In a classic game of Chicken, two drivers approach each other at high speed on a single lane road. The first to swerve out of the other’s way to avoid collision is the loser. The coward. The chicken.
Economists have used Chicken as a model of conflict in game theory research. The game is being played all around us, but usually not with cars. The fight over raising the U.S. debt ceiling is a game of Chicken, as are many other conflicts ranging from interpersonal to international.
At a previous job, a colleague in Customer Support was telling me about an exchange she was having with a user of our product. This user claimed they had been wronged by a product error and consistently described the situation in those terms. My colleague knew it was a user error. Throughout their back-and-forth, she kept gently reframing and rephrasing to avoid accepting blame while still appearing sympathetic. I said it sounded like she was playing a game of semantic Chicken.
Semantic Chicken is a recognition of the power of language to persuade, to modulate conflict, and to shape perception and thought. And that power is strongest when we’re least conscious of it: the uncontroversial term and the throwaway aphorism are often most deserving of a closer look. While this newsletter won’t be limited to linguistic territory, “Semantic Chicken” captures what I hope will be the ethos of this newsletter: paying a little extra attention to that which is easily accepted or overlooked.
Thanks for reading, and here’s some of my recent work out in the wild:
My 24 Hours on an Aaron Rodgers-Style Retreat in the Wilderness (Slate - essay)
Quiz: God, or the Internet? (Slackjaw - humor)