Anyone who speaks a second language would tell you that they have a different personality in each tongue. Language shapes not only the way we think, it shapes how we feel.
In my work as documentary director I talk a lot to people about how they perceive information - last year we talked a lot about how they perceive the news about the war in Ukraine. The interesting thing is, while it’s a known fact that Bulgaria is deeply cut by the poisonous influence of Russian propaganda, most people will not talk to you about taking clear sides. They will talk to you about neutrality. That’s the word peddled by pro-russian media, that’s the slogan of far right marches - as the random Bulgarian doesn’t buy war, even if it’s sold by Bulgaria’s most influential populists, so they sell “peace and neutrality”. Yet can there be a neutral side in a war? What about neutral compassion? A neutral embrace?
How do you come to swallow such a classic propaganda trope? Starting as well intentioned “objective” information these news bites fall apart into words into sound bites that become fertiliser for a new state of mind. Phrase by phrase, language veils our feelings carefully, hiding from us our gradual desensitisation until it serves us our own indifference on a platter.