Recycling Ideas

Over the last twenty-four hours I have had a discussion that some of you may have noticed on facebook.  This discussion is essentially about the meaning of the word "socialism."  His meaning (in this case) when boiled down to the basics is that a meaning of socialism is traffic lights and public roads, because right wing pundits have equated some government programs as "socialism" and therefore if they really understood what they were talking about ALL government programs would therefore be "socialist."  My position is that socialism means what it says it means in dictionaries, encyclopedias, in classrooms, and what socialist mean when they call themselves socialist.

This frustrates me, because I think the meaning of words matters.  If words don't have a precise meaning then it is impossible to have a precise conversation.  I understand that the meaning of words changes over time because the meaning of a word is what people think it means.  However, I do think that at any one time there must be an agreement of what a word means in order to actually communicate. That's why we have dictionaries and encyclopedias etc.. 

 The alternative to having a consensus on the meaning of words is best described through the lens of the Theory of Evolution.  There is a precise meaning for those words, available in dictionaries, encyclopedias, from scientists, and in classrooms.  However, in the effort against the belief of evolution people distort the meanings of the words.  "It's only a theory, just a guess.  They don't really know if it's true."  Well, a Theory backed up by vast amounts of evidence and never falsified is as close to a fact as there is in the world.  'Evolution says that we came about from just luck, even for one bacteria to become another bacteria is so unlikely that it is less than one chance in a bigger number than all the atoms in the universe."  Evolution is precisely the theory that describes how change happens in life in a non-random manner.  "Nobody has ever seen a monkey become a cat."  This is true, but evolution doesn't say this is so.  These are "straw man" arguments, arguing against a position that nobody holds (see the first paragraph for another example).  However, if there are not actual, real meanings for words it is impossible for there to be a straw man argument.  Each person is able to define what the other person says regardless of what they mean.

The biggest problem for me is when there is already a word that means what people want to change a word to mean.  In this case there are the words, "government programs" which everyone understands.  Changing "socialism" to mean "government programs" means you have eliminated a word with real and useful meaning from the vocabulary.

Now, I know my frustration is counter-productive.  I know that in an argument, if the person does not immediately take an interest in your position and try to come to a consensus on what the argument is about or disagrees twice, then it is impossible to change that person's mind.  What is important to people is whether they fit into a group, and maintaining their reputation as never being wrong.
 
So, I should go back to working towards a dream, not involving myself in fruitless arguing but immersing myself in mindfulness, in living a good life, in bettering myself and remaining optimistic.  I should work to make these things true habits.

I may manage this for a while, but I am pretty sure I'll be back to this again, equally frustrated again.  We are who we are.