Hergest Ridge

Weasel words [ ] refer to unspecific disclaimers attached to what otherwise would be claimed statements of fact in order to turn them into true statements of opinion. Usually, weasel words are small phrases attached to the beginning of a statement, such as “some argue that…” or “critics say…”, etc.. Additional “weasel” words sometimes allow a statement to be implied when it is no truer than its inverse and sometimes imply that the statement is more controversial than it is. The problem with weasel-worded statements isn’t that they are false; the problem is that they are chosen to imply something which they do not say.

For example, an editor might preface the statement “Montreal is the best city in the world” with a disclaimer: “some people say that Montreal is the best city in the world”. This is not untrue: some people do say that Montreal is the best city in the world. The problem is that the reverse is true as well (some people say Montreal is not the best city in the world, and some go even further and say that it is the worst), and it is thus easy to write a misinformative, slanted article composed of nothing but ‘facts’ like these, [and] spread hearsay, personal opinion and propaganda. All it takes is for somebody to add “Critics have asserted that…” to a statement, and there is a danger that the casual reader will take their word for it. Equally “some people claim that The Beatles were popular” unnecessarily raises a (false) question about something which is better without the preface, and expresses a tacit counter point of view.

If a statement is true without weasel words, remove them. If they are needed for the statement to be true, consider removing the statement. If there is a genuine opinion make the preface more specific. Who are these people? When, where and why did they say that? What kind of bias might they have? How many is “some”? If you consider the different answers these questions might have, you can see how meaningless the “some people say” qualification is.

 
Source: Wikipedia

Southern Cone, last quarter of the 20th century

Prisoners in Uruguay’s Libertad prison were sent to la isla, the island: tiny windowless cells in which one bare bulb was illuminated at all times. High-value prisoners were kept in absolute isolation for more than a decade. “We were beginning to think we were dead, that our cells weren’t cells but rather graves, that the outside world didn’t exist, that the sun was a myth,” one of these prisoners, Mauricio Rosencof, recalled. He saw the sun for a total of eight hours over eleven and a half years. So deprived were his senses during this time that he “forgot colors - there were no colors.”

Excerpt, The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

Suppose I told you that it’s a good idea for you to become vegetarian, and did so as a practicing carnivore. Would you think me crazy? And if so, would you dismiss me just the same if I discouraged you from cheating on your partner, had I cheated on mine? I don’t know that eating nuggets is an immoral act in itself, but the methods and ways of the likes of Tyson - that’s easy to classify.

“Researchers have linked authoritarian childrearing with children who withdraw, lack spontaneity, and have lesser evidence of conscience.”[1] If you ask me, “unbalanced, unhappy, and guilt ridden” are other common side-effects of the strict father parenting method. Guilt of course is the main foundation of major religions.

Religion provides the young adult (now out in the real world) another strict father - this one has a direct line to anything you may otherwise deem private. Having developed a need for totalitarian authority, life without the strict father often leaves the offspring with the perpetual feeling ’something is missing’. Enter God.

With God at side, and a long list of commandments committed to memory, off to the voting booth it is. Obedient, faithful in the rule, and never strayed, one more never-ending task remains: to impose the wants of the big brother up in the sky, on all that are.

 
Sources

[1] Wikipedia - Strict Father Model

Somewhere around the second or third time listening to My Number by Tegan and Sara, a dissonant mutter began to drown out a line of the song. This of course has no real life significance to anyone but me, and for the longest time I let it go without a mention. I now break my silence, for the mutter turned to a chant and has since amplified exponentially.

It’s a silly time to learn to swim when you start to drown

It’s a silly time to learn to swim on the way down.

But it’s the perfect time! Of all the times, places and reasons to learn how to swim, drowning would be the best occasion. The payoff is at max. Even if you’re convinced that mingling with Death on your final homecoming parade is really just a start of something more beautiful, by the time you’ve taken a ride in the death cab, pushing up the daisies becomes a full time occupation. You’re an ex-human, and that’s that. Unless of course you can learn how to swim before the sirens make their delivery.