It's unspeakable, literally Or so the Guardian's salaried yappers would have us all believe. Can you guess what sort of "trope" it is? Right first time. Just like "bankers", "financiers" and even "capitalism" itself, "neoliberal" is a deadly trope, and it's spreading through the unwashed masses like Yersinia pestis. Great Mortality! Stamp it out! No, not the thing, you fool, not neoliberalism -- the word, the word!Have you been infected with tropes? Ask an expert.
JackRiddler wrote:Trump and a million other yappers are stochastic terrorists.
Nope. Call them demagogues or blowhards or influential brutes or irresponsible yappers or whatever you like, but calling them "stochastic terrorists" adds absolutely nothing to our understanding of terrorism in general or of any terrorist act in particular. On the contrary. It clouds our understanding. All it does is allow a million yappers to feel cleverer than the unwashed masses by using a word most people will have to look up.
It is also the exact same tripey argument wheeled out by the likes of Cockburn and Corn in the aftermath of 9/11. Remember? "BLOWBACK! We TOLD you so!! It HAD to happen, sooner or later!!! Statistically INEVITABLE!! Case closed!!" Of course these heroes of reasoned discourse put a leftoid slant on this alleged (but in fact entirely imaginary and wish-fulfilling) "statistical inevitability", as do you now. It was nothing more than a thoughtstopping rhetorical manoeuvre. It precluded, or was intended to discourage, any closer examination of any particular terrorist attack. Any such closer examination was, of course, by definition, A CONSPIRACY THEORY. And that kind of thing has to be nipped in the bud, as you know better than most.
The aim is to make certain things unnnamable. Cui bono? (Rhetorical question.)
Words are weapons, among much else; some more effective than others.
