Conspiracy and Agenda both signify the same thing a group working to further their own goals. It is a semantics issue, not a word definition issue. Semantics is the study of how words affect our perception. Conspiracy is certainly not the only word which operates this way but it's a good starting point for today's lesson. My "Agenda" is your "Conspiracy", and your "Agenda" is my "Conspiracy". It all depends upon your reality-tunnel ("worldview" as Palin likes to say) and what your conditioning has taught you to believe / perceive. When someone uses the word "conspiracy", lights go off inside your head, some people's heart beat a bit faster, basically emotions get fired up for folks on both sides. People use these sorts of words instead of others because of the effects they elicit. Politicians especially have speech writers who are semantics experts, this is why they're so often fumbling morons in interviews but have good speeches. When you hear a pundit say "he used all the right words tonight" semantics is to what they are referring.
Just like I used "Reds" earlier (just to keep on earning my shady political pot stirrer label) by using "Reds" I could well have meant any group affiliated with red in all of history: italian fascists, russian communists, chinese maoists, monks in red robes, the rosicrucians, the vampire goth kids who call themselves Reds... Any affiliations made to a
specific historical group wearing Red to Republicans was perceived and projected from your own mind by me using the color descriptive term Reds. As Count Alfred Korzybski said, "We are all greater artists than we realize." or even "We are all islands of perception shouting across oceans of misunderstanding."
But anyway onto today's example, read the following group descriptions and note your emotional reactions and images projected in your mind when you read each one. I don't care what your stance is on the subject, just note how you feel when you read / think about each sentence
The Agenda to End Abortion
The Conspiracy to End Abortion Rights
Both statements signify two groups with the same ideals but the description of one of them is much more pejorative and seems crazy. "Those people" might do anything, while "those others" probably just sit in meetings all day drinking coffee and discussing things.
The exercise for tonight is to see how many semantic "spooks" (i.e. conspiracy used for agenda, etc) you can find when you watch the pundit news tonight (FOX, CNN, MSNBC, etc.). Make a list you'll really be surprised. Then watch the BBC and make another list of the same type of words, you'll really be surprised at the lack of provocative semantics.
(Extrapolated from Swords' Archive for the Conspiracy to Affect Free Thought - I think...
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