Words as Weapons: How “Culture Wars” and “Moral Panics” Weaponize Communication & Threaten Democracy

In her first talk, Dr. Pimlott pointed out how language can be seen as an integral to civilization; yet, it can equally be the undoing of civilization. Ancient Greek philosophers saw “democracy” as a flawed system of governance because, in part, it produces a potential source of its own destruction in the “demagogue”. Democracy enables a demagogue to come to power through emotional appeals to “the poor” or “the mob” and, thereby, bring about democracy’s destruction, as we have seen in recent times in countries, such as Hungary and Turkey. The 21^st century return of “culture wars” has been accompanied by the rise of demagogues, euphemistically referred to as “populists”, since at least 2015. In “Words as Weapons”, I will examine the most recent developments of this 21^st Century “Kulturkampf”, in which the demagogic rhetoric is mobilized and communication weaponized via culture wars and moral panics. Since we will have witnessed the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election less than a month earlier, I will include a few examples of the 45^th President’s use of demagogic rhetoric. However, this talk will begin with a very brief historical overview of the rise of “Political Correctness” in the late 1980s and early 1990s, before closely examining the ways in which words have been weaponized by a former US president, and in recent moral panics about free speech and transgender issues.