I was just thinking about this recently! Orwell considered some of your objections in an earlier 1940 essay called “New Words.” It concerns the inverse of Newspeak: inventing new words to cover new feelings:
If you say to any thinking person ‘Let us form a society for the invention of new and subtler words’, he will first of all object that it is the idea of a crank, and then probably say that our present words, properly handled, will meet all difficulties. (This last, of course, is only a theoretical objection. In practice everyone recognizes the inadequacy of language — consider such expressions as ‘Words fail’, ‘It wasn’t what he said, it was the way he said it’, etc.)
Your article presumes we know what we want to say and merely need to find the right words lying about to say it. But we think in language, and it is clear sometimes we are missing a word to express ourselves. A word which, when obtained, allows us to crystallise a pattern of ideas, associations, and emotions we could not before. You could call this a “concept” if you like—but what is a concept if not a useful word within a system of other useful words?
Scott Alexander speaks of this in an article he wrote on crystallising patterns:[1]
A while ago, a leftist commenter asked me to stop using the term “political correctness”. Without getting into whether or not I should comply, I was struck by the sound strategy behind the request. Without the words “political correctness”, an entire class of things becomes much harder to think about. There are whole debates that would stop happening if the words “political correctness” got removed from the vocabulary. That’s pretty strange. If we removed the word “President” from the vocabulary, people would just start talking about “that guy in the White House” or “the executive branch” or something. But striking out “political correctness” would be a genuine game-changer.
“Political correctness” is also an attempt to detect a pattern (for the purpose of not politicizing this post, I will stay agnostic whether it is real or imagined) and give a name to it. And I think if we stopped using the term, people would stop detecting the pattern and their views about a lot of things would change.
Giving a pattern a name crystallizes it, let people hold it in their minds for a longer period, make it easier to think about and discuss.
The inverse of the enabling force of language is its disabling force. In Politics and the English Language, Orwell considers the effect of using hackney-eyed phrases in suppressing thought:
By using stale metaphors, similes and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself...They will construct your sentences for you – even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent – and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear.
Scott Alexander is agnostic as to whether this phenomenon exists—or at least, whether some crystallised patterns could be unhelpful. I tend to side with Orwell on this one. Some words (or patterns, or concepts) are obviously unhelpful: anti-semites who discover the term “Zionist Occupied Government” (ZOG) find it makes a new range of ideas possible and start pattern matching to it. Would they think more clearly without it? Yes. Would I ban ZOG? No—but I would try to contest it as a false pattern!
I am 90% sure the Rationalist practice of tabooing words arose for this reason—that some words can obscure rather than enable thought. Perhaps you accept the disabling thesis but deny the enabling one (essentially the reverse of Scott Alexander). Fine, but this seems implausible: if a word can be used for ill, why not for good? And if for good, wouldn’t banning it be an effective way to limit a person’s thought?
The universe is indifferent to your demand for justice, and will remain so until you bother to try to change minds. Nobody gives you what you want. That’s not how it works. Do politics. Think and speak strategically. Be disciplined. Work harder. And for fuck’s sake, give me a simple term to use to address you. Please? Because right now it sure looks like you don’t want to be named because you don’t want to be criticized.
I was just thinking about this recently! Orwell considered some of your objections in an earlier 1940 essay called “New Words.” It concerns the inverse of Newspeak: inventing new words to cover new feelings:
Your article presumes we know what we want to say and merely need to find the right words lying about to say it. But we think in language, and it is clear sometimes we are missing a word to express ourselves. A word which, when obtained, allows us to crystallise a pattern of ideas, associations, and emotions we could not before. You could call this a “concept” if you like—but what is a concept if not a useful word within a system of other useful words?
Scott Alexander speaks of this in an article he wrote on crystallising patterns:[1]
The inverse of the enabling force of language is its disabling force. In Politics and the English Language, Orwell considers the effect of using hackney-eyed phrases in suppressing thought:
Scott Alexander is agnostic as to whether this phenomenon exists—or at least, whether some crystallised patterns could be unhelpful. I tend to side with Orwell on this one. Some words (or patterns, or concepts) are obviously unhelpful: anti-semites who discover the term “Zionist Occupied Government” (ZOG) find it makes a new range of ideas possible and start pattern matching to it. Would they think more clearly without it? Yes. Would I ban ZOG? No—but I would try to contest it as a false pattern!
I am 90% sure the Rationalist practice of tabooing words arose for this reason—that some words can obscure rather than enable thought. Perhaps you accept the disabling thesis but deny the enabling one (essentially the reverse of Scott Alexander). Fine, but this seems implausible: if a word can be used for ill, why not for good? And if for good, wouldn’t banning it be an effective way to limit a person’s thought?
Freddie deBoer expresses a similar sentiment in: “Please Just Fucking Tell Me What Term I Am Allowed to Use for the Sweeping Social and Political Changes You Demand”: