Monday, August 26, 2013

A Few Semantic Association Games

Reading an article about "sex trafficking:"  Are they talking about trafficking as we've been taught it is, the kidnapping, through force or trickery, of individuals for transport into another country followed by coercion into prostitution? Or are they talking about run-of-the-mill prostitution, with the sad-but-common indignities of pimps and brutality?

The Steubenville rape case:  After all this time, I still don't have a good idea whether the crime was an actual, multiple partner, PIV full penetration gang rape, or what I originally heard, a group of kids that stripped a drunk girl and took pictures with one young man digitally penetrating her. According to the foot soldiers of the feminist ranks, the difference doesn't matter.

"Sexual predator:"  The term conjures a criminal who hunts and exploits the innocent. The label may be applied to those charged with nearly any sex-related offense, no matter how solitary or consensual.

Semantic association has the same problem as diagnosis drift, that the description becomes larger and larger until its original meaning has lost its usefulness. Thus, the "racism" of the lynch mob becomes equal to the "racism" of the little old lady who locks her car door upon seeing a black man. Even the difference in degree is lost.

Thus no victory is ever won, and the enemy never shrinks in ferocity and ubiquity. Thus there is always a need to escalate the war.

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