Chances are, you’re Anti-semantic.
Read that sentence again.
It’s not a typo.
Semantics is the study of meaning—how words, phrases, and sentences convey and shape understanding in language.
Many of the problems in today’s discourse are rooted in the simple (often deliberate) rejection or confusion of the meaning of words and objective facts.
Let’s go through some contemporary examples.
Semitic
Semitic does not mean Jew. It means a culture that speaks a Semitic language. This is Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic.
Arabs are, therefore, Semitic.
Anti-Semitic
But this is a benign semantic mistake. Let’s go further.
Let’s accept for a moment the semantically flawed belief that Semitic exclusively refers to Jews.
Antisemitism is hostility, prejudice, or discrimination against Jewish people based on their religion, ethnicity, or cultural identity. It is a particularly loaded charge because of the holocaust that demonstrated in horrifying clarity that such discrimination can lead (and has led) to genocide.
Israel would have you believe that Israel represents all Jews and that the behavior of Israel represents the behavior of all Jews. If you therefore criticize Israel, you are criticizing all Jews and are therefore antisemitic.
This is semantically and logically incorrect at every link in the chain of reasoning.
Israel does not represent all Jews.
Even if Israel represented all Jews the same way America represented all Americans (it does not), Israel’s behavior (or to be more specific, the behavior of its current government) does not represent all Jews. It does not even represent all Israelis.
And even if Israel’s behavior represented the behavior of all Jews (it does not), criticizing one’s behavior does not make you hostile to them or their people based on their religion, ethnicity, or cultural identity.
This is a complete corruption of the semantic meaning of the word antisemitic. It is anti-semantic.
Of course, pro-Israeli forces know this. This is no a mistake. They are doing it to weaponize language to silence debate.
Since antisemitism’s semantic meaning has been so corrupted, I prefer to use a different definition just for myself: “hostility, prejudice, or discrimination against Jewish people’s interests”. By my definition, Israel is the most antisemitic entity in existence today.
For a bit of fun, watch this explanation of Arabs and Arabs as Semites from Sammy Obe
id
https://www.facebook.com/reel/2595451950825957?fs=e&mibextid=wwXIfr&fs=e
Genocide
This brings us neatly to the Semantics of the word “Genocide”.
So many want the argument to be about the technical definition. In essence, they’d rather argue semantics than engage with the crimes against humanity.
Often, these arguments rest on justifications for the genocidal acts, rather than debating the acts themselves (oh, but October 7th!). Or worse, they point to previous genocidal acts to justify the present ones (but what about Dresden and Hiroshima!).
This is so deeply anti-semantic. It’s using semantics to obfuscate understanding and confuse engagement with the facts, rather than to facilitate conversation about objective reality.
Freedom
So many in America fail to understand the semantics and complexities of the word and concept of “freedom”
Some choose to only accept one kind of freedom. “Freedom to”. That is, the freedom to do whatever you want without government intervention. But of course, they don’t embrace the freedom to control your own body or love whoever you want to love. What they really want, of course, is freedom for corporations to do whatever they want without oversight.
Some choose to define freedom of speech to mean “freedom for my side to say whatever it wants - but your side can be cancelled”. Their hypocrisy is so blatant that if it weren’t so dangerous, it would be hysterical.
These are anti-semantic.
They are not semantically accurate and confuse and distract from the real discussion that must be had to move society forward.
Pro-life
Pro-life is an excellent example of conservative semantic trickery. Because when they say “pro-life,” they only mean one kind of life - the life of an unborn baby.
They are decidedly anti-life in every other way.
However, pro-life - semantically speaking - means ALL life.
I believe in life. I believe in allowing people to have the life they choose and make choices about their bodies. I believe in the life of a mother forced to make a terrible decision.
I believe in the life of the mother that might have prevented her unwanted pregnancy if only actual data from real life were listened to when we're told that teaching abstinence doesn't work. Life tells us that condoms and sex education work. So I believe in listening to life.
I also believe in the lives of those who are out on the street because we fail to look after the poor. We fail to provide for their basic needs, such as shelter and healthcare. I believe in the lives of people in foreign countries - lives that are equal in value to my own. I believe that you can't invade their countries or prop up their dictators without having violent reactions. That's just how life works and how people protect the lives of their families. When life gets desperate, you take desperate actions.
The life of undifferentiated cells, however, is only one form of life. I believe that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare because life happens. Abortion is horrible; however, abortion is going to happen whether it is legal or not. We need to safeguard the lives of the young mothers involved. There are many, many lives to consider.