As historian Will Durant once noted, "Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty, and dies with chaos." Durant, who along with his wife Ariel surveyed the span of Western civilization, provided a short summary of the process of civilizational decline, as order gives way to a corrupted view of liberty that finally dissolves into chaos. In our times, civilization is standing at the brink of disaster.
Evidence of this comes from many sources, and the common thread running throughout various controversies and issues is the refusal to see the truth, to acknowledge moral authority, and summon the courage to deal responsibly with threats to social order, moral integrity, and the institutions necessary to civilization itself.
Take, for example, the confused response of many of the world's leading journalists to the terrorist attack on innocent children and hundreds of others in Beslan, Russia. As the death toll reaches almost four hundred persons, many of them children, journalists have been offering their own editorial commentary on the moral nature of this attack, often cleverly disguised in the selective use of terminology. In other words, they are refusing to call the attackers "terrorists."
Daniel Pipes, one of the world's leading experts on terrorism, compiled a list of euphemisms and evasions used in the aftermath of the September 3 attack in Beslan. National Public Radio referred to the terrorists as "assailants." United Press International called them "extremists," while The Washington Post referred to them as "fighters." The Los Angeles Times identified the terrorists as "hostage-takers," and The New York Times offered a headline identifying the terrorists as "insurgents." Other leading newspapers and media outlets referred to the terrorists as "kidnappers," "militants," "perpetrators," "radicals," "rebels," and "separatists." Adding insult to injury, The Pakistan Times referred to the terrorists as "activists."
Activists? These terrorists were not carrying placards while walking in a protest march; they were murdering innocent people by the hundreds, and killing children after refusing them so much as water after they were taken as hostages. Why do these journalists refuse to use the word "terrorists?" Pipes suggests that the reason can be traced to the response of liberal journalists to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Added to this is the refusal of many in the media to deal with the Islamic identity of the terrorists, and their ties to international terrorist organizations. As Pipes laments, "The multiple euphemisms for terrorist obstruct a clear understanding of the violent threats confronting the civilized world. It is bad enough that only one of five articles discussing the Beslan atrocity mentions its Islamist origins; worse is the miasma of words that insulates the public from the evil of terrorism."
Language is our most important tool for communication. When language is debased and euphemisms rule, we are robbed of any opportunity for a serious moral conversation. When we refuse to call terrorists what they really are, and hide in a thicket of linguistic cowardice, we grant the terrorists an extended victory. We should call terrorists what they really are--mass murderers.
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Even as the 2004 presidential election is underway, memories of the 2000 race continue to interrupt. In a fascinating article, journalist David Remnick of The New Yorker offers an insight into the current state of mind of former vice president Al Gore, the 2000 Democratic presidential nominee. The article, published in the September 13 issue of The New Yorker, is not flattering to Gore. Remnick presents him as a largely self-absorbed and glaringly eccentric public figure, living with the knowledge that he came so very close to the Oval Office just four years ago. Remnick followed the former vice president around Nashville as he visited a jazz club and traveled around Nashville with his new friend, Robert Ellis Orrall, an eccentric musician and visual artist.
