The fundamental purpose of concepts is to divide all things into two groups: those that are something, and those that are not. Take the word “crow.” It divides the world into crows on one side, and everything else—other birds, animals, objects, and anything that is not a crow—on the other.
More interesting, and more important, is the distinction from things that are broadly similar. The crucial task is separating a crow from a sparrow, not from a mountain. Once a concept loses this basic ability to distinguish, it becomes an empty term—a label that can stir emotions but no longer conveys any real meaning. Such labels have no place in a discussion among rational adults.
A few examples:
- Genocide. The term should distinguish an “ordinary” war fought with extreme brutality and heavy civilian casualties from situations in which people are burned alive in barns, murdered in gas chambers, shot by the thousands, and the like. Is the word actually being used that way? If not, then we are dealing either with a logical error or with a deliberate suspension of reason.
- Occupation. The term should distinguish an “ordinary” change of borders from a situation in which a foreign power stands above the local population and effectively replaces the existing government—or exercises authority over it. Is that what has happened in Crimea? If not, then it may well be an annexation, but it cannot properly be called an occupation.
- Serfdom. The term should distinguish “ordinary” oppression from a legal condition in which a person is bound to a particular piece of land and prohibited by law from leaving it without the landowner’s permission, or from taking certain actions—such as building a house or getting married—without that owner’s consent.
Of course, in everyday conversation and political rhetoric, words such as “genocide” and “serfdom” are often used metaphorically. The point is usually that something evokes the same emotions as actual genocide or genuine serfdom.
But wherever the goal is understanding rather than emotional effect, I recommend avoiding such language—and avoiding texts that are saturated with it. I should admit, however, that one of my own books uses the word “serfdom” in its title in precisely this metaphorical sense. My only partial defense is that it was written in response to another book whose title played a pivotal role in European political debate during the second half of the twentieth century.