tompaine.com: Reactionary Distinctions

tompaine.com

"...So what is different about the current crop of reactionaries, who have succeeded spectacularly where their predecessors have failed?

The answer, alas, is that reactionaries have learned the art of subversion. They have learned that where they cannot defeat their rivals through a direct assault, they succeed by corrupting from within.

The art of subversion begins and ends with manipulations in the meanings of words. Socrates observed this, and so did George Orwell. John Dewey took note of it, and so too Wendell Berry.

Typically, subversive manipulation of language requires that a word be used to mean its opposite: justice comes to mean repression; peace signifies war; hate is love; greed is good.

But conflating the meaning of two words that appear to share an antonym can be just as effective. Thus, reaction and conservatism have become conjoined in opposition to liberalism. But they are not now, nor have they ever been, the same ideological bent. They aren’t even similar..."

know your enemy, they aren't conservatives