Language is the Blood of Civilization 🩸
Your words are more magical than you know.
What’s up man.
Welcome to my newsletter The Dream Lounge. Congratulations if this is your first time reading. Your wonderful day is about to get even better, because I’m going to skull fuck your world view with some spicy new knowledge. Buckle up bucko.
About a month ago on the CIA’s Face the Nation TV show hosted by CBS, some stupid cunt was interviewing Secretary of State Marco Rubio aka “Little Marco” (who has been a pleasant surprise so far in this role). You can read the full transcript here for full context later.
What caught my attention about this interview was a specific argument they got into about free speech and genocide. It made headlines at the time, yet I haven’t seen anyone explore the philosophic depth behind this exchange.
The most important line the interviewer states is (referring to Adolf Hitler and 1930s Nazi Germany),
“…in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide…”
Marco allows her to continue for a few seconds after this before stopping her, completely disagreeing, and giving a defense of free speech.
For probably the first time in the history of national TV, this woman very directly tried to blame European genocide on American style “free speech”.
Marco predictably finds this delusional, irrational, and insane as a view of history. This state of discourse is completely normal at this point for deep state puppets, demonrats, feminists, and liberals though. Their entire political philosophy for the past 10 years boils down to “everyone and everything I don’t like is a Nazi”.
Putting their aggressively immature view of politics aside though, it’s the specific error this woman made that is interesting to me and I believe flew over most people’s heads, including Marco.
Because Margaret is a low IQ feminist cunt with shit for brains, when she says “free speech” she doesn’t actually mean free speech as you and I would understand it.
Her error is one of conflation.
She merges the definitions of “speech” and “free speech” into one idea, erasing their conceptual and verbal boundaries.
This is a big deal because these are absolutely not the same thing. The same way “car” and “moving car” have very different meanings for your life.
A moving car is a car no doubt. But a car itself - say parked in your garage - is not necessarily dangerous to your life. A moving car could be 5 seconds from easily killing you or someone you care about.
Moving cars are 3,000 pound metal missiles, a lethal danger you probably deal with on a daily basis. Not understanding the real world difference between these two ideas can literally get you killed.
Stating the obvious, this is why we use language to draw distinctions between different concepts, while navigating reality and real life. Failing to do so can make buildings fall down or otherwise cause disaster. Reality is absolute, literally everything is black and white, there are no exceptions.
You might disagree, because you have been socially programmed to disagree. You will say my view of human life is childish and immature. That life is filled with gray areas, just like all the movies told you. Yet you won’t go stand in moving traffic right now and tell a car flying 50mph at your face that “life is gray and there are no absolutes”.
All of a sudden you are a staunch Objectivist. Life and death are absolute. That car coming at you represents certain death, and you don’t want to die. Suddenly all of your mental masturbation about how “mature” you are and nothing being black and white goes out the window.
For the next few seconds of your life you stop being a hypocrite and admit that reality is absolute to escape death and move out of the way.
Speech vs Free Speech
Language itself is very old. Your country, your religion, the wheel, even human civilization itself. All of these things are very young by comparison. It’s the difference of a few hundred (or few thousand) years vs language at well over 100,000 years old.
In the total scope of human life on this planet very few things can compare to the existence and importance of language. Masculinity, femininity, family, controlled fire. It’s a short fucking list.
“Free speech” as we understand it is a few hundred years old. A couple thousand if you want to dig as far back as ancient Greece. That’s it. It’s a very young (and very important) political idea that is exponentially newer than speech itself.
As important and powerful as free speech is, it pales in comparison to the raw power of language, the same way the ages are dramatically different.
We reason, think, debate, and communicate in language. It is a major part of what makes us fundamentally different from every other animal on the planet. Without language - as depicted in movies like Planet of the Apes - we are basically just smart monkeys throwing stuff around.
Our CIA journalist Margaret is annoyed with Adolf for weaponizing speech itself to accomplish his goals. If she had clarified her point and refrained from accusing “free speech” of being Hitler’s tool, she would have been correct.
Think about it. How did Adolf actually achieve his goals? This is a serious question, because Hitler is one of the few men to have ever lived who conquered an entire continent.
Hated as he is today “the ultimate bad guy”, this is the reality of how he will be remembered a thousand years from now. As a European conqueror, not unlike his comparisons to Napoleon today, or even a Genghis Khan type figure.
Genghis Khan carried out an enormous degree of genocide and destruction in his time, but you don’t hear much about that these days. Barely a peep. That was a footnote or short paragraph you read in history class 20 years ago.
Adolf was of course a famous author in his day and is probably one of the best public speakers to ever live. I don’t say this with any glee, and these facts are accepted even in the most generic view of history.
People have a hard time admitting this though because they refuse to look at history dispassionately and objectively. Your feelings are not a form of thinking and your morality is not reason. These are all distinct words and concepts for good reason.
I bring this up because Hitler’s use and mastery of language is the actual pathway he took to conquer Germany and almost all of Europe. While he was a combat veteran from World War One - and this was a moderately useful propaganda tool later in life - he was not a violent revolutionary or a George Washington type figure.
As historians have documented, his rise to absolute power was completely legal in Germany. He wrote Mein Kampf, gave speeches, shook hands, managed relationships, signed documents, and gave orders (verbal or written).
At no point did he pickup a gun and overthrow the existing German government in a bloody revolution or coup. His rise to become head of state was mostly peaceful as CNN might put it today.
He may have shot at some people in WW1, but at no point in WW2 to my knowledge did he actually shoot at anyone personally.
He conquered entire countries in the most literal sense using nothing but his mouth to speak and hands to write.
This is the true and extreme power of language itself, of speech. It borders on magical and divine, independent of how its used - for good or evil.
You remember of course when Donald Trump was shot last year. While it’s important that the bullet missed him, what do you actually remember most about that day?
What you remember are his now iconic words.
FIGHT
FIGHT
FIGHT
They are stuck in your head and will remain stuck in your head until the day you die.
In America we suffer from a systemic cowardice today, like a cancer metastasizing out of control throughout your entire body.
Trump’s immediate, simple, and bold use of language was a rallying cry for what’s left of American masculinity and patriotism. Every man with an even ounce of balls left in his soul heard that battle cry.
Donald of course is unfairly compared to Hitler all the time. “Orange Hitler”, “literally Hitler” and such.
Most of these comparisons are absurd, malicious, and ludicrous, but not all.
Trump’s mastery over language in public and political discourse is unmatched anywhere in the world today. This specific and isolated comparison to Hitler is fair, because few other men in history have unlocked the power of language at this extreme intensity.
Trump is often a one man army fighting with little more than his mouth and fingertips on a phone. It’s a sight to behold when you understand the power he’s able to exert with just language.
He’s destroyed multiple political dynasties and changed the course of American history by simply speaking and writing.
Trump did not make this so though. This is simply the raw nature of language. It is and always has been the blood flow of civilization itself.
This entire century will be shaped by flow of language, just as every other before it. Perhaps even more so given the rise of the internet and the resulting bumps in volume and speed of communication.
Everyone has a voice now (and for now). And everyone can read or hear your voice instantly from anywhere in the world. This post could literally reach 100 million sets of eye balls and change the way those people think and act in real life, just like anything you write or say on the internet.
This of course is why free speech is so dangerous to entrenched establishments and tyrannical elites. Speech used to destroy evil is a dangerous weapon that everyone can wield for the first time ever.
And you should wield it.
/s/ Anthony Dream Johnson