The field of language is a crucial battleground in the war between us and the capitalist system of domination. Through its massive control of the media, through the specific forms given to what we still call “education,” and through the dominance of digital technology and its algorithms, this system seeks to impose its vocabulary, its syntax, and its unilateral interpretation of things. Ultimately, it seeks to make its world the only world possible and conceivable.
And indeed, many people no longer find the words or the means to express what they are experiencing and feeling, to express and make known their opposition and rejection of this system which, through the language it uses, seeks to reinforce its monopoly on discourse and impose its own interpretation of what exists. It’s aim is to establish a harmless and neutralized language that conceals the ignominy of reality at all levels of the social structure, starting from childhood.
It must be understood that this is a deliberate and ongoing process aimed at dumbing down the population to make them more malleable, to make them fit into the molds of this society subject to the reign of commodities and their technologies. Deciphering the realities of contemporary society cannot be done easily and using the forms of expression of our enemy, Capitalism (or whatever name we want to give it).
We must necessarily distance ourselves from these forms, from this doublespeak that no longer means anything. This means being demanding of ourselves in terms of our expression, but also of our readers, who will only regain their power to act if they accept the need to think and therefore to confront what they are not used to and sometimes even what disturbs them.
It would be deceiving ourselves and those we seek to reach to believe that overcoming this world will be easy, with slogans that have long since lost their power to challenge, that no longer find ears willing to hear them, or constitutional changes that will never provide any guarantee as to the meaning they will be given by the existing hierarchies, as long as these hierarchies are able to impose themselves. The more domination shows itself to be the party of structural stupidity of language, the more we must be on the side of those who seek to counter this major form of alienation.
We do not seek to tower over anyone; on the contrary, our entire approach is aimed at fostering the emergence of a collective intelligence among as many people as possible, capable of overcoming the stupidity of this pseudo-society that oppresses us all and can only lead us to disaster—in the short term now. While we refuse to reproduce the kind of academic jargon that too often hides this particular milieu, we are not content with simply writing in the simplest way possible. The problems or phenomena we have to deal with are often complex because they cover decades, sometimes centuries, of alienating processes; In order to address them, we must, on the contrary, regain mastery of our own languages and work to share them. We are not addressing any elite; indeed, we recognize no elite.
The path to the development of a true collective intelligence certainly does not lie in the debasement of language that suits the forces of domination so well and which they actively promote. Just because we know that many people have been deprived of the means of expression and even of understanding that are their own, we must not allow ourselves to be trapped and ultimately participate in prolonging this state of affairs. On the contrary, we must work to awaken and stimulate consciousness so that it can regain its autonomy, not reinforce its absence and repetition.
This question of language, of reclaiming its subversive potential and its renewed vitality, is at the heart of our confrontation with the forces of alienation dedicated to prolonging the capitalist system of oppression whatever the cost.
Rebounds: