mudslinging 復習
WASHINGTON ― Usually, top intelligence and law enforcement officials withdraw to lives of tight-lipped relative anonymity after their careers end. (Suffice it to say, they are not exactly known for viral Twitter battles.) …
But those tense interactions, experts say, seem almost quaint compared to the public mudslinging unfolding now.
“We’ve never had anybody so blatantly go after a president before,” Gary J. Schmitt, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who was once an intelligence adviser to President Ronald Reagan, said in an interview. “It’s also unprecedented to have a president so overtly going after various intelligence officials.” (Skip the rest)
今回取り上げる語は、mudslinging /mʌ́dslɪ̀ŋɪŋ/ です。この語をみると、泥の中で投げ合いをするイメージを持ちます。この記事でいう政治の世界での mudslinging がどういうことを意味するかみていきます。
まず意味を LDOCE でみると、“when someone says bad and often untrue things about someone in order to make other people have a low opinion of them” とあり、Cambridge Dictionary には “the act of saying insulting or unfair things about someone, especially to try to damage their reputation” と定義されています。また、OED をみると “The use of insults and accusations, especially unjust ones, with the aim of damaging the reputation of an opponent” となっていました。
以上から、政治的にみると「中傷をしあうこと」を表すことがわかります。非難しあうことに意味があるにならば良いですが、進歩のない口喧嘩は全くの無駄です。政治に限らず、まずは自分を見つめ直して欲しいです。(OkaUchi)
