Maher: There's 'Orwellian' Redefinition of Words Like 'Hate' and 'Violence'

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher criticized the “Orwellian” redefinition of words like “hate,” “violence,” “and white supremacy.”

Maher said, “George Carlin famously had the seven words you can’t say on TV. Well, here’s my eight words people need to stop redefining: Hate, victim, hero, shame, violence, survivor, -phobic, and white supremacy.”

He continued, “Comedian Hannah Gadsby characterized Dave Chappelle’s controversial Netflix special as ‘hate speech dog whistling[.]’ Well, ‘dog whistle’ refers to when someone puts things in code because they’re afraid to come out and say what they really think. That’s what you get from Dave Chappelle? That he’s afraid to say what he really thinks? And it’s not hate speech just because you disagree with it, nor is it -phobic.”

He added, “Also in the category of, we just don’t like it, so we’re just pretending it’s something else is the word ‘violence.’ … Violence is when it hurts. It usually involves leaving a mark of some kind. Of course, innumerable things can lead to violence, but I’m sorry, you can’t take that word and use it for stuff that’s just scary to you, or just verbal, which is something I literally learned in kindergarten.”

He further stated, “In 2010, The New York Times used the term ‘white supremacist’ on 75 occasions. Last year? Over 700 times. Now, some of that, to be sure, is because Trump came along and emboldened the faction of this country that is truly white supremacist. It is, of course, still a real thing. But it shouldn’t apply to something like, as more than a few have suggested, getting rid of the SAT test. Now, if we find the SAT test is slanted in such a way as to stack the deck in favor of Caucasians, if there are questions like, ‘Biff and Chip are sailing a yacht traveling at twelve knots to an Ed Sheeran concert on Catalina – if Catalina is 26 miles away, how many White Claws should they bring?’ Yes, then maybe, yes. But of course, the SAT doesn’t have questions like that. So, it becomes the kind of ludicrous exaggeration that makes lovers of common sense roll their eyes, and then vote for Trump. Now, are there snowflakes on the right? Of course, there’s no whinier little bitch than Trump himself. But this kind of stuff does tend to stick to the left a lot more.”

Maher concluded, “You can try to change reality by changing the words, but you can’t. It just stops you from dealing with it. One of the bad guys in ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ says, ‘[T]he whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought[.]’ Yes, it’s Orwellian. And you know what they say, Orwell never ends well.”

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