The power of words.

An article on the utility of words and their impact.

UPDATE: This video is pretty right on and also covers the subject matter in this article.

Sometimes, I make Substack posts about how I feel about things that bother me in an attempt to understand my own feelings about the thing that bothered me. Sometimes I make these posts to get your feedback. This is one of those posts that encompasses both.

These are only my personal thoughts and opinions. While I am still allowed to have them and to express myself in the art of writing, I will. And I make no claims - simply observations and questions posed. The inquiring mind wants to know. I want to know! (You see? Words are powerful.)¹ Wait. Did I just make fun of myself? No odds. Let’s Enquire.

I don’t know why or how, but I stumbled onto this interview between Triggernometry² and Sam Harris entitled: Sam Harris: Trump, Religion, Wokeness. Now, everyone should know, I have watched almost every interview that Sam Harris has done and have listened closely to his words for a long time. I held him in great esteem, as I currently hold many thought provokers like the indomitable Jordan Peterson and the unstoppable honorable Brian Peckford.

I am the kind of person who not only wants to make up my own bloody mind, but who NEEDS to, and I don’t really welcome others trying to tell me what to think - whatever the means. So this is one of those episodes in my life when I have done a double-take on my previous opinion of a person, based solely on that person’s own expressed opinions and in this case, words.

I am truly shocked that Sam openly and willingly uttered the following words at all, and had no problem with them being recorded and aired. And ironically, the context here is a comparison of Trump’s and Biden’s affairs (some may call them transgressions), and that his words were uttered based on his claim that it simply doesn’t matter what Joe Biden’s son did or what is on his son’s laptop, because it’s not Joe Biden himself.

Alright then, I will use your logic Sam: it simply doesn’t matter that you are speaking your mind on the subject of this context - the words that you uttered are what matters.

Note: I will not be writing the words uttered in the video shown in the following screenshot, with great intention.³ It’s very tricky to write about this without even, perhaps, propagating the problem. Read on. I will replace them with ‘your example’.

Quote from timestamp 36:09 in this video:

I find this highly disturbing. What a gruesome choice of words. Why not something like: “at this point Hunter Biden could have had photos of him sniffing crack off a donkey’s ass”. At least this would have aroused a laugh in the audience. But that? Why children?

And what’s also disturbing is the fact he explicitly states that he doesn’t care. I assume he believes that it doesn’t matter because of the reasons he states which revolve around the fact that he thinks a) that it doesn’t matter because it’s not Joe and b) that it doesn’t matter because the whole ‘thing’ is just a ruse. But.

Let’s make that assumption. Let’s assume you are correct and the Hilary emails and the Hunter Biden laptop stories are political fabrications to demonize the ‘good guys’. Like all politics, election time is all about looking awesome, or rather, not looking bad, to the public as a candidate. Right? Fine. Accepted. Temporarily.

You know what though? It doesn’t change how I feel about hearing you calmly state that the laptop could have had your example on it and that it wouldn’t have bothered you.

I get that Sam was probably being excessive to make ‘a point’, but there was certainly a far more tasteful way to make any point you might have been trying to make. He also states that “Trump University as a story is worse than anything that could be in Hunter Biden’s laptop”. Including your example? I beg to differ.

One more thing that bothered me: one of the interviewers, in a dig to go deeper into Sam’s mind, also says “[f***] the kids in the basement”. I bring this up because it ‘triggered’ (well done boys) a thought in my mind that related to reinforcement or repetition of words. Whether by intention or by flow, the my example words were repeated several times in this video clip. That MUST have an effect on the mind of the person listening. We are sensory beings, after all, and most people are familiar with the power of the spoken word.

Listen, I am not saying that I believe that Sam Harris and the interviewers don't care about the well-being of children. Of course not. But, in addition to my point (that a less gruesome example could have been selected as potential evidence on the laptop), I must raise and reflect on the pertinent issue of language use, and its power.

Language is powerful. Ask anyone who has escaped an abusive relationship. The irresponsible use of the words (continual reinforcement)⁴ has been used for as long as humans have been able to speak in order to gain power over others, or to compensate for low esteem. And therein lies the potential problem. Here's my stretch on this point and feel fee to disagree with my stretch. Listening to them, it almost felt like they thought these were 'normal' words to utter. Or at the very least, only Sam sort of acknowledged that perhaps his words were worth bringing up, by bringing them up again. That’s when the interviewer said the above quote about the kids. Personally, my brain would never go to those words as an immediate ‘recall’ to provide an example of something horrid. I find that, odd. Maybe it's just me. But I must say, I do a lot of interviews and 99% of them are ‘off-the-cuff’ and so I know the difficulty of word choice when on the hot seat, and how important it is to speak carefully. It’s a very, very difficult task to speak carefully and thoughtfully. Maybe Sam just messed up?

I also do realize that this is a ‘free-speech’ channel and that ratings are important, but let me ask you this YouTube, would you allow a medical doctor to talk about dead children in the context of the COVID-19 injectable products? (Sorry, I had to.)

One final ‘bake your noodle’ question to ponder: Am I propagating the questioned normalization by simply acknowledging that this gross-speak occurred? If there is, in fact, a ‘normalization’ of the words occurring in this instance, simply by listening to this clip, then the best thing for all of us to do to avoid your example becoming normal-speak, would be not to watch the clip so that we would avoid (by own our free will or not), having those words implanted in our conscious, or subconscious minds.

I find this part of ‘journalizing’ difficult to resolve. How do you make your point without providing ‘clicks’ or a platform to the people who made you feel, odd?

Free speech is an interesting thing, isn’t it? I sure miss it.

At least he acknowledges that it would be ‘the laptop from hell’. The example he uses here sounds pretty hellish to me.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Enquirer

2. I am new to these guys and their ‘ABOUT’ on the their YouTube channel reads like this: “TRIGGERnometry is a free speech YouTube show and podcast. We believe in open, fact-based discussion of important and controversial issues. Comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) create fun-but-serious conversations with fascinating guests, including former Presidential advisors and political experts, leading economists, psychologists, journalists, social and cultural commentators, YouTubers and others. We give our guests a chance to say what they think and explain why.”

3. I also wouldn’t recommend listening to the video if you think hearing the words in the screenshot might ‘affect you’. This is out of concern for my fellow humans.

4. https://www.britannica.com/topic/brainwashing