What We Call Them

Böhmermann had this bit about language, how you can dress up almost anything if you pick the right words. Call something a Nazi and everyone knows what you mean. Call them an asylum critic and suddenly there’s room in the mind for thoughtfulness. For nuance. For rigor. The word creates space for all the things the reality isn’t.

There’s something unsettling about seeing this clearly. Once you do you can’t stop seeing it. Every headline that softens, every interview that legitimizes, every phrase that names something cruel and makes it defensible. The media does it sometimes on purpose, mostly because the gentler word is just easier to say, easier to print. The effect doesn’t care about the intention.

I used to think language was just language. Now I know it’s the first move in every argument. You win or lose before you ever make a claim. You do it by deciding what words the thing is allowed to be called.

It makes you tired being this aware of it. Makes you trust less. Makes you read not for what something says but for what it’s carefully not saying.