Spain is doing reasonably well as a country, in contrast to the alarmist language of its politicians. The most worrying thing is that the verbal escalation does not stop, in a competition in which the first victim is the truth; the second, common sense and the third we could all be. We either take a break or get hurt. And journalism must have some responsibility, which not only acts as a mouthpiece for nonsense, but often intervenes as a part-time hooligan.
It is dramatic to see how it has gone from hyperbole to belligerent language, after traveling the path of insult. Yesterday, José María Aznar, who is leading the way for the PP, told Susanna Griso on Antena 3 that Pedro Sánchez has made “a declaration of war on the right” in the Congress of Deputies, by proclaiming that it was necessary to erect a wall so that the forces conservatives and reactionaries represented by the PP and Vox did not continue to advance. The president of the Spanish Government was not right with the metaphor, which a columnist of El Mundo titled as “Pedrín’s wall”, which recalls the cold war. But to consider this allegory a declaration of war is, to say the least, a mistake.
The language of war is worrisome, as it moves forward without anyone putting a stop to it. The RAE itself held a session last year, chaired by Queen Letícia, in which it was highlighted how these warlike expressions gain space in the conversation, especially among young people, but also in the field of journalism, and it extends into areas such as sports or medicine. War metaphors have definitely taken over the language.
Trump, when he didn’t even dream that he would become president, wrote a book (The Art of Negotiation) in which he said that he played with people’s imagination because they want to believe that something is the biggest, the most important, the more spectacular: “I call it true hyperbole. It is an innocent exaggeration and an effective promotion”. Groucho, in The Marx Brothers in the West, shows the danger of using war as an argument. “It’s war, more wood!” he shouts as they convert the wagons into fuel, to the point of running out of train and speech. Well, be careful with the use of words.
