are so many words like this, all at different levels. I hope the new uses of groomer and anti-Semitism haven't fully ingratiated into our language yet, but I still included them because I hear the incorrect usages all the time, these days more than the actual meanings :/
Then terms like "abuse" or "respect" are fully ingrained in their double meanings