Speech is fundamentally agonistic play, not mere communication

Evidence

This last observation brings us to the first principle underlying our method as a whole: to speak is to fight, in the sense of playing, and speechacts34fallwithinthedomainofageneralagonistics. Thi does not necessarily mean that one plays in order to win. A move can be made for the sheer pleasure of its invention: what else is involved in that labor of language harassment undertaken by popular speech and by literature? Great joy is had in the endless invention of turns of phrase, of words and meanings, the process behind the evolution of language on the level ofparole.But undoubtedly even this pleasure depends on a feeling of success won at the expense of an adversary—at least one adversary, and a formidable one: the accepted language, or connotation. — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 142

Categorization

• SEED: The ‘speech as combat’ frame against the ‘accepted language’ could ground a piece on why innovation always attacks established connotation.
• XREF: Direct antecedent of Jameson’s postmodernism as agonistic play; also echoes Deleuze’s rhizome-breaking language. — connects to: Philosophical language must interweave expression and communication, neither reducible to the other — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1014; Discourse operates as a strategic field of force-relations, not mere representation — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 363; In sociable conversation talk becomes an end in itself, not a vehicle for content — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 381 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Discourse operates as a strategic field of force-relations, not mere representation #corroborates (0.85) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 363
• In sociable conversation talk becomes an end in itself, not a vehicle for content #corroborates (0.80) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 381
• Language choice serves intellectual hegemony, not mere communication #corroborates (0.80) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2086