I don’t know about you but I’m sick and tired of hearing the phrase “The war on (fill in the blank).” We have (official) wars on terror; child obesity; drugs; poverty and homelessness to name a few. Quick searches on Google, Live Search and Yahoo! turned up references to wars on Christianity; democracy; smoking; truth; infrastructure; George Bush; rats; fathers; shampoo; the media; guns; dissent; minorities; waste; immigration; Christmas; war on the “war on Christmas”; troop boredom; doctors; consciousness; science; whistle-blowers; spam (the email variety not the processed meat, although…) and my personal favorite, bullshit.
There’s one more “war on” to add to the list and that would be the one that prompted this rant: The “War on Internet Piracy”. Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not advocating the piracy of copyrighted material. My beef is with the use of the phrase “war on” and how it’s been bandied about to the point of meaninglessness.
The “War on Terror” is almost forgivable. Almost. After all an actual war, complete with soldiers and everything, is being fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. (I say “almost forgivable” because “War on Terror” is a misnomer. If it were called “War on Terrorists” it would be closer to the truth.) As for the rest of them, by trying to add weight to whatever cause they are “warring” against (or for), they actually soften the impact of the phrase. I mean, really, infrastructure? Spam? Troop boredom? Pointless.
Does this inclination to label causes as a “war on” say something troubling about our society, that we’re fascinated or obsessed, even, with the notion of war? Or is it simply a symptom of the dumbing-down of language? I don’t know. Thoughts?
