PR Knowledge Hub

  • Home
  • Learn here
    • Online courses
    • Train at your place
  • Blog - Think Forward PR
  • About
  • What is PR?
  • Contact
  • Home
  • Learn here
    • Online courses
    • Train at your place
  • Blog - Think Forward PR
  • About
  • What is PR?
  • Contact

Think Forward PR

Where language leads actions follow

3/7/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
Truth be told, I've found it increasingly hard to write these last few months, in part due to the harsh, divisive and vitriolic language being used by some afforded the title of 'leader' by their country, their workplace or organisation. It has broken my heart to hear the way my fellow humans have been referred to by those who should be actively seeking to help them in their vulnerability and distress.

Kindness, empathy, understanding, generosity - all of these have been invisible or in short supply, particularly when describing and addressing people faced with the most dreadful situations. People just like me and you, forced to walk never ending roads to a hostile nowhere, as their country's circumstance - be it war, famine, fear or environment - sends them on an often fruitless search for refuge and safety.

The USA isn't alone in its 'Trumpeter-in-Tweet' - there are other autocrats, despots and dictators out there - but in observing the downward trend of 'leadership tone' across many media channels, the USA's current head of state has most visibly replaced discourse with dictat in the channels he favours. It would be a relief if we could account for the twitter rants as simple buffoonery (almost a recognised trait for some ministers and presidents across the world). Tragically though, the choice of language, the adjectives and epithets used to describe the unfortunate, the displaced, the hungry and the homeless are chosen quite deliberately. Dehumanising others through language is a political ploy used through the ages. In recent weeks references to people as 'animals' and 'vermin' have evoked the ghosts of Hitler, Lenin and other shadowy dealers in genocide. Their use of language to divide, demonise and dehumanise people led to the deaths of millions. The deliberate and calculated choice of words was to achieve very specific political ends. 

In listening to the warped, bullying rhetoric of Trump in the USA, Salvini in Italy and Orban in Hungary - particularly as he insists on 'European cultural purity' - or the reported profanity laden responses from UK minister Boris Johnson in recent weeks makes me fearful as to the 'next steps' these people might take. Where language leads, actions follow - and as we have seen from the caging of children, the expulsion of innocents and the fear-mongering of foreign ministers, those actions are generally inhumane. 

So in not writing, I've spent many hours thinking what can I do about this.  I deal with language every day - recommending words that work to build relationships, build bridges, break barriers. Yet increasingly the 'shout and scare' model of leadership language is raised by some as a working strategy - to which I can only reply that true leadership lies in language expressing empathy, logic and reason, not the bullying, malicious harping we have had to endure.

Perhaps all I can do - as can you - is to speak out against such language. Do not remain silent. Change the tone. Don't accept this use of language as normal human behaviour. Call it out for what it is.

The living tentacles of language easily work their way into hearts and minds, triggering cruelty as speedily as love. Those who harness and drive language towards hate and division for their own political ends and personal gain need to meet a wall of words from the rest of us - words of worth, of humanity. Words for good.

Photo by Samantha Sophia on Unsplash
0 Comments

    About Think Forward

    Think Forward is written by Catherine Arrow.  It answers PR questions, highlights practice trends - good and bad - and suggests ways forward for professional public relations and communication practitioners.

    Why Think Forward? Because if we want to practice public relations in the future we must learn constantly and keep thinking ahead

    Archives

    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    August 2018
    July 2018
    February 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017

    Categories

    All
    AC19
    AI
    Algorithms
    Arrow's PR Atom
    Artificial Intelligence
    Australia Bush Fires
    BC19
    Behaviour
    Business
    Change
    Change Communication
    Change Management
    Communication
    Communication Training
    Compassion
    Coronavirus
    COVID 19
    COVID-19
    Creativity
    Crisis Communication
    Culture
    Cyber Security
    Digital Relations
    Digital Strategy
    Elections
    Empathy
    Employee Engagement
    Employee Experience
    Ethics
    FERPI
    Free Course
    Future
    Global Alliance
    Global Capabilities Framework
    Indonesia
    Internal Communication
    International PR
    Issues
    Italy
    Job Search
    Keynote Speaker
    Language
    Leadership
    Learning
    Licence To Operate
    Malaysia
    Manipulation
    Media
    New Era
    Organisational Purpose
    Politics
    PR Atom Model
    PR Evaluation
    PRINZ
    PR Measurement
    Professional Development
    PR Research Measurement And Evaluation
    PR Training
    Public Relations
    Purpose
    Relationships
    Reponsibility
    Reputation
    Research
    Risk
    Robotics
    Social Capital
    Society
    Speech Writing
    Story Arc
    Story Forms
    Storytelling
    Strategy
    Training
    Trust
    Value
    Visual Storytelling
    What Is PR
    WPRF2020
    Writing

    RSS Feed

 ©PR Knowledge Hub Ltd
+64 (0) 7549 4721
learn@prknowledgehub.com