Let Confucius return

Confucius responded like this, 2,500 years ago, when asked what measure should be taken first to order the State: “The first thing that is needed is the rectification of names.

If the names are not correct, the words will not fit what they represent.

And if the words do not fit what they represent, the tasks will not be carried out and the people will not know how to act” (Jesús Mosterín,

History of philosophy.

1983).

The mismatch of words that we suffer today is beginning to reach unacceptable levels, but some politicians seem to be happy with that.

They feel so powerful that they even try to decide what the words will mean from the moment they pronounce them.

To do this, they need to empty them of content, strip them of the connotations accumulated by historical use, reduce them to the moment in which they are uttered.

And so they create disorder.

Pedro Sánchez has mentioned several times (June 2020, July 2022, January 2024) the opposition's attempts to “overthrow” the Government.

Wow, “overthrow.”

It sounds very strong to me every time I read it, because I associate that expression with violence or force.

This verb is literally equivalent to “despeñar”: to precipitate from a high place.

In this case, “to precipitate from a rock”, as the Academic Dictionary

recorded

from 1732 to 2001. To its straight meaning, a non-peaceful figurative meaning was always added, as the 1992 edition expressed: “To knock down, to throw someone from the status or fortune you have.

(Used especially in politics).”

The current academic entry brings together both previous meanings in the first meaning: “To bring down, generally by force, a Government or system of government, or someone from a preeminent position.”

As can be seen, the most common connotation, which has come down through the centuries, continues to be valid: “By force.”

So I associated that “overthrow” in the mouth of Pedro Sánchez with the idea of ​​evicting the socialists through violent action, something in my opinion unlikely today.

In a space of shared language it would have been said that the right intends to defeat the Government, or defeat it in the elections, verbs that can even be applied to a pleasant game of cards.

(Defeat: “To win or win in everyday confrontations”, indicates the second academic meaning of this verb).

Such emptying of words has been a maneuver of all tendencies, but no one has applied themselves to it with as much enthusiasm as Núñez Feijóo and his teacher Díaz Ayuso.

The Madrid president has trivialized the term “dictatorship” to throw it at the president (“the pact with Junts is to enter a dictatorship, they have given us a dictatorship”), and has manipulated the sacred words “freedom” and “democracy” at her convenience. in order to appropriate them and veto them from Sánchez.

She was imitated by Ione Belarra, from Podemos, who accused Manuel García-Castellón on February 2 of exercising a “judicial dictatorship.”

And in turn, Feijóo resorted to the lure of the aforementioned judge, who, as

I now remember,

suddenly considered “terrorism” the violation of laws incurred by the promoters of Catalan independence six years ago.

It seems that now any action by rivals with which one disagrees must violate the Constitution or involve violence: dictatorship, terrorism, overthrow.

If all this fits what the words represent, let Confucius come down and see it.

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