Talk:Humpty Dumptyism
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[edit] Help would be appreciated
I started this, but much of my personal library is currently in boxes (I'm having some major work done on the largest room of my house) and I can find little on line except a few hundred (happily, consistent) uses of the term. If anyone has information about when this was first used as a term in semantics, or about significant discussions in academic literature of the phenomenon, please do add to this! -- Jmabel | Talk 07:42, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Cut remark about communists
Humptydumptyism is a commonly used tactic on dialectic method; "the one who rules the language, rules the mind". It has been one of the tricks in the arsenal of Communism; giving words like democracy, fascism, enemy of the people, liberty etc whole new meanings, the Communist rulers attempted to control the thinking and expression patterns of their subjects.
- This has nothing to do with dialectic method.
- There is nothing specific to Communism about this. This is exactly the same problem regardless of the politics of who is using the term. Virtually all governments attempt at times to frame debate by redefining terms. For an example from the opposite side of the Cold War, consider "free world", which (as used by the U.S. State Dep't) basically meant "everyone on our side" and included quite a few vicious dictatorships.
I'm not saying that Communists didn't do this or don't do this. I'm saying that there is no reason to single them out, especially in a vague, misleading (in terms of "dialectic") and uncited way. - Jmabel | Talk 21:20, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
