I’ve become bothered more and more by a certain word appearing in our political commentary. Pundits and pols have used it for as long as I can remember, but they were at least somewhat selective when they used it and easy to dismiss if they abused it. Now the word is everywhere, employed to describe budget cuts, budget hikes, drag shows, cabinet appointments, the list goes on. It has completely lost its meaning as it pertains to politics, yet it has paradoxically retained its capacity to influence our discourse. What word word am I talking about? 

“Dangerous.”

I understand the desire to use “dangerous” in political conversations. It’s an evocative term, conjuring images of cliffs and explosives. But cliffs and explosives are actually dangerous. Well-informed, well-intended TED Talks about achieving racial diversity through color-blindness are not. And yet, Coleman Hughes has found his TED Talk on the subject labeled as such. Why? I don’t want to ascribe motivations to the individuals at TED, but as far as our cynical punditry is concerned — and where overuse of the word grows by the day — the intention is to cut off all discussion on a topic. It is to shame someone away from even the consideration of an idea. It is to scare them. It is also lazy, an attempt to avoid defending one’s position by putting the other side on its back foot. After all, who would dare to defend a “dangerous” position?

As I said above, I don’t want to ascribe motivations to those at TED. I will, however, ascribe them to the politicians and commentators who make a living stoking our divisions for their livelihood. They are intellectually lazy, and one of the surest signs of this is their desperation to create an imaginary enemy out of the opposition. So the next time you come across “dangerous” in commentary, I encourage you to think “lazy” and move on. These people have ulterior motives. Keeping you well-informed isn’t one of them.