Nietzsche already said it: “There is nothing less innocent than words, the deadliest weapons that can exist ”.
The philosopher was not trying to make us imagine a scene in which the use of certain linguistic signs purely and simply triggers drama (for this we already have numerous soap operas as an example). Rather, he was referring in more generic terms to the global repercussions that a certain use of language can have, beyond the pure transmission of information between coldly analytical and perfectly coordinated minds. If we add to this pre-scientific intuition certain conclusions that have been drawn from the psycholinguistics we obtain a principle for our social relations: a linguistic sign is not a package of information, ready to be coldly analyzed, that someone sends us… but a perceptual unit that produces in us schemes of action, reasoning or language, whether we want it or not. .
Hence, no matter how much language may appear to have pretensions of neutrality As a code that is understandable and assimilable by all, the meaning of all the signs of which it is composed is subject to a continuous consensus Consensus that, like any form of negotiation between agents, is completely shaped by the subjectivity, experience and expectations of each of them. Neutrality is conspicuous by its absence.
Words enable the appearance of culturally consensual concepts, and from these meanings are derived, in relation to the context, values that are ultimately those that accompany our behaviors, both individually and collectively. As an example, I will rescue some personal experiences.
During one of my stays in London, I was able to notice how the use of language that is styled there (and I am not referring to the language, but to the way of agreeing on meanings by forming typical expressions) is full of connotations linked to liberal thought. This ideology is characterized by the importance of the individual as opposed to the limits imposed by the social fabric. It is necessary to remember that Margaret Thatcher asserted on multiple occasions that society does not exist, that only the individual exists separately. They are symptoms, then, of the private nature of life in general of consumption, of the business world and its unilaterally sought benefits, etc.
Regarding the fact of emphasizing the individual over the social – or even maintaining that society does not exist, as Thatcher stated – it can be seen that, in the United Kingdom, when the causes or explanation of some event, the question that opens the curtain of the debate is always: it depends on the individual or is it a question of luck? (it depends on the individual or it is a matter of luck), ignoring that the origin may be due to something of a structural nature that transcends the individual (remember, society does not exist there).
Another example in which we can observe how liberal ideology is strongly rooted in English society is with the typical expression is none of your business , which serves to express “it is not your problem”, but literally translated it would be “it is not your business”. This expression suggests an explicit parallelism between the world of business—or the world of economic activity by extension—and the thread that gives coherence to one’s own life. But what’s more, the fact of emphasizing that the business is one’s own points out an undervaluation of the idea that what is foreign, a concept of little interest from a point of view in which society as such does not exist, but only individuals with interests exist. own and without common interests that structure them beyond the collective protection of property. In this sense, it is comical, for example, how the verb “share”, which could indicate “share something because there is something in common”, is share, which is the shares of a company. That is to say, even the action of sharing here loses a social connotation and is once again framed within the scope of business and economic profitability.
When it comes to consumption, I found the phrase out of date particularly curious, which means “expired” but also “out of fashion.” Every consumerist society is interested in promoting the world of fashion because it is a transcendental tool to be able to produce and generate great benefits by constantly renewing items and creating the need for permanent consumption. That is why it is important to say that something is fashionable as something intrinsically positive. When a shirt purchased in 2011 is no longer valid in the fashion world, that means that it is expired and, therefore, it has to be renewed, that is, a wide variety of products have to be constantly consumed under an imperative that It practically refers to the field of health. This idea, of course, brings enormous benefits to large companies.
The right right; the sinister left
Finally, I would like to cite a very obvious example, but perhaps the most clarifying, and that possibly best summarizes the central idea of this article. The word right On the one hand it means “correct”, and on the other “right”. The truth is that when we use this word in politics, we are referring to the (neo)liberal or Thatcherite political or ideological position, the worldview that praises the excellence of the free market in the economic sphere and conservatism in the social sphere, indicating it as the natural path. given to man for his own progress.
However, before thinking that this polysemy may have something to do with a certain legitimation of privatizations and adjustments understood in this case as the correct route, we must not forget that this link between “right” and “correct” is only so in As for the form: the same word, but perhaps not the same meaning. We must not forget either that historically certain political positions are called “right” as a result of a very specific historical reality (the disposition of conservative deputies in the National Constituent Assembly during the French Revolution).
However, the meaning of words, when negotiated, is not fixed. Precisely for this reason, paradoxically, This continuous negotiation of meanings can make possible a dynamic of meaning maintenance despite changing circumstances. This polysemic relationship between both “rights” can be reinforced by a long tradition of associating positive properties with the concept of right, common to many cultures and, to a certain extent, all-terrain. Let’s think, for example, about the idea of being right at something, or the expression “getting up on the left foot.” Both seem to refer to the better disposition of doing things with the right side of the body that most people have. Similarly, in Arab culture the left hand is considered impure. All of this is part of a dimension that, despite taking shape in language, transcends language itself and affects us subconsciously.
