Disinterest is a *good* thing
Don’t let “disinterest” die just when we need it more than ever
I am seeing the word disinterest losing its meaning and becoming a mere synonym of uninterest. The timing is particularly bad for us to lose this word.
Politico writes:
It was seen as an early harbinger of Trump’s disinterest in intelligence,
But we have a word for “not interested” already — it’s uninterested.
Disinterest is an entirely different thing, a good thing. Disinterested means “not influenced by considerations of personal advantage” — to have no conflicts of interest, in other words.
You want disinterested judges and a disinterested legal system. Judges with a conflict of interest are supposed to recuse themselves because they cannot be disinterested.
Our leaders should be interested in and disinterested from everything they control. Trump is uninterested in everything and has disinterested himself from nothing.
There just isn’t another word for disinterested and we so desperately need it. Please, let’s not let disinterested die.
