Magic Words

A practical guide to resisting the conversation-ending power of modern ensorcellment

Abracadabra

There are magic words. But unlike fake, childish words like “Abracadabra,” “Open Sesame,” or “Presto Chango,” these magic words actually and immediately affect people’s behavior.

When you utter these magic words, you silence and smear your ideological enemies, relieve yourself of the burden of thinking and making arguments, signal your righteousness to others, and shut down opposition, among other useful spell effects.

In the West, this modern arcana is geographically anchored; that is, the spell works better in some places than others. Here’s a brief list of those words and their seats of power:

Word: Far Right*
Geographical Seat of Power: Western Europe

Word: Racist
GSP: North America

Word: Bigot
GSP: North America

Word: Nazi
GSP: North America and Western Europe (esp. Germany, Austria)

Word: Homophobe
GSP: North America and Western Europe

Word: Islamophobe/Islamophobic
GSP: North America and especially Western Europe

Word: Fascist
GSP: North America and Western Europe

Word: I’m offended
GSP: North America

*The most powerful and felling of words in Western Europe

Of course, the right has its own repertoire of conversation-ending spells. The dynamic is the same; only the vocabulary and the geographic distribution change. In the US especially, words like “woke,” “groomer,” “Marxist,” “deep stater,” “RINO,” “cuck,” and “globalist” are routinely cast to silence opponents, signal tribal loyalty, and end discussion without engaging the actual argument.

Magic words can be uttered at any time. However, there are certain instances when adepts find them most useful. For example, they are especially useful when the caster is directly confronted with facts and evidence but does not know enough about a topic to speak intelligently about it; when other people who share their ideological commitments are present and the caster wants to elevate their status among them (virtue signaling); or when the caster simply seeks the dopamine rush of righteousness.

Kazam!

What is particularly remarkable about these words is that even people who reject the fundamental assumptions embedded in them (for example, those who are not fearful of gay people yet are still labeled homophobes) still yield or fall silent when the words are cast. Here’s what that looks like:

[WORD] [Kazam!] [Silence. Or sustained bitter denials. Or frustration and lost tempers.]

Behold their power! They cause otherwise reasonable people to act in unbecoming ways or to become bizarrely deferential. If nonmagical words like “mollusk,” or “meteor,” or “bicycle,” were cast against the same people in the same accusatory tone, perhaps they would pause out of confusion, but they would not stop presenting their argument or openly conversing about an issue. They would not be cowed. They would polymorph into sheep.

Alakazam

Most people do not know that there are ways to increase your saving throws or even counter the debilitating effects of these incantations (when the smear is offered as a substitute for argument rather than the product of one). If magic words are cast against you, here’s a simple Do and Don’t list.

Do

● Recognize that the person is likely prioritizing tribal signaling over evidence.

● Keep talking, unabated. You may also look directly at them and say something like, “Who I am or am not has no bearing on my argument. If you’d like to participate in the conversation, address the argument directly.” Then continue speaking.

● Shift your focus and speak to others present.

● Keep your composure.

Don’t

● Stop speaking.

● Ask for evidence of you being “far right” or “Islamophobic” or whatever other aspersion. These accusations are not about evidence. They’re about silencing you.

● Attempt to change the other person’s mind.

● Lose your temper or show frustration.

● Adopt a posture of superiority. Just because someone levels a baseless accusation against you, that does not mean your position is correct.

● Pity the caster. Just carry on.

Imagine this: You’re mid-sentence explaining recent immigration data when someone interjects, “That’s far-right!”. You look at them and calmly reply, “I’ll give that response no countenance.” Then you turn to the rest of the room and keep making your point about the numbers without missing a beat.

If you follow these basic Dos and Don’ts, you will radically decrease the likelihood these words will affect you. However, like anything else, practice is required. Finally, if you forget everything on this list, just remember one thing. Keep your cool.

P.S. Hocus Pocus, Sim Sala Bim, Shazam

How to deal with magic words is just one of the things I’ll be talking about in my upcoming university tour, Rationality Under Pressure. The tour is scheduled for November 2026. I’ll be conducting Spectrum Street Epistemology, offering tools for productive conversations, and giving specific techniques for keeping your cool when you’re under stress.

If you’re a member of a student group or an administrator and you’re interested in hosting us, please visit

https://www.nationalprogressalliance.org/contact/.

This is just a teaser. I’ll write more about this as the date approaches.

Coming to a university near you: Rationality Under Pressure

In the end, the point of these Dos and Don’ts is not to “win” against the caster or to score a moral victory. It’s simply to refuse to let the spell dictate the terms of the conversation. When the magic words are uttered, rationality under pressure means keeping your composure, continuing to speak, and insisting that ideas, not labels, remain the subject. That discipline is exactly what we will practice on the Rationality Under Pressure tour.

Peter