Labeling language poetic protects an underlying political metaphysics

Evidence

To label this usurpation a poetic or literary effect, and therefore oppose it to what is ‘normal’, protects the hierarchy. Poetic language is treated as an exception, which proves the validity of the normal process of communication. The essential opposition of material sound and immaterial meaning is preserved, preserving the hierarchical relationship between the two elements. More than just a linguistic theory is at stake here. On this hierarchical opposition rests an entire metaphysics of meaning, of the broadest political importance. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 456

Categorization

• XREF: This is the classic deconstruction move Mitchell deploys against colonial epistemology; connects to his broader argument about representation and the exhibition in earlier chapters. — connects to: Tolerating poetic truth in a separate realm protects the status quo — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 676; Language itself is a political battlefield when discourse is indoctrinated — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 713; the MOC “The Wound of the Label: When Knowing Someone Becomes a Way of Erasing Them” (+2 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that the poetry/normal-language boundary is political protection for a whole metaphysics of meaning — not a neutral descriptive distinction — is dense and paradigm-shifting, dense with implications for how colonial power naturalizes its categories.