What Mr Donald Trump and other are doing - selling lies for truths - is the liar-paradox revisited (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar_paradox). I'm not lying.
The problem with lies is, that they're concepts in language, not percepts in reality. One can point at a chair (calling it "chair", "Stuhl", "chaise", "sedia", "seat", ....) and sit on it, but one cannot point at the concept of a chair. The word chair only exists in language. And one can call any object "chair".
The meaning of a word is in it's accepted use and the use of words is told to you, dictated by a .... dictator. The meaning of words is subjected, literally submitted, to the prescriptions of a group. In making definitions of words one also defines a group, a group - implicitly - defining themselves. Whether a declaration is true or not is determined by verdict.
As members of a group project their fears - of being out-caste - on others, outcasts, calling others "outcasts" induces coherence. So accepting "lies" for "truths" makes one feel accepted. And being called "liar" only confirms acceptance.
The Dutch word for "perception" is "waarnemen". Literally translated it is like "truth-taking", "accepting as true". Not coincidental, in Dutch, we also use the word "waar" for "where", the place of an object and even for goods (waren).
An object can be verified to be "true", as in "this is where the chair is". And - by sitting on it - become a chair.
We, as human beings, are currently in the grip of our own invention: language. We used to have our language, now our language "has us". Language has only one objective: to be reproduced. That's why it made us invent AI. :-)
Implications for facilitating groups
Let participants define their own definitions of the core-concepts. Use Clean Language - neither add nor subtract any thing from the metaphor-espoused. Just let them inform each other about what a word like “ ” means for them.
If it’s not made of concrete, it isn’t concrete but abstract. Words - concepts - cannot hurt you - objects can. Ask probing question until a concrete action or thing is being named.
Trace the “objectives” of subjective meaning. Every emotionally loaded expression hides an “unspoken” spook (pun intentional, borrowed from Alex Klaasen). For instance, when the word “take my responsibility”, find out to what question the response or responder is able to respond to.
Thanks Hans. It also costs me a lot of energy and concentration to find out which words to use. Also, I cannot know what's useful for you. Speaking for myself, our relationship is useful for me. Just because you've asked me to express my ideas.
I'm using the "toolmaker metaphor" in communicating: finding out meaning through exchanging using words. Through exchanging we invent or discover uses, which we can use to enhance our exchanges: given enough time - energy and concentration - usefulness will happen.
There're no bad words, only wrong ones. Using words wrongly is better than not using words at all.
We use words - sounds - to express our thoughts, yet one doesn't think in words. The brain is silent. Perhaps to fill this void, - to a-void :-) - (human) beings use sounds and learned to use sounds as tools for communicating "thoughts". Sounds don't make up thoughts, yet the STRUCTURE of the sounds account for their usefulness. To paraphrase Korzybski.
I concluded that the structure of our use of words - language - is inadequate, as our structuring reflects the "conduit metaphor": a linear structure. We implictely assume, using the "right" words implies understanding the "right" behaviour. Because then we can make our behaviour right through using the rigt words. For instance: "defending freedom by prohibting the use of certain words". Dictation.
Off course, this invokes a double bind: one cannot come back on ones words. You can see this process in the current talks on a new cabinet.
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This usefulness I relate to pragmatism and my use of the word pragmatism indicates - for me - "behaviour that works" . Pragmatism in my view consists of a paradoxical concept. Things that won't work, still "work".
I'm not a pragmatist, if you mean a follower of pragmatism from Peirce, James and Dewey.
Language and words are tools. Tools are man made and men make tools: our tools - or our use of them - make us human. A carpenter (m/f/t) is defined by tools and a hammer "makes" the carpenter.
While using a hammer it is as-if one is a carpenter. Likewise, it is as-if words make us belong.
I borrow the word "pragmatism" from Watzlawick (Pragmatics of Human Communication). I use it to qualify (human) behaviour: what works, works. But, reality is what works. (Translating Jung's saying: "Wirklichkeit ist aber, was wirkt".)
All behaviour works the way it works, induces thinking to explain "how this works". When one confuses explanation - truth - with reality - proving - one induces pragamatical paradoxes. Using words as-if they're real.
I am not a pragmatist so yhis website costs a lot of concentration and therefore energy to find out what is useful for me.