The Material Basis of Language

The fundamental conflict that creates a need for language consists of the conflict between individual will and perceptions with the will of prevailing power. Language mediates this conflict as the go between that tries to resolve these conflicts in favor of one or the other. The individual can successfully leverage a description of the world as a tool that alters prevailing power structures through linguistic force, or fails to find the appropriate language to initiate change, and so remains minoritarian. ‘Language’ in this instance also concerns the method and means by which an idea gets leveraged- the number of people and medium used define language as much as specific content. This accounts for how power assumes particular media forms as well as particular messages- language subordinates to power in creating meaning. Language comes from the need to bridge the gaps between individual interpretation and multiple understanding of the world. Therein lies a problem, because language by its nature cannot describe reality. Inevitable, words assume a symbolic role whose true function gets revealed only in usage. So, language makes it possible to hide certain things, to reveal them selectively. This is the origin of power: the ability to create meanings for words that reveal very particular parts of reality. Example: homeland as representative of unity, strength rather than fragmentation and struggle. ‘Psychotic’ as different, deviant, dirty. Reclaiming these words means unmasking the way that the supposed transparencies of every day use blot or limit understanding of the supposed referent. Then, the question becomes, which meanings become acceptable and why? Of course, this has to do with traditional usage, and relationships to other words. The ‘psychotic’ person became the deviant when arranged in relation to concerns of population control and the social body as a whole. But then, these concerns and linguistic structures have no inherent meaning that would instill other words with value absent their relationship to them. This co-productivity indicates a gap created by the smooth functioning of the tautological nature of language. This gap can be filled by economics, or even geographical determinism in the world of Jarrod Diamond. Eventually though, the value and currency of certain words has material grounding, in the way that accepting particular meanings, and so political systems, provides material values that serve people in a way they believe is good.

Duncan