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Doesn't it work the other way as well? When everything is terrorism then the term starts to become meaningless, a bit like the term "lying" is more or less mea
by pseudohadamard 9mo ago
Doesn't it work the other way as well? When everything is terrorism then the term starts to become meaningless, a bit like the term "lying" is more or less meaningless now when every second YT video has a title like "they're lying to you about X". So perhaps the endless dilution of the term isn't a bad thing once we get past the initial pain period.
- hn_acker 9mo agoI think that the dilution of "terrorism" will not be very significant in the long term. I think of "terrorism" as describing certain actions that are almost "universally" bad, as with the more-easily-defined "murder". To whatever extent "terrorism" becomes diluted, people will want a less-diluted word (such as a new word) to describe most of the same actions or will continue using "terrorism" as they currently do toward a restricted target audience. If I strongly trust a certain speaker on issues that have been brought widespread attention by or have been highlighted by protests, violence, or terrorism, that particular speaker's usage of the word "terrorism" might not become very diluted if at all for me.