If you’re a Republican politician trying to get Trump to “clarify” what someone evocatively called a “dog tuba” like “proud boys stand back and stand by” it means you want to have his endorsement and hold on to your seat more than you want to be seen as having integrity.
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And I’m fine being cut off in turn for being openly pro-Hillary in 2016 or pro-Biden in 2020 (in both cases, I’ve mainly been bozobitted by Bernie supporters). Easy enough for me, since I have no significant power and so can’t lose any power through being unambiguous.
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Point is, other people’s words, unlike bullets, only have as much power over you as you allow them to. A bullet can kill you dead whether you’re courageous or cowardly. Others’ words... not so much. Unless they’re “avada kedavra”.
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This holds true for institutional words too, cf. the kerfuffle over Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong’s words. A corporation is not a employee-statement-issuing body. It’s a highly asymmetric structure designed to make some people —execs and board members — count more than others.
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When a company speaks through it’s PR apparatus, it’s mainly the execs and board members speaking. Employees can choose to walk away, customers can stop using the product, the company can accept the cost of missing out on some talent, shareholders can dump shares.
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If you want to debase words so they become commodious enough to fit your views without you having to pay a real cost like quitting a job, don’t complain if they stop being useful for pointing to things of meaning things. That’s what debasement means.
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Words that mean everything to everybody eventually mean nothing to anybody. And words that speak meaninglessly for power don’t share that power among all being spoken for. They erode that power in proportion to the abuse.
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End of conversation
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