I had to look up the word "idiot" while reading Wapo today in order to wade through my first, and last, bit of George Will's dross.
id·i·ot ~ ˈidēət/
noun: a stupid person. a mentally handicapped person.
synonyms: fool, halfwit, ignoramous, imbecile, moron, simpleton, twit, dingbat, boob.
vulgar slang: asshat.
Now, I suppose Wapo keeps Will on just to be provocative; I've never read this nincompoop's opining, before today, but I knew to expect something shocking and awful. I've kept a suspicious eye on Wapo ever since it was sold to a close-lipped Bezos. So far, in a world in which opinions are now headline news and facts are cherry-picked by embedded journalists, Wapo does seem to at least try to present both sides, "repugnant" and "libtard", in the war of words. So, now and then there's Will, spewing forth from his pundit throne, a job millions of girls would kill for, a vaunted voice of compassionate conservatives everywhere.
Don't bother reading Will today. He sounds like Botha making a hard sell for Apartheid. One expects the usual repugnant Big Oil bandwagon, but I will never get used to the doublespeak. Repugnant pundits have a way with words; in Will's case words achieve a coveted status on college campuses everywhere. He'll use them any way he damn well pleases. The definition of any word, be it "torture" or "rape" or "sustainability," has fifty shades of gray. Will writes:
The divestment movement is a manifestation of a larger phenomenon, academia’s embrace of “sustainability,” a development explored in “Sustainability: Higher Education’s New Fundamentalism” from the National Association of Scholars (NAS)...
and then he proceeds to define "sustainability" as a religion. Surely this type of word play takes a page straight out of Machievelli. As someone who sat through countless meetings and online discussions and "working group" sessions trying to come up with
the definition of "sustainability" back in the 90s, I can tell you that the ivory tower has a moat surrounding it, filled with semantics. Gibson's Law controls the debate; For every PhD there is an equal and oppostie PhD. This is where academics and pundits cross paths: both of them publish or perish. Keeping words mired in semantic debate is a ticket on the gravy train for people like Will.
Note the right-wing rules of engagement Will applies in his argument:
1) If it has to do with money, deflect attention away from the money
2) Tie any concept you wish to undermine to the "liberal education"
3) Doublespeak. Note that in this case "religion," the GOP's favorite thing, is now bad.
And then further along in his argument Will applies right-wing pundit rule #4) Lump several unrelated pet-peeves together into one outrageous insult, to further deflect attention away from the money. Profile the "liberal." Always include vegetarianism in that lump. Will writes:
The divestment impulse recognizes no limiting principle. As it works its way through progressivism’s thicket of moral imperatives — shedding investments tainted by involvement with Israel, firearms, tobacco, red meat, irrigation-dependent agriculture, etc. — progressivism’s dream of ever-more-minute regulation of life is realized but only in campus cocoons.
Why does this man spend so much time obsessing over what co-eds have going on in their cocoons?
What's shocking and awful in this particular chump's strategy in the war on words is the reiteration of right-wing pundit rule #5) Science is Bullshit. He writes:
The unvarying progressive agenda is for government to supplant markets in allocating wealth and opportunity. “Sustainability” swaddles this agenda in “science,” as progressives understand it — “settled” findings that would be grim if they did not mandate progressivism.
"Science" is mere "belief" in the "religion" of "vegetarian environmentalists."
Let's pause for a moment and remember, this is a job millions of girls would kill for. This is the popular voice -- or one of them anyway -- of the right wing. I have to say, as a first-time reader who was today deflowered by George Will, I was better off before I bothered to take in his opinions. It's tempting to just call him an idiot and ignore him forevermore. I shall, indeed.
But when it comes to this tactic in the war on words -- calling "environmentalism" a "religion" -- it behooves all liberals to see it for what it is: a shocking and awful surge. Idiots that they are, Will and his ilk operate by what unfortunately seems a truism within their ranks; right-wing pundit rule #6) Say anything three times and it becomes true. We're hearing it over and over, in dozens of ways: earth-worshiping bunny-huggers belong to a cult. To the thrice-spoken believers, environmentalism as a religion becomes juxtaposed against true religion, in a "war" most ecologists and conservationists and field biologists have no idea they're fighting, because it's ludicrous. What moron confuses science with religion? Yet we are being bombarded by an anti-environmental surge of "true religion." We hear it from Scalia; we see it couched in the NDAA and lurking in a plethora of RFRAs; and in the next county over, on the other side of the ridge, township supervisors consider fracking and ask. "Don't you know that it is God's plan to destroy the earth and give us our heavenly reward?"
We liberals are stunned by such things, like deer staring into the headlights. How did we not see this coming? How did people like this get elected into office? we ask. How does a guy like George Will continue to beat out millions of girls to keep his asshat planted there in such a popular pundit throne?
It's all in the doublespeak: Environmentalism is a religion. Sustainability is a fatwah. These twisted "definitions" are dangerous for left and right alike. Even a gasbag like George Will needs ground to stand on, clean air to breathe and clean water to drink, as he makes war on words and pontificates about the coming GOPocalypse.