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submitted 11 months ago by nekandro@lemmy.ml to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml
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[-] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 23 points 11 months ago

I think it's probably better to simply say that "authoritarian" is a buzzword, though your implied argument that all states work by exerting authority on (at least some portion of) their population is certainly true. Anyone who uses a term like "authoritarian" rather than even a marginally more-descriptive negative term like, idk, "bureaucratic" or "state capitalist" (which gets misused, but I digress) is immediately demonstrating themselves to have untrustworthy judgement on the topic

[-] IzyaKatzmann@hexbear.net 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

maybe bring back totalitarian and use it against countries like the US? have a word that, like Huey P. Newton said regarding coining the term 'pig' for police, "highlights the contradiction", in this case, between the selective usage of a word and it's inherent meaning, none of which is understandable without contradictions from a prescriptive linguistic context

[-] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 7 points 11 months ago

You are probably right, I was really just trying to talk about how, as it currently stands, the people who use the term are basically just expressing either that they fell for a thought-terminating cliche or are expecting their audience to fall for it.

this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023
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