Language as a regulator of the social

He already said it Nietzsche: “There is nothing less innocent than words, the deadliest weapons that can exist”.

The philosopher did not try to make us imagine a scene in which the use of certain linguistic signs unleashes drama purely and simply (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 the language, beyond the pure transmission of information between coldly analytical minds and perfectly coordinated. If to this pre-scientific intuition we add certain conclusions that have been extracted from the psycholinguistics, we obtain a principle for our social relations: a linguistic sign is not a package of information, ready to be analyzed coldly, that someone sends us... but a perceptual unit that produces in us patterns of action, reasoning or language, we want it or not.

Hence, however much language may appear to have claims of neutrality As a code 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 one of them. Neutrality is conspicuous by its absence.

Words enable the emergence of culturally agreed concepts, and from these meanings they 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.

Liberal language in the UK

During one of my stays in London, I was able to notice how the use of the language that is styled there (and I do not mean the language, but the way of agreeing on meanings forming typical expressions) is full of connotations linked to the liberal thinking. This ideology is characterized by the importance of the individual as opposed to the limits imposed by the social fabric. You need to remember that Margaret Thatcher She asserted on multiple occasions that society does not exist, that only the individual exists separately. They are symptoms, then, of the private character of life in general., of consumption, of the business world and its benefits sought unilaterally, and so on.

Regarding the fact of emphasizing the individual above the social - or even maintaining that society does not exist, as Thatcher sentenced - it is can see that, in the United Kingdom, when the causes or explanation of an event are asked, the question that opens the curtain of the debate always it is: it depends on the individual or is a question of luck? (It depends on the individual or 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 the liberal ideology is strongly rooted in English society is with the typical expression is none of your business, which is used to express "it is not your problem", but translated literally it would be "it is not your business". This expression suggests an explicit parallelism between the business world - or the world of economic activity by extension - and the thread that gives coherence to life itself. But what is more, the fact of remarking that the business is one's own indicates a undervaluation of the idea that is foreign, an uninteresting concept from a point of view in which the Society as such does not exist, but there are only some individuals with their own interests and without common interests that back them up beyond the collective protection of the society. property. In this sense, it is funny, for example, how the verb “share”, which could indicate “share something because there is something in common”, is share, which is the actions of a company. That is, even the action of sharing here loses a social connotation and is once again framed within the scope of business and economic profitability.

As far as consumption is concerned, I found the phrase out of date, which means "expired" but also "old-fashioned", particularly curious. Every consumer society is interested in promoting the world of fashion because it is a transcendental tool to be able to produce and generate large profits by constantly renewing items and creating the need for consumption permanent. 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 for the fashion world, that means that it is out of date and that, therefore, it has to be renew, that is, a great variety of products must be constantly consumed under an imperative that practically refers to the field of Health. This idea, of course, brings huge 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 one 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 mean the political or ideological position (neo) liberal or Thatcherian, the worldview that prays the excellence of the free market in the economic and conservatism in the social, indicating it as the path naturally given to man for his own progress.

However, before thinking that this polysemy may have something to do with a certain legitimation of the privatizations and adjustments, understood in this case as the correct path, do not forget that this link between "right" and "correct" is only correct in terms of 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 historical reality. very concrete (the disposition of the conservative deputies in the National Constituent Assembly during the French Revolution).

However, the meaning of the words, when negotiated, is not fixed. Precisely for this reason, paradoxically, This continuous negotiation of meanings can make possible a dynamic of maintenance of meaning despite changing circumstances. This polysemic relationship between both “rights” can be reinforced by a long tradition of associating positive a properties to the concept of the right, common to many cultures and, to some extent, all terrain. Take, for example, the idea of ​​being right-handed at something, or the expression “getting up on the left foot”. Both seem to refer to the better disposition to do 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.

Of course, nothing less innocent than words.