“Leftist”. “Fascist”.

One of the side effects is that the words cease to have any useful meaning, or become commonly misunderstood to have a different meaning. Note that most of these are labels. It seems to be a common human failing. If you disagree with someone, you cast them into a marked bin of things you dislike, which you imagine them to be like. If there is no such bin, you appropriate the name they choose for themselves and sully that name, creating a new bin.

Finally there is my personal favourite:

“Dinner/drink with Treehugger”

[cough….]

“Academic” and “culture of [insert whatever]”.

I’ve also heard that “My Blahg” is now a curse in many parts of Alberta. Does that count?

I think we’ve tapped an oil well here.

Tigger, I’d argue that “neoconservative”, like “fascist” or “communist”, counts. Both used to be (and at their root, still are) just titles for a political philosophy. Nowadays they’re more often deployed as dismissive by people who haven’t a clue what the hell they mean.

Robert, “My Blagh” was a NEVER a neutral descriptor (if I weren’t dead against winking smilies, I’d insert one here, but I am, so I won’t).

Having had the evening to ponder, I’d suggest that the left has also poisoned “capitalist”, “genetically modified”, “macho”, and “colonial”.

The right has poisoned “intellectual”, “special interest group”, “multicultural”, and “post modern”.

And I’m not sure who gets to take credit for toxifying “Klein”. This one might be a joint venture.

I’m noticing, not surprisingly, that it’s a LOT easier for me to pick out examples from the right than from the left, because of my own blinders. Interesting exercise in self-delusion.

>people who haven’t a clue what the hell they mean.

There’s another possibility. Many of the words people know are learned by the context in which they see the words used rather than by reading a dictionary definition. A person who understands a word primarily from its misuse by others will have a clue, but it will be an incorrect one.

Revisionism is a term often used in a negative context though it signifies the important and legitimate historical exercise of applying new data derived from previously unavailable or misinterpreted sources to the historical record, even if that means changing the already existing narrative to fit the new proof.

Instead we have folks on both sides of the void using the term “revisionism” as if we could actually know exactly what happened in the past–and that we possess they possess that knowledge in such a pure form that even to tip toe away from this Grand Narrative is heresy, blasphemy, and a public pronouncement that the revisionist needs a good stoning.

Hmm. V, I love ya like a brother, but I am tad suspicious of that one. I’ve never heard “traditional” used as a disparaging term.

Now, that may be:

- because its toxification is a work in progress
- because I hang out with too many folks for whom it’s just a a descriptor (i.e., my music circle) or a term of praise (i.e., my circle of aboriginal friends and family)
- because it’s a US thing and not a Canadian thing

OR it may be that you are presenting an example of “faux-toxification”, in which one camp claims the other camp is vilifying them, when that’s not actually happening. Can you link me to a couple of examples, that I might adjudicate here?

It’s pretty much a false claim. If I sneer when using the word “traditional” it’s because I’m mocking and insulting those who are using it to criticise mainstream society’s greater acceptance of situations that a few decades ago were unacceptable as an affront to common morality or to “natural law.” But I use the word “traditional” neutrally when I’m just remarking on the changes in common morality and practice in the last few decades.