On the Overuse of ‘Scary’ To Describe Politics | Eastern NC Now

Kevin Williamson of National Review Online is no fan of the overuse of one particular word in political discourse.

ENCNow
Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the John Locke Foundation. The author of this post is Mitch Kokai.

    Kevin Williamson of National Review Online is no fan of the overuse of one particular word in political discourse.

  • One of the words I would abolish from our political lexicon is "scary." It is an insipid, empty adjective with its roots in "one weird trick"-style digital gimmickry, beloved of such master click-baiters as the editors over at Vox. A recent example comes from our friends ("If a man's character is to be abused, there's nobody like a relation to do the business") over at The Bulwark, which carried a headline reading: "The Scary Spectacle of Trump's Last Month in Office." ...
  • ... "Scary" used in this way is irritating for a half a dozen reasons. One of them is that it is a base-stealing stratagem, a way of suggesting, usually in a headline, that the following matter is shocking or revelatory. And what follows almost always is something that is neither shocking nor revelatory. In the Bulwark piece, the "scary" headline is undercut by the copy itself: "The final days of the Donald Trump administration are upon us, and they look much like every other day at the White House for the last four years." To which some might reply: "Oh, but every other day at the White House for the last four years has been scary, too!"
  • In which case, grow the ... heck ... up.
  • Scary is a weak and dishonest means of gaining influence, with the writer ordering readers to feel a certain way about a subject rather than causing them to feel that way, which takes a little bit of effort and skill. If you were to read a straightforward account of the crimes of Jack the Ripper, nobody would need to tell you that you should be shocked and disgusted by them. Margaret Thatcher did not need to tell anybody that she was a lady, or that she was powerful — the facts of the case were enough.

Go Back


Leave a Guest Comment

Your Name or Alias
Your Email Address ( your email address will not be published )
Enter Your Comment ( text only please )




Five Political Questions for 2021 John Locke Foundation Guest Editorial, Editorials, Op-Ed & Politics Conservative Conflict Over Big Tech


HbAD0

Latest Op-Ed & Politics

Democrat-run states have said they won’t send official delegations to the country’s 250th birthday bash
The North Carolina House unanimously passed the “Dominique Moody Safety Act,” advancing a child-welfare reform package named for the six-year-old girl whose death exposed repeated failures by Mecklenburg County social services officials to act on reports of abuse and neglect.
Maybe a holiday for Texas, but NOT the nation

HbAD1

government agencies refused to help on fear of being called "racist"
targets data centers and intermittent electricity sources

HbAD2

5 year sentence for failing to cooperate with surveillance of cit citizens
"He is fully fit to carry out all duties of the Commander-in-Chief and Head of State."
illegal alien "asylum seeker" migrants are a crime wave on both sides of the Atlantic

HbAD3

 
 
Back to Top