There is this word that is used now as if it were carbonated mineral water that flows through the palate quickly when one is thirsty. Yet the semantics of this seemingly neutral word is terrible. It is almost synonymous with World War III, the nuclear one, the ultimate one, the one with only one loser: humankind. It is used this way even in the Italian media; it is one of those terms that becomes international code. The media, including the Italian media, misuse it as lightly as the aforementioned mineral water, not weighing well the effects that words, some words, have on public opinion and individuals.
In addition to meaning, words also carry a sense, which technically is the relationship of the physical part of the sign, the signifier, to a series of meanings underlying the main denotative one. The sense of escalation is not only dramatic evolution of a regional military and geopolitical crisis, but it means precisely total war, death, destruction of everything, no return. We should, we communicators, use it with judgment, even Kantian judgment. Instead, every two by three we find it in headlines, in texts, in TV discussions.
Now at stake is the Middle East and specifically the Israel-Iran struggle that passes through Lebanon and the near annihilation of Hezbollah. By dint of actions and reactions, of attacks and revenge, is it not then that the great ones of the Earth, dragged in by the jacket, come into play, for a game that we have already defined as out of control? It is a danger that exists, that already exists in the conflict in Ukraine, but it must be contained. Iran will hardly want to get into the field beyond a certain extent to defend Hezbollah. One hopes that Israel, too, will not go too far beyond the idea of defending itself.
There are important Muslim countries in that hot region of the world, see Saudi Arabia, that are, for now, standing by the window. And America no longer wants to engage in long, bloody and diplomatically masochistic conflicts. In short, let us try to inform people without hiding anything, but also without engendering daily infodemic anxiety typical of our global communication society.
The article Escalation of escalation comes from TheNewyorker.
