A central element of this column will be the need to carefully choose our words to effectively convey messages for fundamental social change. This column won't claim I have all the answers on how to say what needs to be said. Suggestions about that are welcome.
Creating a new society free of the domination of the rich won't be easy. What we say will play a significant part in the process. That by itself suggests we need to apply ourselves to choosing how we say things to be as effective as possible. Even more so, those who (knowingly or unknowingly) act to influence the public to the advantage of the rich are often very aware of how important it is to choose one's words carefully.
There's a need to "fight fire with fire". Not to use words as deceptively as our opponents do, but to do everything we can to avoid falling into their wording traps, to avoid wording that makes regular folks less inclined to keep listening to us, to use words that resonate the way we want in the pathways of peoples' minds, etc.
I'm inclined to believe it's best to use less academic terminology and left jargon. Fundamental social change won't happen by simply winning over a larger part of the intelligensia. The movement for social change must go further through the population than that. The intelligensia may be used to using jargon, but it can understand what is said even if no jargon is used. The same may not be equally true of all who can be attracted to the movement. Using the right words won't win everyone to the movement overnight, but it will eliminate possible impediments for social change starting to spread throughout the population.
Jargon isn't only a question of whether or not a person has heard the word before and associates the word with some idea. Words can have connotations which are different from what the speaker intends. I think that can be especially true of left jargon in the US where efforts have been made to stereotype and stigmatize those working for social change. Some jargon has the potential of causing those we are trying to reach to react with, "Oh, it's one of those people" - and stop paying attention to what we say. It's better to use words that don't activate stereotypes, a feeling of being "talked down to" or other negative reactions to some other aspect of the presentation rather than the message.
The brain science of George Lakoff and others also suggests ways in which the wording matters. Each of us is molded by our experiences. While children hear about society from parents, clergy, TV, schools, etc., each child tries to make sense of the world based on his life which is more than just what he hears (and may not be consistent with what he hears.) Our brains evolved to create pathways for learned responses. The brain associates things we may encounter with what seemed like reasonable reactions, including emotional reactions to social matters. By understanding common kinds of mental concepts of the world, learned responses and emotional content, we can establish rules for what often will be counterproductive and productive ways to promote social change. Our opponents know this and use words to maximize the number of people they are able to trigger the emotional and social responses they want. Certain words our opponents find effective for their purposes, are counterproductive if we use those words. Our opponents have chosen those words precisely because they activate conservative responses in more people than other words might. If we don't choose our words with this kind of understanding, some of what we will say can be partly-effective, some counterproductive, and some effective. The end result isn't as good as it could be - and won't compete as well against opponents who not only strategically use words, but deceive and manipulate with words.
There may very well be other aspects of effectively crafting the message of social change. Sharing what we learn is effective will benefit the movement.
Another point which is important: Our message is NOT primarily to tell working people their bosses are mistreating them or that the action of politicians have not been what working people hoped for. That's the day to day experience of most people. We may be able to say it more powerfully, or to point to the connection between two problems where working people have seen the problems but not the connections, or to help fire up their indignation over the injustices they've seen. They know there are problems. We need to increase the number of people who identify with an alternative vision to the current society and to motivate them to act on it.