The corporate fantasy of "negative growth" meaning a recession, a "market correction" meaning a crash. For Carlin, the decision to call something by a gentler name was rarely about kindness; it was almost always about control.
The Velvet Cushion Desensitization Process: How Soft Language Numbs Resistance
He urged people to look past the curtain of words and demand the literal truth. When every unpleasant truth is wrapped in a velvet cushion, people become desensitized and complicit.
For Carlin, the power was not in the phrase itself, but in the refusal to be bamboozled by it. By insisting on the unsanitized version of events—"firing" instead of "downsizing," "torture" instead of "enhanced interrogation"—an individual reclaims a piece of their autonomy.
Velvet Cushion Desensitization Process: How Soft Language Numbs Resistance
By framing the act of eliminating a job as a neutral market event, corporations attempted to strip the action of its inherent cruelty. He noted how "termination" or "downsizing" replaced the blunt "firing," a linguistic trick designed to absolve the employer of moral responsibility.
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