MyDoorsAreOpen
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2003
- Messages
- 8,549
A fnord is something like a cross between a buzzword and subliminal advertising. It's a hint or an implied invitation to adopt a certain pattern of thinking, that's so well hidden in the context of a news source or other piece of popular writing as to be almost imperceptible. You could even conceive of it as a demand to conform to a certain opinion, camouflaged as an innocuous statement of fact. According to the coiners of the term, fnords are inserted into news sources by the government, in order to plant the seeds of homogeneous public opinion on certain topics, which are in the government's best interest for the people to hold.
Have you ever seen or read something, especially something with wide distribution and ostensibly neutral politically, and gotten a can't-quite-put-my-finger-on-it feeling that you were being manipulated by the clever and selective use of phrasing? Did you later discover that you were very much correct? If so, did your skepticism meter go off the charts every time you read that same word or phrase again, in a similar context?
I find the use of the word 'forces', when used to mean 'military', arouses such a feeling in me when I read it in the news. It's not a euphemism, exactly. But it definitely is a word that's loaded; it's conjures up a sense of mystery and awe on one hand (poweful forces afoot), as well as simple and rational Newtonian mechanics, that "just are", and are indifferent to and independent of human passions. I can't help but wonder if on some level, it's chosen as the preferred word for 'military troops', because these are exactly the things the news sources want the readers to associate with the military troops discussed.
Have you ever seen or read something, especially something with wide distribution and ostensibly neutral politically, and gotten a can't-quite-put-my-finger-on-it feeling that you were being manipulated by the clever and selective use of phrasing? Did you later discover that you were very much correct? If so, did your skepticism meter go off the charts every time you read that same word or phrase again, in a similar context?
I find the use of the word 'forces', when used to mean 'military', arouses such a feeling in me when I read it in the news. It's not a euphemism, exactly. But it definitely is a word that's loaded; it's conjures up a sense of mystery and awe on one hand (poweful forces afoot), as well as simple and rational Newtonian mechanics, that "just are", and are indifferent to and independent of human passions. I can't help but wonder if on some level, it's chosen as the preferred word for 'military troops', because these are exactly the things the news sources want the readers to associate with the military troops discussed.