The Thieves of Words: DEI and Other Misleading Terms
Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.
George Orwell, 1984 (p. 155)
The power of words has always mesmerized me. Growing up behind the Iron Curtain, I witnessed how every aspect of life was infused with politically correct jargon, while the wrong word, even in jest, could get people imprisoned or killed.
I aspired to know what words truly meant and perused dictionary entries like a gripping novel. My fascination with language prompted me to study Classical linguistics. This ultimately brought me to America, with whose freedom and decency I fell in love instantly and lastingly. That is why it pains me to see how neo-communist indoctrination has subverted American ideals; it has infected Western culture and is destroying it from within. The manipulation of language is its most insidious weapon.
Words are emotionally charged. They instantly evoke feelings and biases, whether conscious or subconscious. Orators, lawyers, and politicians are experts in leveraging lexical nuances to persuade a target audience. Fortunately, this has served many a noble purpose. Trouble happens, however, when words serve ill intent.
Language manipulation has existed since time immemorial. Totalitarian ideologues have perfected the art of deception by using benign terminology and injecting it with oppressive meaning. They know extremely well that language control is mind control. While both national socialists and communists employed language manipulation, the Nazis were less sophisticated in their attempts to conceal their evil ideology. Communists have surpassed them by usurping the liberal linguistic and cultural space.
The effort to displace classical liberal attitudes harkens back to socialist writers during the French Revolution; German philosophers who subjected individual rights to statist social demands; and the Marxist and Leninist doctrines. It was introduced to America by leftist intellectuals who inspired the counterculture of the 1960s and advanced political correctness and critical theory, culminating in today’s hostile takeover of our institutions by Critical Race Theory (CRT); Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI); and intersectionality – the cross-section of “victimhood” by social group.[1]
Totalitarian ideologues have always been thieves of words. By “word theft” I mean deliberate appropriation of benign terms to manipulate language and thoughts. “Thieves of words” can be found today amid academics, policy makers, journalists, technocrats, corporate executives, and other public influencers. Even after the monumental collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, they continue to promote an anti-American and anti-Western worldview. Their effort to rewrite history and restructure society would fail without language control.
Totalitarian ideologues hijack positive terms such as liberalism, diversity, tolerance, inclusion and change their meaning. Such terms have dissolved into virtue-signaling synonyms – a conduit for intersectionality, whose Marxist underpinning divides people into ever-evolving categories of victims and oppressors. This perspective is the exact opposite of the American ideal of equal innate rights and meritocracy – a society where people would be judged not by their skin color but the content of their character. Instead, individual worth and moral character are now considered punishable privilege.
Such collectivism is the fuel and fodder for civil discord. It attributes collective guilt to the “oppressors” by virtue of their birth. It grants the “victim” groups a moral sense of entitlement that may morph into lawless behavior. This hurts both the perceived oppressors and victims by undermining the principle of equal justice for all and by crippling one’s motivation and personal responsibility.
Terms such as diversity, equity, inclusion, and tolerance have been turned upside down, to denote respectively uniform thinking, unequal treatment based on social category, exclusion of dissidents and non-members of the preferred social group, and intolerance toward dissenting opinions.[2]
Diversity. The original meaning of diversity is from Latin diversus, “turned in different directions.” Diversity should not be limited to physical characteristics – on the contrary, genuine diversity invites a democratic dialogue between opposing viewpoints.
Equity derives from Latin aequus, “equal, even.” Leftist ideologues insist on a false distinction between “equity” and “equality” whereby “equity” denotes equality of outcome, but this is linguistically unsubstantiated. Equity and equality are semantically interchangeable when describing human rights. Equality before the law does not mean a forced equality of outcome, which discourages meritocracy and undermines economic and social success.
“Inclusion” derives from Latin includo, “to close within.” It presupposes intellectual diversity, including opinions we disagree with. It does not mean exclusion of capable individuals who belong to politically undesirable social groups. Tolerance derives from Latin tolero, which means “to bear, endure.” It becomes a meaningless concept when limited to only politically correct views. As Benjamin Franklin reportedly remarked, “If everyone’s thinking alike, then no one is thinking.”
In addition to hijacking positive terms, leftist propaganda perverts the meaning of words by adding adjectives that blur or even negate the basic concept of the nouns they modify. The left frequently touts “social justice,” which amounts to individual injustice when justice is not applied equally to all. Forced redistribution of wealth is unfair to those who have worked hard for their prosperity. It is also unjust to treat the same crime differently based on the perpetrator’s social group.
DEI is discrimination disguised as “social justice.” Yet the best way to help those less fortunate is to create abundant opportunities through political and economic freedom – not change the rules or treat them condescendingly, as if they were inferior individuals who needed handouts and lower standards. Imagine what would happen when we completely cease to hire surgeons or pilots based on competence! Discrimination against job or college applicants based on race, gender, or sexuality is collectivist and socialist, unlike the principle of honest competition; it is equally harmful regardless of which category it favors.
Clarifying the origin of common words that permeate the current political narrative should encourage their better understanding and correct usage. Recognizing the Marxist origins of CRT, DEI, and intersectionality is the first step toward abandoning this deceptive terminology and abolishing its practical manifestations. Exposing the toxic anti-Western ideology that has become the dominant worldview in our institutions would facilitate its long-overdue rejection and usher in a landslide revival of core American ideals.
[1] Michael William defines political correctness as “the mechanism for the enforcement of neo-Marxist ideology.” (William 2016). Various authors describe this ideology as “cultural Marxism,” associated with the teachings of the Frankfurt School, especially in regard to “critical theory.” (See, e.g., the peer-reviewed Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy); Cf., notably, Kirchner 2017; Walsh 2015; and Knowles 2021.
[2] Cf. Katz 2022, describing the takeover of charities by DEI ideology; Jordan Peterson, for instance, frequently criticizes the catastrophic impact of DEI/DIE policies from a philosophical and psychological perspective.
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Nora D. Clinton was born and raised in Sofia, Bulgaria. She holds a PhD in Classics and has published extensively on ancient documents on stone. In 2020, she authored the popular memoir Quarantine Reflections Across Two Worlds. Nora is a co-founder of two partner charities dedicated to academic cooperation and American values. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and son.
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