<story><title>The Autocrat&apos;s Language</title><url>http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/05/13/the-autocrats-language/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>roenxi</author><text>That was a pleasure to read. Pushing the politics to one side; there is a call here to use words correctly and to use clear and unambiguous descriptions. That is a coherent and entirely reasonable expectation on any political dialog.&lt;p&gt;Doubly rewarding was that the writing style, while not pro-Trump, avoids the bile and hysteria that has been common since the last American election. Limiting criticism to unclear language does the author a lot of credit. Limited changes are needed to apply this article to many political statements.&lt;p&gt;Trumps pronouncements are particularly entertaining examples though. His speech can make it so clear that he isn&amp;#x27;t using specific facts. Watching his opponents trying to deal with something so audacious can be very entertaining.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Autocrat&apos;s Language</title><url>http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/05/13/the-autocrats-language/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>adrianratnapala</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Then something cannot be described, it does not become a fact of shared reality. Hundreds of millions of Soviet citizens had an experience of the thing that could not be described, but I would argue that they did not share that experience, because they had no language for doing so.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is a very good point, but is I think a bit obscured because it seems to mistake the map for the  territory.  I think what the writer is getting at is that without a shared language it&amp;#x27;s harder to build up common knowledge.  Which means more than just everone knowing something.  It also means that they all know everyone knows it, and know that everyone knows everyone knows it, &lt;i&gt;ad infinitum&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Each person can see the Emperor has no clothes, but without sufficient communication they cannot all know that it is safe to laugh at the Emperor.</text></comment>