Apr 30, 2025
The Tower of Babel by Alexander Mikhalchyk, 2019
“To concepts like suicide, homicide, and genocide, we should add "semanticide"—the murder of language. The deliberate (or quasi-deliberate) misuse of language through hidden metaphor and professional mystification, breaks the basic contract between people, namely the tacit agreement on the proper use of words. Thus it is that the “great" philosophers and politicians whose aim was to control man, from Rousseau to Stalin and Hitler, have preached and practiced semanticide; whereas those who have tried to set man free to be his own master, from Emerson to Kraus and Orwell, have preached and practiced respect for language.” - Thomas Szasz, ‘The Second Sin’ (1973) [p. 22, 23]