The loaded language having an “intention” doesn’t mean that intent is necessarily consciously realised by the speaker.
When I waa growing up, the f-slur for gay men was used pretty liberally without it having any related meaning to us. We didn’t hate or even dislike gays. It was just “something people said” and we picked up on it and used it.
Now I have to say that a lot of those people really did turn out to be homophobes, but as it was a rural village, the chances were high anyway.
The point I’m making is that speakers can spread the “intention” or connotation of a phrase without even ever having understood it’s meaning.
People just don’t want to think about stuff that doesn’t affect them or that they can’t change.
Yeah, I understand this, and that’s part of the problem. People think they can’t affect change, so they don’t want to think about change, so they say things like “we can’t change things, it is what it is” and then someone who still had hope (but looks up to the speaker) loses their hope of change, and also starts using said language.
Accepting defeat is certain defeat.
Ofc in a lot of conversations, it might not be political at all. Sometimes you can’t change things, as you have no agency. Like we used a lot of these semantic stop signs just as coping tools in the army. Digging a well into frozen ground, manually, in -20C… “it is what it is.”
But it is exactly loaded language. It’s just that not every use is malicious or political. They can be mundane and arbitrary criticisms that are quelled as well.
The loaded language having an “intention” doesn’t mean that intent is necessarily consciously realised by the speaker.
When I waa growing up, the f-slur for gay men was used pretty liberally without it having any related meaning to us. We didn’t hate or even dislike gays. It was just “something people said” and we picked up on it and used it.
Now I have to say that a lot of those people really did turn out to be homophobes, but as it was a rural village, the chances were high anyway.
The point I’m making is that speakers can spread the “intention” or connotation of a phrase without even ever having understood it’s meaning.
Yeah, I understand this, and that’s part of the problem. People think they can’t affect change, so they don’t want to think about change, so they say things like “we can’t change things, it is what it is” and then someone who still had hope (but looks up to the speaker) loses their hope of change, and also starts using said language.
Accepting defeat is certain defeat.
Ofc in a lot of conversations, it might not be political at all. Sometimes you can’t change things, as you have no agency. Like we used a lot of these semantic stop signs just as coping tools in the army. Digging a well into frozen ground, manually, in -20C… “it is what it is.”
But it is exactly loaded language. It’s just that not every use is malicious or political. They can be mundane and arbitrary criticisms that are quelled as well.
Edit also I do not identify with anarchism