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You Are Not Human: How Words Kill
Top speechwriter Simon Lancaster goes on a mission to explore how metaphors are used and abused today. From Washington to Westminster, Silicon Valley to Syria, Glastonbury to Grenfell, he discovers the same images being used repeatedly. Scum! Bitch! Vegetable! Whilst vulnerable groups are dehumanised, the powerful are hailed as stars, angels or even gods.
Prepare to take a journey into the surreal. This book raises profound questions about the power of language and the language of power. You will never think about words in the same way again.
Prepare to take a journey into the surreal. This book raises profound questions about the power of language and the language of power. You will never think about words in the same way again.
- GenresNonfictionLanguage
320 pages, Paperback
Published June 2, 2019
33 people are currently reading
763 people want to read
About the author
Simon Lancaster
19 books27 followersSpeechwriter, Author, TEDx Speaker.
Simon Lancaster is the author of ‘Speechwriting: The Expert Guide’, ‘Winning Minds: Secrets from the Language of Leadership’, 'You Are Not Human: How Words Kill' and the newly published ‘Connect! How to Inspire, Influence & Energise Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime’. Simon is the founder of Bespoke Speechwriting Services Ltd, a global speechwriting agency, and has written speeches for top politicians and the CEOs of some of the biggest companies in the world, including Unilever, HSBC and Intercontinental Hotels Group. He is an Executive Fellow of Henley Business School and lectures at Cambridge University. Simon regularly appears as a media pundit on oratory. His TEDx talks have had 4m plus views.
Simon Lancaster is the author of ‘Speechwriting: The Expert Guide’, ‘Winning Minds: Secrets from the Language of Leadership’, 'You Are Not Human: How Words Kill' and the newly published ‘Connect! How to Inspire, Influence & Energise Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime’. Simon is the founder of Bespoke Speechwriting Services Ltd, a global speechwriting agency, and has written speeches for top politicians and the CEOs of some of the biggest companies in the world, including Unilever, HSBC and Intercontinental Hotels Group. He is an Executive Fellow of Henley Business School and lectures at Cambridge University. Simon regularly appears as a media pundit on oratory. His TEDx talks have had 4m plus views.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 13, 2019
Spin. Do you know what a thaumatrope is? It's a child's toy. A disc in the middle of a piece string held between the hands and when it's spun, the pictures on both sides blur into one. A bird on one side and a cage on the other, spin it and it will look like the bird is in the cage.
What comes to mind when you think of vermin? Rats? Dirty creatures that spread disease and live off people, breed too fast so they need keeping down by killing them, get a cat. Best to call in the exterminator and get rid of them once and for all before the filthy things overrun us. Put a picture of a rat on one side of a thaumatrope and a picture of a person on the other, spin it fast, what do you have? A Jewish person in Nazi Germany. That's exactly what Hitler did. And now you know why PR is called "spin".
And that is what the entire book is about, spin. How people with agendas, journalists, politicians, authors, even the neighbour next door, calls a person by a pejorative and generally non-human name. Think how much easier it is to pull the plug on a vegetable than a desperately sick person in a coma. Or treat a teenage girl as less than a woman, just a stupid sex object for men by calling her a bimbo? Call refugees 'migrants' and the urgency of their life and death situation is reduced to people who want to live somewhere else.
Read the book if you want to have a better understanding of the power the journalists and politicians have misused to make you think what they want you to believe without you even thinking about it. The book is a real eye-opener.
What comes to mind when you think of vermin? Rats? Dirty creatures that spread disease and live off people, breed too fast so they need keeping down by killing them, get a cat. Best to call in the exterminator and get rid of them once and for all before the filthy things overrun us. Put a picture of a rat on one side of a thaumatrope and a picture of a person on the other, spin it fast, what do you have? A Jewish person in Nazi Germany. That's exactly what Hitler did. And now you know why PR is called "spin".
And that is what the entire book is about, spin. How people with agendas, journalists, politicians, authors, even the neighbour next door, calls a person by a pejorative and generally non-human name. Think how much easier it is to pull the plug on a vegetable than a desperately sick person in a coma. Or treat a teenage girl as less than a woman, just a stupid sex object for men by calling her a bimbo? Call refugees 'migrants' and the urgency of their life and death situation is reduced to people who want to live somewhere else.
Read the book if you want to have a better understanding of the power the journalists and politicians have misused to make you think what they want you to believe without you even thinking about it. The book is a real eye-opener.
August 23, 2021
Maybe 2.5 stars? The first couple of chapters are pretty good but the later ones get more and more bogged down with British Politics ("Corbin this....Theresa May that...") and British TV that it just couldn't sustain my interest. By the end, it's more of a catalog of who used which metaphor when than about any engaging analysis on why it's so effective.
It doesn't take long for the author to get into the habit of going down these cultural rabbit holes with excruciating detail, to then yank you out with all the finesse of a Brazilian bikini-waxer (as I've been told about...) to tie everything down to his choice of metaphor. Occasionally he makes good points, but it's all just very contrived and belabored.
If you've read Zimbardo's "The Lucifer Effect" (Stanford Prison Experiments) or Stanley Milgram's "Obedience to Authority" (electric shock experiments), then you'll find no earth-shattering truths here.
Maybe read it if you're British and you care about Brexit and all that. And some metaphors about it.
It doesn't take long for the author to get into the habit of going down these cultural rabbit holes with excruciating detail, to then yank you out with all the finesse of a Brazilian bikini-waxer (as I've been told about...) to tie everything down to his choice of metaphor. Occasionally he makes good points, but it's all just very contrived and belabored.
If you've read Zimbardo's "The Lucifer Effect" (Stanford Prison Experiments) or Stanley Milgram's "Obedience to Authority" (electric shock experiments), then you'll find no earth-shattering truths here.
Maybe read it if you're British and you care about Brexit and all that. And some metaphors about it.
November 25, 2018
A really fascinating, thought provoking and enjoyable book. Everyone should read this.
June 12, 2019
Not great. You'd need to be very familiar with British TV, politics and culture to catch his descriptions. Very cynical. Not my cup of tea :)
January 1, 2021
Pretty crazy to have it called out how prevasive metaphors are in our daily lives. The book started strong with excellent examples of how insidious metaphors can become, but later chapters mostly gave examples of who Lancaster saw as fitting the title of the chapter, rather than linking them back to an actual metaphor. Between that and the preponderance of British politics, my interest waned exponentially as the book progressed. I guess you could say I did not read this book voraciously. Or escaped into its pages. Or dove into the text. Rather, it just left me hanging.
August 5, 2023
Amazing write-up from a linguist with an eye for metaphors. Indeed metaphors have deeper cognitive effects than we'd initially perceive.
November 26, 2021
This book takes a look at the power of word choice (the use of metaphor specifically) and the effect this has on how we perceive others.
The book is nicely laid out and well-researched, covering a wealth of phrases. The author is a speechwriter by trade, and this is very evident throughout.
My criticisms of the book are few, but not negligible:
The end of the book gets a little waffle-y regarding comparison of "AI" to "God".
The author seems to have an infatuation with Apple (and Steve Jobs specifically) which is a little on-the-nose. Perhaps, most disappointingly, the author managed to purport an extremely reductionist view of rap music (and the language within) in a manner stereotypically befitting of an upper-middle class Caucasian, which was rather flagrant given the entire ethos of the book was about how dangerous codifying groups of people can be.
Alas, it was still a good read and held my attention well.
The book is nicely laid out and well-researched, covering a wealth of phrases. The author is a speechwriter by trade, and this is very evident throughout.
My criticisms of the book are few, but not negligible:
The end of the book gets a little waffle-y regarding comparison of "AI" to "God".
The author seems to have an infatuation with Apple (and Steve Jobs specifically) which is a little on-the-nose. Perhaps, most disappointingly, the author managed to purport an extremely reductionist view of rap music (and the language within) in a manner stereotypically befitting of an upper-middle class Caucasian, which was rather flagrant given the entire ethos of the book was about how dangerous codifying groups of people can be.
Alas, it was still a good read and held my attention well.
January 5, 2021
This is a fun but fascinating ride through metaphors used in speech. Both in political contexts and within the media. There are so many good examples and mind expanding facts in here I could have underlined the whole book.
Essentially the author is showing the ways in which we can be manipulated by language and how this has devastating impacts.
Essentially the author is showing the ways in which we can be manipulated by language and how this has devastating impacts.
December 26, 2024
Simon Lancaster’s extremely thoughtful and interesting look at the use of language and metaphor. Through one word titled chapters, Lancaster walks us through a huge variety of scenarios from historical to concurrent in which the use of a word or words made a huge difference in perception of a person or an event. From politics to religion to racism and everything in between, the way something is described can have a momentous after effect. Or lasting effect. It makes you stop and think about the words you use and what connotations others might make based on how you’re saying something. This is a must-read for everyone. We can all learn a thing or two from Lancaster in this one.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews