Words are not just words. They are instructions.
I randomly bumped into a thread with two people arguing online about what they considered a well-cooked meal. You know what one of them said?
“At least I am not from an underdeveloped country like you where I have to cook my food from scratch. I can just buy frozen foods and be done with it.”
I had to pause.
Because are you kidding me? We now cook-shame people in 2026? Cooking fresh food from scratch with real ingredients, real effort, real nourishment is now the marker of being underdeveloped? And buying frozen processed food is civilization?
THAT right there, is the Politics of Semantics. It is not a complicated concept. It is simply this: the words we use have been quietly rewired to carry meanings that serve certain agendas and most of us never notice. We just absorb them, repeat them, and pass them on.
Today? Let’s talk about “civilization.”
When you hear that word, what comes to mind? America. China. Japan. Skyscrapers. Technology. Progress.
MerriamWebster defines civilization as a relatively high level of cultural and technological development. It also says and I love this one; a situation of ‘urban comfort’.
Urban comfort. Okay. Let’s hold that thought.
Cambridge defines development as the process in which someone or something grows or changes and becomes more advanced.
Advancement. Urban comfort. Sure.
So I have a question.
Is it advancement when you destroy the planet in the process? Is it civilization when trees are felled every day to build skyhigh buildings, when the air is choked with pollution, when nations are struck with deadly weapons and people are killed? Is it development when animals are endangered, their territories taken over, and when they dare to come out you kill them for encroaching into your space?
Look out of the windows in any so-called metropolitan city. Concrete in every direction. Highrises as far as the eye can see. No nature. Not a tree in sight.
But sure. Very civilized.
The oceans are full of plastic. The air is full of toxins. People in certain parts of the world cannot drink clean water. But we are advanced because we built a rocket. Because we have now built robots to take over people’s jobs. Because we can travel to space. We have not finished destroying this planet and we are already eyeing the next one.
When does advancement stop being advancement and start being something else entirely?
Like destruction?
The words have been set up in a way that makes us celebrate without questioning. Developed. Advanced. Civilized. We hear them and we nod. We never ask, ‘at what cost’? And according to whom?
This is just the beginning.
Because if the word “civilization” can be quietly rewired to mean frozen food and concrete skyscrapers, imagine what has been done to the words we use to describe each other.
Next time, we talk about Man and Woman.