Paying too much attention to words and meanings is one of the most unhealthy things in today's society. It erodes culture, obscures what we are as humans. The sooner we'll overcome this situation, the better.
Culture enriches the nuance of words' meanings, and nuanced language facilitates our ability to relate to one another, thereby improving culture, society, and "what we are as humans."
Any obsession can be unhealthy, but if the worst problem of society ever comes to be too much attention to words and meanings, I think we'll be ok.
I agree with everything you said. My point was that today's culture is unhealthily obsessed with words and meanings, to the point of destroying any nuance or understanding that might have been. I see it as one of the main problems of today's society, that will have long lasting consequences. People can't express themselves freely, can't discuss many complicated topics without fear of being torn up by a crowd. This is not a situation that promotes understanding, reflection or leads to civilized solutions; this is a boiling pressure cooker with blocked safety valve.
Today's people, in my experience, more often than not default to using the inverted Hanlon's razor in their judgement — trying to find enemies everywhere, instead of taking it easy and accepting human imperfection. This is not something new of course, but today's technology and lifestyle accelerates this to levels where any genuine dialogue between people of different world views is highly unlikely. In today's society people are more likely to just claim someone they disagree with as an enemy, rather than try to understand why they're using the words they don't like. In my opinion this... psychosis will not end well, and I could only hope that we'll take that hit and be better for it in a long run.
If people were able to express themselves without being judged as, for example, psychotic, then the world would be a better place. It makes a lot of sense.
Any obsession can be unhealthy, but if the worst problem of society ever comes to be too much attention to words and meanings, I think we'll be ok.