Rhetorical unmasking of euphemism is central to exposing industrial harm

Evidence

Carson believed that the mission of the public intellectual included exposing the euphemisms and bromides promulgated by cold-war America’s military-industrial complex. As she famously insisted, herbicides and insecticides should be unmasked as biocides: those supposedly precise weapons in the “war” on pests targeted nothing more precise than life itself. Almost two decades before neoliberalism implemented breakneck deregulations, Carson forewarned that, if left unchecked, capitalism’s appetite for the unregulated, specialist consumer product would leave behind a trail of nonspecialist fatalities. — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 8

Categorization

• DEFINE: The ‘biocide’ reframing exemplifies the core method the chapter’s whole argument stands on: renaming diffuse harms so they register as violence.
• XREF: Parallels the law-merchant and colonial texts’ finding that naming and vocabulary control what harms become legible as injustice. — connects to: Euphemistic language like ‘collateral damage’ severs accountability for harm — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 1281; Euphemistic labeling lets industries obscure the harm they do — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 839; Euphemistic language converts recognized harms into neutral technical categories — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1651 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Euphemistic labeling lets industries obscure the harm they do #corroborates (1.00) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 839
• Business jargon euphemizes human harm as ‘negative externalities’ #exemplifies (0.95) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2510
• Euphemistic language converts recognized harms into neutral technical categories #corroborates (0.93) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1651
• Euphemistic labeling whitewashes the harm of secondhand smoke #exemplifies (0.90)
• Euphemism re-clothes devalued work and layoffs as benign or promotive #expands (0.80) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 378
• Industries dispute harm by fabricating controversy and manipulating evidence thresholds #expands (0.70) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1620