The fight for the dictionary

Dictionary of the RAE. Repor Babelia. Details of the RAE, books, papers, drawers .. Interview with the director Santiago Muñoz Machado. Photo: Inma FloresINMA FLORES / DIARIO AS

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  Harangue music;

  by Antonio Muñoz Molina

Political conflicts are often clashes between words, which delegate the fight to the disputed individuals and sides while they rest peacefully in the dictionary or encyclopedia. In such struggles they fight proper names - of gods, of the dead, of faction leaders or of more or less extensive places - and common names that designate ideals, doctrines or what is usually called "values." In political victories and defeats, be they bloody or not, it is the words that win or lose, even if they drag those who serve them with them. But the former is only one of the forms of the verbal struggle for power. There are more sophisticated ones, which does not imply that they are more gentle.

Sometimes the political contest does not take place between words, but within a single one, whose meaning will provoke discord and will drag the crowds to the polls, to the barricades or to the trenches to decide, as in an ordeal, what the dictionaries should record. . Whoever wins will show that he was right and whoever loses will be convinced that the combat was not fair, although there will be, conversely, cultural and symbolic successes, by virtue of which the way of speaking typical of certain factions or sides will infiltrate throughout the social fabric and, acquiring what some schools call “hegemony”, it will be the sign of a subtle and lasting victory.

Finding examples is not a difficult task, because what has just been described can happen to any term in the political vocabulary, in some of its forms. Also to the proper names: how not to kill oneself for the true Spain, for the genuine Marx or for the authentic Perón? The strange thing would be the opposite: that the political signifiers had a univocal meaning, suitable to resolve any dispute and to avoid any deception, as is believed to occur with natural terms such as “water” or “milk”. If I say that I am drinking a glass of milk (or water), but in reality it is horchata (or gin), it will be easy to unmask the lie and resolve any dispute by going to the true meaning of the words, which can be clearly determined by the sense of taste or by chemical analysis.In many eras there have been people convinced that the usual terms of political language (and, incidentally, also those of philosophical) should be replaced by others as similar as possible to words such as "water" or "milk", which would provide the model of mental hygiene and the common good.

Think of the word "freedom", which apparently does not run much risk of going out of style. Does this term mean absence of servitude and arbitrary or abusive dependency? Does it denote the ability of the citizen to intervene in government? Or perhaps the lack of interference to each choose their own ends and obey them? Does it have something to do with strength of character and discipline of passions? Does it designate, above all, the power to choose between consumer goods, including the offer of political options? Do you mean, if necessary, that there are no restrictions on going out for drinks and compulsively traveling? Or to pay less taxes? Is it, as some have believed, the name that should be given to rational compliance with the law? Or is it a mixture of the above, although perhaps not all of it?

As long as we can speak, mortals will be addicted to these kinds of questions. Much of what is called politics consists of spinning them, not always in a bookish way and often with bloodshed. Politics and war are, not in vain, the lexicography pursued by other means. Believing that freedom is like water and that what you have to do is not get tangled up in language implies not having understood what speaking is, because in reality it is water that imitates freedom. Words are not in our hands so that we can use them. Rather, it happens the other way around, which makes us puppets who have news, albeit extremely confusing and often absurd and false, of the threads that handle them.

Words are fatal objects that captivate those who approach them and who mock them mercilessly. It would be advisable for us to dedicate ourselves to examining, with the greatest possible care, the damages (never slight) that they can cause us. We will never get rid of its spell, although in some moments, between battle and battle, perhaps we can describe it with some lucidity. If this task were done decently — which, needless to say, extremely difficult — political disputes would become the work of reason (but also of horror), and not only of testosterone. But no power, nor anyone who aspires to it, will have a great interest in promoting such a dissolving practice. Not a few lessons should be drawn from it in relation, without going any further, with freedom.

Antonio Valdecantos

is Professor of Philosophy at the Carlos III University.