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Comment by JumpCrisscross

13 hours ago

Is there a general term for metastatic semantic overinclusivity?

Terrorist. Racist. Colonist. Fascist. Historically-rooted and precise terms that are collectively decohering in a self-amplifying and propagating way as everyone feels increasingly free to detach more and more words from their original meanings.

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JumpCrisscross

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direwolf20  6 hours ago

I think most people who are being described as racists, colonists, or fascists are racists, colonists, or fascists, but they're the same people who own the megaphone that tells you they're not. Can you bring specific examples?

GuinansEyebrows  12 hours ago

you have seriously got to read and understand Eco's 14 tenets of Ur-Fascism [0] if you think that contemporary applications of the term "fascist" are inaccurate in describing what's happening right now in the US.

[0] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fasci...

  • JumpCrisscross  12 hours ago

    > if you think that contemporary applications of the term "fascist" are inaccurate in describing what's happening right now in the US

    Didn't say that. I'm saying I've seen the term thrown around wildly to apply to all manner of things. Like the other terms.

    The term is probably fundamentally fucked. If you asked Hitler if he's a Nazi, he'd say yes. If you asked Mussolini if he's a Fascist, he'd say yes. These were the words they used to describe themselves. The reason I'm describing the phenomenon versus blaming the folks using the terms broadly is because I don't think this is a personal failing by anyone as much as something that's linguistically happening.