I mean yes its just a linguistic formulation but the use of terms molds how our minds process information (see: Wittginstein and every linguist/psychologist ever) . In something like this we need to be very very careful.

I have a degree in psychology. My graduate work also included more study in cognitive psychology. And I think this is really more of a boutique theoretical point than something that we need to be “very, very, careful about.”

I am as concerned as anyone else about our various so-called wars on poverty(LBJ), drugs(Reagan), and terror(Bush), and so on. There is always the danger that they become an open-ended black hole sucking up resources without changing much of anything. They even lead to perverse results.

But you’ll have a hard time convincing me that people are unable to see these efforts for what they are, warts and all, simply because of vocabulary choice.

Maybe what we need is a war on hair-splitting. Not sure which side I’d end up on though. :-)

I mean yes its just a linguistic formulation but the use of terms molds how our minds process information (see: Wittginstein and every linguist/psychologist ever) . In something like this we need to be very very careful.

By the way, 20 years from now what do you think we’ll say about Guantanamo Bay and the “war” on terrorism?

If there is a terrorist attack with WMD within the next 20 years, we would ask, “What were we thinking putting quotation marks around the word ‘war’!”

And I think 20 years from now we’ll be saying different things about Guantanamo than about the war on terror. No need to have the same opinion on both.