JOHN C. WRIGHT on word fetishes.

A word-fetish is when you have a bit of language which you hope will have a magical effect on the world, turning gold into lead.

The simplest example is the phrase ‘wage slavery’ which, like the phrase ‘bright darkness’ or ‘four-sided triangle’ or ‘homosexual marriage’ is a nonsense phrase, signifying nothing and meant to signify nothing.

What word fetishes do is carry a connotation without carrying a denotation. In the above example, a slave is defined as one who is coerced into doing labor without a wage. The payment of a wage is the defining thing that makes a laborer not a slave; it is the sign that the exchange was voluntary. Hence the term ‘wage slavery’ has a connotation of a horrible and involuntary servitude, akin to bondage, and the connotation is affixed to working for a wage, a voluntary exchange between equals, which is the opposite.

Word fetishes are used instead of reasoning. When a man reasons, he defines his terms. When a Leftist unreasons — or whatever the mental activity is called whereby mental activity is deliberately made unable to act — what he does is undefine his terms. He makes clear terms muddy.