Words and meanings

When the ostensive meaning, the nominal meaning, and the nominal ostensive meaning of a word differ, the word is itself a lie, a lie contained in a single word that makes any sentence containing it a lie.

A word primarily means what it is used to refer to, its ostensive meaning. During childhood language acquisition, it means what mothers refer to when speaking to their children. The mother says “look, a dog”, and the child then knows what a dog is.

Then there is the nominal meaning, what dictionaries say the word means in terms of other words, what high status people say they mean, which is not necessarily what they do mean.

And then there is the nominal ostensive meaning – what people say they are pointing at, even though in fact they may be pointing at something completely different.

The difference between the ostensive meaning, what they point at, and the nominal ostensive meaning or the dictionary meaning, what they say they point at, is the lie.

The word “racism” illustrates this. The ostensive meaning, what it is actually used to mean, is an insult term for white, like “cracker” or “honky”. The nominal ostensive meaning is KKK Hitler slavery. The nominal meaning, what people claim they mean by it, what dictionaries say they mean by it … is incoherent, incomprehensible, and differs from one source to the next, because no one really cares or pays any attention.

The lie implicit in the word “racism” is therefore that all whites are guilty by original sin of KKK Hitler slavery, that blacks suffer because whites exist, that merely by continuing to breath, whites harm blacks. For example, by thinking evil thoughts about blacks, whites cause blacks to underperform, (stereotype threat) and devastate black run cities such as Detroit. The logical implication of the word “racism” is that non whites need to eradicate whites, because evil white magic is causing non whites magical harm.

Similarly for “sweatshop”, The ostensive meaning, what it is actually used to mean, is capital and entrepreneurs making those of a different race to the entrepreneur and owner of the capital productive by leadership and expensive equipment. The nominal ostensive meaning is something like a factory operated by slave labor. Supposedly the peasants are dragged to factory and chained to the bench. Allegedly evil capitalists did this somewhere some time, though it is not very clear when or where or who. The dictionary meaning is a shop employing workers at low wages, for long hours, and under poor conditions, but when communists forced people to work with actual chains and whips, for wages paid in money that could not be spent, for long hours, and under poor, and frequently fatal conditions, that was never a “sweatshop”, nor is it a sweatshop when the business employs very little technological capital, as for example a coffee plantation.

The lie implicit in the word “sweatshop”is therefore that capital, capitalism, and entrepreneurs make people worse off, that the way for individuals, peoples, and nations to enjoy prosperity and economic development is to imitate the wonderful examples of Soviet Russia, North Korea, and Castro’s Cuba and simply command prosperity into being. And if prosperity failed to be commanded into being, this was due to the continuing harmful influence of evil hate thoughts of evil capitalists – see “the kulaks”. If the command that utopia exist was mysteriously disobeyed, the solution obviously must be stronger regulation and harsher punishment.