Empty Terms

Mike Jones

January 2017

A term can be widespread without being actively promoted. (Indeed, the possibility of language
is predicated upon that fact.) Being widespread corresponds to having (relatively high) velocity.
A term being actively promoted corresponds to being under (relatively high) acceleration. It is
common knowledge that a term that is widespread (such as ‘unicorn’) might not have a referent,
but it is a common fallacy to assume that a term being actively promoted necessarily has a
referent. (One of the purposes of comedy is to refute that fallacy.) We will call a term with no
referent an empty term. (History is littered with defunct terms that were once actively promoted,
such as ‘phlistogen’, and ‘ether’.) Actively promoting an empty term is a common political
technique, because once the term becomes widespread, its promoters can assign virtually
whatever meaning they want to the term. The meaning chosen is typically one that controls
enfranchisement (especially by way of controlling what version of history is promulgated).
Allegiance to the empty term acts a filter. (Those who know the term to be empty may well
profess allegiance, because, as the proverb says, when you are among wolves, you must bay at
the moon.)
Disabusing the public of empty terms is a thankless task (a fact known since at least the time of
Machiavelli), and that accounts for the long-standing nature of many misconceptions (old-wives’
tales). Anyone who opposes the promotion of an empty term is branded with a suitable epithet,
such as ‘unbeliever’, ‘crackpot’, ‘eccentric’, ‘conspiracy nut’, ‘denier’, etc. (Such epithets have,
of course, legitimate targets, which makes their appropriation for this purpose all the more
effective.) The school system is the main venue where empty terms are actively promoted, and it
is perhaps this that prompted Chesterton to make his famous remark about having a “gentle
contempt” for education, and Paul Simon to open his song ‘Kodachrome’ with a sardonic
comment on the same subject. Doris Lessing also weighed in on this topic.
The promotion of empty terms, although dating from antiquity, has a greatly increased rhythm in
modern times, which may be partly responsible for the proverb, “History ended in 1936. After
that, there was only propaganda.”

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