Language – the Duck and the Dog

In a previous post about language I wrote about governments being careful about discerning between legitimate and illegitimate rulers and ruling parties of other nations – and of whether to confer official recognition on them. Official recognition means that the new rulers will be the entity that other governments will establish relationships with, governments will not officially deal with more than one "legitimate" ruling entity in a nation. Language matters in foreign affairs.

Language matters in all that we do and in all that we think. The person or group of persons who dictate language, what it means and how it is used, controls the minds and behaviors of others. Who can stand against massively programmed collective language? Those who know the value of language and critical thinking, those who are plumbing the depths of belief and thought and moral and ethical character, and those who are courageous and who insist on using language representing transcendent truth while refusing to use the language of those who are attempting to destroy the image of God in humanity.  

If a group of people decide to begin programming society to believe that a duck is no longer a duck, but a dog, they might begin by using a new term, perhaps “dogduck” or “duckdog”. These people train a group of ducks to do dog tricks, they walk ducks on leashes, they allow ducks on the furniture. They lobby local governments to issue duck tag licenses arguing that duckdogs should have the same recognition as dogs. They protest at pet stores insisting that there be the same amount of space for duckdog food and other products as there is for dog and cat products. They insist that television and movie scripts represent duckdogs the same way they represent cats and dogs – even to the exclusion of cats and dogs.

Children are taught about duckdogs in school, that duckdogs are part of family life, and that families need not have a dog or cat, but that duckdogs are to be preferred.

What is one to do in such a situation? The first thing has to do with language – it is critical that a duck be named a duck and called a duck – no matter whether it has a leash or a metal tag around its neck or whether it is sitting on the family furniture or whether pet stores have sections with the name “duckdog”. A duck is a duck and a dog is a dog no matter what the social dictators say, and the moment we use the language of social dictatorship our minds and thinking and behavior changes to accept not only the terminology, but the image behind the terminology, and then we accept the lie behind the terminology…and soon we are thinking that there are actually animals who are duckdogs.

When schools and governments and news media collectively launch a campaign to reengineer language and thinking with an assault of duckdog terminology and articles about duckdogs the masses will crumble and acquiesce – especially when economic sanctions are used against individuals and pockets of individuals who resist bowing before the duckdog image. Those who had no firm convictions about ducks and dogs prior to the assault with wither and collapse; there will be those who have an inkling that there is no such thing as a duckdog, but many of them will begin to doubt their own thinking and will eventually, for the sake of job and family and social connections, accept the duckdog as a fact of life; perhaps they will see it as another step in the evolutionary process.

There are those who will delude themselves into thinking that there is a silent majority – but the majority will have been swept along with the new language, otherwise the language could not endure. Just listen, the majority is using duckdog language – the deed is done. The courts have recognized duckdogs, and in doing so have relegated dogs to the periphery of society – soon dogs will be ostracized, soon families will be apologizing for having dogs.

In a duckdog society who has the courage to use to words “duck” and “dog” and not to use the term duckdog? Who has the courage to resist an unprecedented attack on the true nature of life? Who are the pastors who will equip their people, and where are the congregations who will support one another and other congregations who refuse to bow before the duckdog? Where are the Christians who insist on using Biblical language and Biblical images in the midst of a social engineering project that rivals that of the overtly totalitarian regimes of the 20^th century?