What I am referring to is the removal of the grey area. Almost no issue is perfectly polarised. There is very rarely just black and white in any political or social issue, but many politicians, leaders and interest groups like to remove the grey area, making it just as bad as the black area, to further their own cause and campaign.

There are many examples of this that you will most likely have experienced. For example the term “child abuse” refers to a bad thing, no-one will dispute that, but child sex abuse is often described using the same term. It has just about reached the point where the two phrases are interchangeable, people seemingly do not notice the difference any more. Worse still someone who punishes a naughty child with a slap gets called an “abuser” too and all of a sudden those who are against slapping have justified their case by putting that person in the same group as a sex abuser. The two are hardly the same, but the removal of the grey area furthers their cause.

Ilegal file-sharing is another case. A great deal of copyright theft takes place on the various file-sharing networks, but politicians often neglect to include the word “illegal”. Over time any act of file-sharing has become seen by the majority of the public as an illegal activity. The completely legitimate use of file-sharing (sharing freeware software, public domain material, movie trailers, home produced content, music demos etc.) gets lost in the new meaning.

Many people have fallen foul of the term “holocaust denier”. The vast majority of people in the West need no persuasion to accept that Adolf Hitler exterminated millions of people, but now it appears that if anyone questions any of the details, or the accuracy of the numbers, then they are instantly branded a “denier”. Nothing can be researched or debated because the grey area has been removed. If you dare to look at it with anything other than complete acceptance you are a “denier”.

The term “adult site” should mean any site aimed at adults which is not suitable for children, but the term has now lost the range of meaning and is usually interpreted as “hardcore sex site”. If a friend of yours told you they had been photographed for an adult site you would automatically assume that the photos where explicit. The area in between has gone. I don’t even know how you would refer to a website where adult topics are described or discussed, where there are images of horror or violence or the language includes swearing. It would not be suitable for kids but no-one would use the term “adult site” either.

When you start to think about it you will spot more places in life there this is happening. Just look at some of the speeches justifying the “War on Terror” (Shouldn’t that be “terrorism”?). By painting those people or issues in the grey area with the same brush as the extreme end, arguments can be won unfairly (the old “if you’re not with us you’re against us” approach), laws and powers can be extended at the cost of freedom and the world gets a little more distorted.

I don’t know which is scarier; that it is happening or that most of the time we don’t notice it.