January 27, 2006: Words, concepts, struggle
I believe it's important for people on the left to fight to win the patriotic high ground. My friend worries that that implies a concession to the Imperialist flavor of nationalism.
My friend believes it's important to preserve, that is, continue to use, the word "socialism", struggling of course to free that word of its Stalinist content. I ask, "Why not keep 'Communism'? What's the difference?"
These are examples of words or concepts which have no meaning at all apart from that given to them by struggle.
What are our criteria for choosing which words to keep, which to jettison? Which to struggle for, which to nevermind?
Comments
We do have to struggle over words, but we have to remember that words struggle over us. To be precise, meanings are pre-given and are part of cultural complexes, so we have to work with a strategic sense of what we are aiming for. If we get into a certain complex, we have to consider its' basic direction. There are 'red stripes' in American culture that are worth fighting for, but we have to find a way of transforming the other colors. Even the color red so long, our color had been given over to the other side.
Communism or Socialism, can be used interchangeably as the name for a society organized around institutions of mass demcratic control. I choose to fight for the term democracy and argue it, will never be democratic unless political and economic equality are achieved. Something like that and we are back to something that one can call....
Posted by: Wayne Rothschild | February 8, 2006 11:52 AM
I'm not sure we're trying to get after the same thing here. Let me try it another way. How do we make non-arbitrary, non-subjective decisions over what words to fight for? We have to have criteria, protocols. What might those be?
Posted by: Mark Phillips | February 9, 2006 04:32 PM