Political discourse redefines contested terms so opposition becomes definitionally impossible
Evidence
Marsafi understood the political crisis within which he wrote as the attempt by particular groups to give particular meanings to words, such as liberty and injustice. The liability of these words was to be misused and misinterpreted. Like all words, they carried the risk of being placed out of context, or spoken in the wrong sense. This verbal liability was not the result of the prevailing political disorder, but the symptom and nature of the crisis. There was no analytic separation in this approach between writing and politics, or between theory and practice. Every political act was an interpretation of words, and thus a textual act, a reading. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 430 (
#expands, via linked claim)
Thus, the Socratic discourse is political discourse inasmuch as it contradicts the established political institutions. The search for the correct definition, for the “concept” of virtue, justice, piety, and knowledge becomes a subversive undertaking, for the concept intends a new polis. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 514 (
#expands, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Struggles over the meaning of words constitute the political crisis itself — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 430; Seeking correct definitions is itself politically subversive — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 514; Political language weaponizes selective concepts to serve power. (+8 more)
Related
- Seeking correct definitions is itself politically subversive (similarity 0.90)
- Struggles over the meaning of words constitute the political crisis itself (similarity 0.86)
- Words and political talk themselves constitute subversive action (similarity 0.86)
- Words do not label pre-existing political objects but must be made real through interpretation (similarity 0.84)
- Language itself is a political battlefield when discourse is indoctrinated (similarity 0.84)
Broader Connections
- Struggles over the meaning of words constitute the political crisis itself
#expands(0.85) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 430 - Political language weaponizes selective concepts to serve power.
#corroborates(0.82) - Seeking correct definitions is itself politically subversive
#expands(0.80) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 514 - Language itself is a political battlefield when discourse is indoctrinated
#exemplifies(0.80) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 713 - Words do not label pre-existing political objects but must be made real through interpretation
#expands(0.78) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 430 - Contradiction has become the operating principle of manipulative discourse
#corroborates(0.77) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 387 - Critiques conducted within political discourse reinforce the system they claim to scrutinize
#complicates(0.75) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 446 - Slang and colloquial speech resist official one-dimensional discourse.
#complicates(0.74) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 378 - Civility discourse smuggles in exclusion of those deemed different
#exemplifies(0.72) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 208