Rebuilding Shared Meaning in an Age of Trigger Words
Jon is Co-founder of BrandCulture and a pioneer in wedding the disciplines of strategic branding, culture development and interdisciplinary design united in Shared Purpose. Jon is also Co-founder of Synthetic Acumen and ResearchGOAT, a Gen-AI platform that automates the process of qualitative research. And most recently, Jon is Co-founder of Super South | Summit for Sustainable Innovation and Impact.
America has an attention problem. 40% of Americans didn’t read a single book last year—which comes as less of a surprise when you realize that over half of us read at below a sixth grade reading level. Go to the comments section on any controversial news article and you’ll see a spirited debate—but it’s about headlines and optics, not substance—what some call a horse-race mentality, focused on winning rather than understanding.
But this isn’t only about attention spans. It’s about trigger words. We are no longer arguing about ideas; we’re reacting to vocabulary. And without a shared lexicon to build consensus reality, we find ourselves running in rhetorical circles. Words like diversity, sustainability and even climate have become political danger zones, so linked to ideology that they’ve lost all meaning. So what do we do when the words we rely on are no longer neutral? How can we build a shared sense of meaning, shared goals for a path to a better life for us all?
How Words Become Triggers
Over the past ten years, the growing influence of social media and a contentious political landscape around language have hollowed out once useful language, leaving concepts we relied on to connect fractured into segmented realities, meaning one thing in the liberal world, another in the conservative one.
Take the example of sustainability. The core idea of our upcoming SuperSouth conference, the literal, denotative meaning of the world is just the ability of something (anything!) to be sustained at a certain rate or level. Enter environmentalism, though, and the word takes on a new connotation, connected specifically with policies intended to allow us to live, well, sustainably on a planet whose resources are limited. When environmentalism became a left wing issue in the 80s and 90s, sustainability stood on shakier ground. Today, in some segments of our shared American reality, it’s practically a dirty word.
In a recent podcast, Ezra Klein talked about how, paradoxically, it’s easier for communities in red states to build clean energy infrastructure like wind and solar farms simply because there’s less red tape. But with the resistance red state communities have to projects labeled “green” or even “clean,” these projects still face an uphill battle.
It’s an unfortunate reality that for far too many of us words have become filters. Use the wrong one, and you’ll be dismissed even before whoever’s listening understands your main idea. If we’re fighting about the meaning of words instead of the ideas behind them, we’ve already lost track of what we’re trying to achieve together.
The Failures of Consensus Reality
The truth is, when we move past language, most of us want the same things. People don’t really disagree on outcomes as much as they do the language to describe them. A new project on a neighboring farm providing your community with cheap electricity without impacting the beauty of the rural landscape? Even the most conservative among us would likely be theoretically on board. But a new clean energy project going against the traditional values of our community? Not so fast.
By allowing ourselves to be activated by these trigger words, we slow progress, and make it almost impossible to achieve anything like a consensus reality—a shared understanding of how the world functions, and the way things should be. Without a shared sense of what language means, conversation becomes messaging. Ideas about sustainability and livability become jargon, and can even start to feel like an attack.
When resentment builds, it’s not really about outcomes most of the time. It’s about who the messaging that delivers those outcomes feels like it serves. People, understandably, revolt when progress sounds like it means sacrifice for them, comfort for the elites. What’s the point in taking the bus instead of driving when Taylor Swift has a private jet?
Austerity language is destined to fail. We simply don’t want less of everything, even if it means driving some kind of incremental change. Humans are drawn to the vision of a good life, not constraint. They want the kind of future environmentalists dream of, but not when it comes attached to language that feels moralizing or judgemental.
People don’t reject clean air, resilient towns or thriving communities. They reject the cultural signals attached to the words used to describe them. So instead of debating terminology, what if we went up a level? What if we crafted America’s vision board?
Lead With the Vision, Not the Vocabulary
If we’re going to rebuild shared meaning, we’ll need to begin by creating a shared vision, a vision that can become the basis of the language we use to describe it. By moving away from language that feels loaded or politicized, and towards a more specific and personal vision of a shared future whose desirability we can all agree on, we’ll be setting the stage for change.
So instead of sustainability in general, maybe the question is this: what do you want your grandchildren’s future to look like? Instead of virtue in the abstract, maybe the question becomes: what do you want people to say about you at your funeral?
The premise that underlies SuperSouth is that there is a shared vision of a better future, both personal and societal, that most Americans can agree on. We all want economic self-reliance, thriving urban and rural communities. We all love safe towns and beautiful places, and the clean water and air we need to experience them. We all agree on the importance of dignified work to build a meaningful life. Language is where it all breaks down, so what if we move beyond it? Agree on the picture first. Argue about words later.
This is what we mean by “crafting America’s vision board.” This kind of future oriented exercise is important, and even critical, for communities, companies, or, in our case, regions, determined to build a better tomorrow for all.
Writing, Culture and a Future Worth Believing In
So how do we reach a place of shared understanding in a world where most of our fellow Americans are not just unwilling but literally unable to read beyond the headline? By reducing the opportunities to react to language before we understand meaning.
The path back to reality isn’t necessarily created with better arguments, but stronger starting points. It’s time to consider what belongs on America’s shared vision board. What is the foundation we’re building from? What is it about our lifestyles, our values, that we want to sustain, even if some of us aren’t so sure about the word sustainability?
If we can agree on a picture, we can rebuild the dictionary we use to describe it. That all starts with curiosity, conversation and an open mind. Let’s set the stage for a shared vision together.
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