Hi bns, Iam new to the board. I was just scanning down this, my first real thread, and your post stopped me. Yours was in response to this one.
Originally Posted by LordFu View Post
Any teaching is indoctrination, by definition. I think the negative connotation is relatively new, as language goes.

I think I agree with this in part. I think it is relatively new to the mainstream usage even though the negative connotations probably go way back too. I would assume from what I know of history, which is all you seem to be doing too, that the negative connotation comes to mainstream usage in times of breaking down establishments of authority in our histories like in religious and large social revolutions. Other than those that I described I doubt that there are too many more historical instances where there were more uses of the negative than the neutral or positives and that this mass usage of the negative is a relatively new phenomenon. And for adding perspective to that, social revolutions are blips on the screen compared to times of complacency and peace.

I think to say that what defines language is as either or is just a contrived division to further your thoughts and attempt to color them as, well, intrinsic to your political points. Which I should say I have not read enough to understand yet, this is my beginning thread.

Words are "defined" by all that you mentioned not just by usage. It may be more accurate to say that definitions change by our usage of them, but we authorize those changes as a holistic society with due process and it is often slow, although everything IS moving faster and faster. That process includes the uses of doctrine (dictionaries) and the passage of time relative to the present. (history).

I assure you that our language authoring from day to day is not intrinsic to our present time usage only. Our usages are rooted in history as depicted in all media including the dictionary. All media is historical and people believe in the languages they hear, see, read and sense in the media.
Our dictionaries are references for our historical usage definitions that very real people define language through as they author it in the present. Just because you or a number of people say that you don’t do it that way doesn’t change the reality for the rest of us that do. If what you said was absolute as depicted where I saw it, We would make a new language every time we began to speak which is only slightly true in my opinion. Allot of rappers and poets do that, I guess. Oh and I did think of an instance where what you describe kind of happened. It did take some months of media programming and arm-twisting but the Cheney Administration did change the definition of the word torture very quickly and through usage and a few other tricks of the trade.

Forgive my verbose style of saying little. It’s just my way right now.
I guess I was struck by your adamant thrust to have your points of meaning indoctrinated by the readers of the thread as an intrinsic and had my two cents to give.
anyway, Nice to meet you.