Euphemisms numb conscience while convoluted language obscures harm

Evidence

The convoluted language of doublespeak disguises by piling on inflated words that do not add meaning (Lutz, 1987). In his book Telling It Like It Isn’t, Dan Rothwell (1982) characterizes the sanitizing form of euphemisms as “linguistic Novocain” for the conscience that numbs us to unpleasant and harmful realities and the convoluted form as “semantic fog” that obscures and conceals detrimental practices. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2682 (#expands, via linked claim)

Another, more oblique site to raise the question of linguistic success or failure may be found in the constancy of LTI, the way it is still part of “our cultural history,” as Blumenthal put it, as well as the ways in which it quickly turned into names those words that, spared their intended ambiguity or secrecy, no longer need translation. Nazism’s best known “euphemism,” may be the most significant example. The “final solution” is a phrase that has come to name quite precisely what it was meant to conceal. — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 678 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Words used instrumentally become lies; only obdurate thought resists; Hyphenated rhetoric renders speakers immune and susceptible simultaneously — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 397; People hedge civic language where it feels dangerous or powerless — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”: The work of avoiding…, 147 (+16 more)

Broader Connections

• Euphemisms act as linguistic anesthesia that numbs conscience. #expands (0.97) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2682
• Euphemisms meant to conceal can come to name exactly what they hid #complicates (0.75) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 678