I wrote a song way back called. Who are “they ?” Mostly about paranoia and victimhood. As I recall English classes, they is supposed to be used once you’ve established the noun of who they are.
Yes, I do think the use was intentionally left and ambiguous so that you could fill in the blank depending on which possible group you think may want to off Trump. I think most of us know it is a range of people even some Republicans. (Not that they would do it but they join a chorus of demonizing Trump. Heck, his VP once did!
To me it’s not Democrats per se, but again a broad swath ranging from the administrative state to the techno – intelligence complex, academic eggheads and we might as well thrown in the big gov media. I think most Trump supporters know the faction as a whole and many know, though Trump is far from a Messiah, it is spiritual warfare. The “they” are the proponents of chaos and unbridled sin. In other words, the Godless.
I will agree that the use of "they" and conspiracy mongering is unfortunate. Further, if you're interested in politics, it only drives potential swing voters away while activating cranks.
On the other hand, it is obvious that there are a string of failures here that are going to invite all manner of speculation. We are also now living in the era of institutional "anti-trust"; the more institutions insist on a particular narrative, the more average people are going to believe the opposite of the desired narrative. The last two institutions that had any trust from Americans were the military and the sciences, but the military blew theirs with the Afghanistan debacle and (unfortunately, as a scientist myself), the sciences did with Covid.
Ideologically "appropriate" is not the same as factually accurate. Such conflation of language is having a negative impact on our political process, which is the point of the piece.
I also noted with dismay the use of the collective 'they' to describe the would-be assassins. Nevertheless, the astonishing campaign of attack against Trump must be acknowledged and repudiated if that word 'they' is to be discarded.
Yes, I saw "increasingly plausible" and read it as acknowledging some openness to a more complicated cause than a lone, crazy shooter. But the earlier "no evidence" was an unfortunate statement.
Not sure there's much direct evidence, but there's quite a bit of circumstantial evidence, as Will Spencer has noted on his Twitter feed, that something was really off. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, we're in a spiritual war so in one sense everything has a conspiracy element, but it's quite a jump to conclude things like this or a 9/11 false flag were plotted by humans intentionally.
I took this piece to mean that our language is working against us now, which is what Jordan Peterson has argued, that government controlling speech will impede our even being able to think, and the very notion of truth itself.
I could have considered this take, but as Lance Roberts points out, "There is no evidence to support this" is a preposterous take on things and casts well-deserved doubt on the rest of the essay.
One should be careful about saying "they" when he himself doesn't even know who he means. Don't slide off into the nihilism described by Seel. But of course, there are conspiracies everywhere. "Fortifying" elections, for example. Also, the media and leftist politicians call Trump literally Hitler are the same people who were so fastidious in how they spoke about Islamic terrorism. If they halfway believed what they said about the dangers of straight talk on Islamic terror, then they must want Trump dead.
"A quarter of a century ago, I submitted a dissertation titled “Topics in Indo-European Personal Pronouns” to the Harvard Department of Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a doctoral degree. A technical piece of work that goes into great detail on the deep background of *izwiz (the antecedent, you may recall, of our word you), it has never been of much interest to people other than specialists in historical/comparative linguistics. I used to give regular talks on language to general audiences and would invariably get a laugh at the start by saying that I’d written my dissertation on pronouns. But the third Wednesday of October has been declared International Pronouns Day and no one’s laughing now."
Sorry, but after Democrats and Never Trumpers told inflammatory Big Lies against Trump for years and tried to turn him into some Putin Hitler, “they” is appropriate.
Lost respect for Mr. Seel here. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence, so much that it leads to multiple possible theories. I don't know which ones are true, but it's not because there isn't a preponderance of evidence. I imagine he thinks the 2020 election was kosher also.
There's a lot of talking past each other here. I think people just need to be clear here about which of several possibilities we're discussing:
1. Did the Democrats "dial up the temperature" with their hatred of Trump, in a way that made attacks like this more probable ("stochastic")? *YES.* The right did this to some degree too, my gut tells me the left was probably worse, my head tells me no one here is unbiased and I'm not exactly sure and not interested in litigating it.
2. Did the pursuit of DEI over competence make this more likely? *YES.* Did it play a role in this case? Maybe, but until we have answers, we should presume the promulgators of DEI are guilty until proven innocent.
3. Did elements in the Administration, and/or the Federal bureaucracy ("deep state") intentionally under-protect Trump and divert resources away from him out of malice? *Quite possibly.* If true, unlikely it will ever be proven, since to some degree we're just talking about motives inside people's heads that need not ever be stated out loud. But even WaPo was reporting that requests for additional resources -- coming from field agents within the SS -- were denied.
4. Was there a formal conspiracy inside the government to kill Trump? Was the would-be assassin an MK Ultra asset? Are we living inside the Bourne movies? *No, no, no*.
I might be wrong, but I think Seel is mainly meaning to dismiss #4 here, and most people are focused on #1.
Yes, well said. The degree of incompetency certainly makes it seem and feel intentional -- coupled with maximum plausible deniability. It is certainly troubling and I have great sympathies with those dialing up #1.
Thank you. Let me know what you think after reading it! John
I'm getting your book.
I wrote a song way back called. Who are “they ?” Mostly about paranoia and victimhood. As I recall English classes, they is supposed to be used once you’ve established the noun of who they are.
Yes, I do think the use was intentionally left and ambiguous so that you could fill in the blank depending on which possible group you think may want to off Trump. I think most of us know it is a range of people even some Republicans. (Not that they would do it but they join a chorus of demonizing Trump. Heck, his VP once did!
To me it’s not Democrats per se, but again a broad swath ranging from the administrative state to the techno – intelligence complex, academic eggheads and we might as well thrown in the big gov media. I think most Trump supporters know the faction as a whole and many know, though Trump is far from a Messiah, it is spiritual warfare. The “they” are the proponents of chaos and unbridled sin. In other words, the Godless.
Off-topic - new review of Treweek on singleness, previously discussed here:
https://livingchurch.org/covenant/singleness-eschatological-and-evangelical/
https://www.aaronrenn.com/p/weekly-digest-on-being-single
I will agree that the use of "they" and conspiracy mongering is unfortunate. Further, if you're interested in politics, it only drives potential swing voters away while activating cranks.
On the other hand, it is obvious that there are a string of failures here that are going to invite all manner of speculation. We are also now living in the era of institutional "anti-trust"; the more institutions insist on a particular narrative, the more average people are going to believe the opposite of the desired narrative. The last two institutions that had any trust from Americans were the military and the sciences, but the military blew theirs with the Afghanistan debacle and (unfortunately, as a scientist myself), the sciences did with Covid.
It is overwhelmingly my experience on “X” I must ask both Liberals and my conservative friends, for specific questions and specific proof.
At BIOLA University we were taught: “Make generalities but make rich distinctions.”
Ideologically "appropriate" is not the same as factually accurate. Such conflation of language is having a negative impact on our political process, which is the point of the piece.
Too long in the oven, I'd say.
I also noted with dismay the use of the collective 'they' to describe the would-be assassins. Nevertheless, the astonishing campaign of attack against Trump must be acknowledged and repudiated if that word 'they' is to be discarded.
I think the piece is more nuanced than some read it as. As Seel wrote, ""They" is intentionally triggering and... increasingly plausible."
Yes, I saw "increasingly plausible" and read it as acknowledging some openness to a more complicated cause than a lone, crazy shooter. But the earlier "no evidence" was an unfortunate statement.
Not sure there's much direct evidence, but there's quite a bit of circumstantial evidence, as Will Spencer has noted on his Twitter feed, that something was really off. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, we're in a spiritual war so in one sense everything has a conspiracy element, but it's quite a jump to conclude things like this or a 9/11 false flag were plotted by humans intentionally.
I took this piece to mean that our language is working against us now, which is what Jordan Peterson has argued, that government controlling speech will impede our even being able to think, and the very notion of truth itself.
I could have considered this take, but as Lance Roberts points out, "There is no evidence to support this" is a preposterous take on things and casts well-deserved doubt on the rest of the essay.
He was very brief. Left some ambiguity as to what exactly there is no evidence of.
One should be careful about saying "they" when he himself doesn't even know who he means. Don't slide off into the nihilism described by Seel. But of course, there are conspiracies everywhere. "Fortifying" elections, for example. Also, the media and leftist politicians call Trump literally Hitler are the same people who were so fastidious in how they spoke about Islamic terrorism. If they halfway believed what they said about the dangers of straight talk on Islamic terror, then they must want Trump dead.
Joshua Katz on pronouns:
https://newcriterion.com/article/names-pronouns-the-law/
https://newcriterion.com/2024/04/another-day-another-pronoun/
"A quarter of a century ago, I submitted a dissertation titled “Topics in Indo-European Personal Pronouns” to the Harvard Department of Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a doctoral degree. A technical piece of work that goes into great detail on the deep background of *izwiz (the antecedent, you may recall, of our word you), it has never been of much interest to people other than specialists in historical/comparative linguistics. I used to give regular talks on language to general audiences and would invariably get a laugh at the start by saying that I’d written my dissertation on pronouns. But the third Wednesday of October has been declared International Pronouns Day and no one’s laughing now."
Sorry, but after Democrats and Never Trumpers told inflammatory Big Lies against Trump for years and tried to turn him into some Putin Hitler, “they” is appropriate.
"There is no evidence to support this"
Lost respect for Mr. Seel here. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence, so much that it leads to multiple possible theories. I don't know which ones are true, but it's not because there isn't a preponderance of evidence. I imagine he thinks the 2020 election was kosher also.
"No evidence"? Matt Taibbi gives some of it here:
https://www.racket.news/p/the-slow-motion-assassination
referencing among other things his previous take on Robert Kagan's ghastly anti-Trump rant:
https://www.racket.news/p/democracy-dies-in-daylight
Those links are both paywalled unfortunately.
There's a lot of talking past each other here. I think people just need to be clear here about which of several possibilities we're discussing:
1. Did the Democrats "dial up the temperature" with their hatred of Trump, in a way that made attacks like this more probable ("stochastic")? *YES.* The right did this to some degree too, my gut tells me the left was probably worse, my head tells me no one here is unbiased and I'm not exactly sure and not interested in litigating it.
2. Did the pursuit of DEI over competence make this more likely? *YES.* Did it play a role in this case? Maybe, but until we have answers, we should presume the promulgators of DEI are guilty until proven innocent.
3. Did elements in the Administration, and/or the Federal bureaucracy ("deep state") intentionally under-protect Trump and divert resources away from him out of malice? *Quite possibly.* If true, unlikely it will ever be proven, since to some degree we're just talking about motives inside people's heads that need not ever be stated out loud. But even WaPo was reporting that requests for additional resources -- coming from field agents within the SS -- were denied.
4. Was there a formal conspiracy inside the government to kill Trump? Was the would-be assassin an MK Ultra asset? Are we living inside the Bourne movies? *No, no, no*.
I might be wrong, but I think Seel is mainly meaning to dismiss #4 here, and most people are focused on #1.
Yes, well said. The degree of incompetency certainly makes it seem and feel intentional -- coupled with maximum plausible deniability. It is certainly troubling and I have great sympathies with those dialing up #1.