2 ms·

Why is it being called a 'concentrantion camp'? Can someone explain that to me?

by tomtompl 8y ago

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
tenpies 8y ago
I would say it's mostly politics hiding under the guise of intentional imprecision. For most of the English-speaking world, concentration camp brings back imagery of Nazi death camps. The literal definition is basically any camp where people are concentrated based on some characteristic or behaviour, but that's not how the word has been used up to 2016. Terms like detainment camp or detainment facility were the usual terms for these places. Post-2016 a segment of the Western world is convinced that the US is currently under a Hitler-esque government, so they are quite happy to use the term concentration camp precisely because it brings back imagery of Nazi death camps. They can point to the dictionary and say that it's not inaccurate which is absolutely true, it's just a more imprecise word than the one's we've used in the past. That imprecision is intentional and beneficial to their worldview: it's not lying and it brings back that emotional imagery from WW2. A similar example was when I saw the headline "Trump uses chemical weapons on Mexican border". "Surely the UN will condemn this" I thought, but upon opening the article it turns out the chemical weapon in question was tear gas. So the headline was not a lie, but it was also intentionally imprecise. "Chemical weapon" brings up images of horrible deaths and maybe the movie the Rock, but not of tear gas. Most people would specify "tear gas" and not "chemical weapons" precisely to avoid that confusion and emotional imagery, but not when you want to forward an agenda. And just to be clear I'm not saying that the agenda is necessarily that you agree or disagree with Trump. That agenda could simply be that you need to generate emotional outrage to get more traffic.

2 ms·

Why is it being called a 'concentrantion camp'? Can someone explain that to me?

by tomtompl 8y ago

Why is it being called a 'concentrantion camp'? Can someone explain that to me?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
tenpies 8y ago
I would say it's mostly politics hiding under the guise of intentional imprecision. For most of the English-speaking world, concentration camp brings back imagery of Nazi death camps. The literal definition is basically any camp where people are concentrated based on some characteristic or behaviour, but that's not how the word has been used up to 2016. Terms like detainment camp or detainment facility were the usual terms for these places. Post-2016 a segment of the Western world is convinced that the US is currently under a Hitler-esque government, so they are quite happy to use the term concentration camp precisely because it brings back imagery of Nazi death camps. They can point to the dictionary and say that it's not inaccurate which is absolutely true, it's just a more imprecise word than the one's we've used in the past. That imprecision is intentional and beneficial to their worldview: it's not lying and it brings back that emotional imagery from WW2. A similar example was when I saw the headline "Trump uses chemical weapons on Mexican border". "Surely the UN will condemn this" I thought, but upon opening the article it turns out the chemical weapon in question was tear gas. So the headline was not a lie, but it was also intentionally imprecise. "Chemical weapon" brings up images of horrible deaths and maybe the movie the Rock, but not of tear gas. Most people would specify "tear gas" and not "chemical weapons" precisely to avoid that confusion and emotional imagery, but not when you want to forward an agenda. And just to be clear I'm not saying that the agenda is necessarily that you agree or disagree with Trump. That agenda could simply be that you need to generate emotional outrage to get more traffic.