Magical words2/21/2023 ![]() ![]() Each year, corporations spend billions of dollars investing in advertising campaigns to promote products and target consumer demographics. 2Ĭommercial businesses are also aware of the hypnotic effects of language. As the linguist Noam Chomsky observes, words are the ultimate currency of political power and are manipulated to create a sense of tribal kindship within certain electoral factions. The use of rhetoric proved highly important during the UK’s ‘Brexit’ referendum in 2016, which saw both sides of the political spectrum using highly emotive language to divide voters on key issues. When Donald Trump was elected to the White House in 2016, the term ‘alternative facts’ became popular among the conservative right of politics to discredit what different news outlets were reporting on various scandals surrounding the new administration. During the US presidential campaign in 2008, Barack Obama employed a lexicon of ‘hope’ to instil a feeling of optimism in marginalised communities, and envision a more compassionate America. Politicians are particularly aware of the power that language holds over us. He writes: “Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense can be called imitation.” 1 Concepts and ideas battle against each other for survival and those which are successful become populated across societies. ![]() The biologist and writer Richard Dawkins argues that words operate in a similar way to DNA. One only has to look at the countless memes that become ‘viral’ on the internet to acknowledge their inherently infectious quality. As the writer William Burroughs observed, certain words and phrases function in a similar way to a virus (see page 40) they spread from person to person until they become embedded in our collective consciousness. They have a reality independent of our own existence. It could be argued that words have a life of their own. Words can be used to control us, motivate us and inspire us, and yet many of us are unaware of their hidden esoteric power. When used benevolently, they can facilitate social, economic and political change. When used persuasively, they can seduce us into the empty promises of commercial advertising. When used imaginatively, they can create fantastic worlds of fantasy. When used destructively, they can wage war and create conflict. When used poetically, they can evoke the most primal of passions within us. ![]()
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