Loaded Language: Who Owns Words?

The Moral Outrage over anything Palin says continues with her use of a pair of words: blood libel. Apparently these words, when used together, are considered to be the property of an aggrieved group of people, a group not associated in any way with the context of Palin’s statement. A large and loud contingent of saviors for the aggrieved group is condemning Palin, largely and loudly, and analyzing her intent and even her education for anti-Semitism. (A rare opportunity for the consistently anti-Semitic Left to pose righteously in this regard).

While I myself was aware that certain words are considered possessions of certain groups of people, "holocaust" for example, and are not to be violated by their use in contexts unacceptable to the moral guardians of such things, I had not heard the term “blood libel” was in such a category. And I doubt that most people who lead their own lives outside the bastions of perpetual indignation which guard and protect such proprietary phrases had heard the phrase and knew of its protected and sacred status.

Nonetheless, Palin’s infraction by using the protected words has presented the Left with a field day of accusational opportunity.

How do words become sacred, especially in a culture that recoils at the concept of sacredness? Lenny Bruce fought for the right to use any word, the idea being that words do no harm; people do harm. The Left fought hard for that concept, back when the fight was against morality. Now the Left invokes censorship and censure and perpetual moral indignation.

Who owns words? Who owns moral indignation at the use of words? The moral indignation of the Left 4 decades ago had no more absolute, objective basis than does the moral indignation of the Left today, and the reversed position shows it. Their moral indignation is as spurious as the events that trigger it; indignant that Israel defends itself from a hate-deranged neighbor one day; indignant that a hated political opponent uses terms that are sacrosanct and “anti-Semitic” the next day. The flopping indignation registers as focused not on real transgressions, but on enemies of the Leftist Cause.

Moral indignation looks a little silly when it is being screamed by those who eschew moral absolutes and insist on moral situationalism. If the enemies of the Left were to claim ownership of sacred words and phrases, one can only imagine the level of indignation that the Left could achieve from that. (Think, “Constitution”).

I think also of the moral indignation of the Left at the moral indignation of the Right. Which one has proprietership of morality?