Parole, parole, parole...

— What do you read, my Lord?

—Words, Words, Words…

We are so used to assuming that philosophy is completely ineffective that sometimes the possibility that it may have some interest in explaining some of the social phenomena that occur to us, as is the case of the one I will point out below, goes unnoticed.

I am referring to the fact that today words are like darts.

Those who do not want to hurt their peers have to be very careful when speaking, writing or singing.

Whoever wants to hurt them, on the other hand, has it easier than ever.

This could be a symptom of civilizing progress and good education, if it implies that our care for the word has increased.

But what is disturbing is that discursive hypersensitivity coexists with an unprecedented contempt for language (syntax and spelling included), which is attacked as being responsible for the worst evils of our time, and with an increase in tolerance towards verbal savagery and towards the most preposterous hoaxes.

And this is where philosophy can give some clues.

It is known that language was the privileged object of philosophical reflection in the 20th century.

During the first half it was mainly about language as a true (scientific) or misleading (ideological) representation of the world.

But, in the second half, philosophy rediscovered the rhetorical and poetic dimension of language.

Poets also speak of a world but, while they describe it, they build that world.

This highlights the productive dimension of the word (it is not in vain that our word “poetry” comes from a Greek word that means “production”).

Certainly, the worlds created by the poets are fictitious, but the sophists of antiquity already discovered the effectiveness of the word as an instrument for the exercise of power and suggested that social reality is nothing more than a fiction made of words,

of the word will therefore dominate the social world.

The British thinker JL Austin drew attention in 1955 to what he called "performative" statements, such as "Yes, I swear (or promise)" delivered at an investiture ceremony, or "The session is now open" delivered by the president of a court, noting that they cannot be said to be true or false, but only lucky or unlucky (depending on whether or not they succeed in carrying out the action they state).

To get an idea of ​​this type of verbal efficacy, we could add “Fire!” to the list.

shouted by the leader of the firing squad.

Since then, the terms "performative" and "performativity" have become the banner of this creative function of language that today both artists and political activists claim (ignoring, it must be said,

that Austin never thought of these expressions as magical formulas capable of creating extradiscursive facts by themselves, and that their effectiveness does not depend on the words themselves, but on the legal situations in which they are issued).

Beginning in the 1960s, an influential current in French philosophy held that realities such as sexuality, mental illness, or delinquency are "discursive facts" produced by the medical, legal, police, religious, or political discourses they generate " effects of truth” (that is, that it is a question of a kind of “ghosts” created by the words that make us believe in the existence of such things), and that the insistence on a reality external to the discourse was a metaphysical vice that had to get rid of.

and that their effectiveness does not depend on the words themselves, but on the legal situations in which they are issued).

Beginning in the 1960s, an influential current in French philosophy held that realities such as sexuality, mental illness, or delinquency are "discursive facts" produced by the medical, legal, police, religious, or political discourses they generate " effects of truth” (that is, that it is a question of a kind of “ghosts” created by the words that make us believe in the existence of such things), and that the insistence on a reality external to the discourse was a metaphysical vice that had to get rid of.

and that their effectiveness does not depend on the words themselves, but on the legal situations in which they are issued).

Beginning in the 1960s, an influential current in French philosophy held that realities such as sexuality, mental illness, or delinquency are "discursive facts" produced by the medical, legal, police, religious, or political discourses they generate " effects of truth” (that is, that it is a question of a kind of “ghosts” created by the words that make us believe in the existence of such things), and that the insistence on a reality external to the discourse was a metaphysical vice that had to get rid of.

These types of doctrines crossed the Atlantic labeled as "theory" to settle in North American universities, and from there they were re-exported to Europe at the end of the last century transmuted into "practice".

Since then, they have become the inspiration for many of the public policies of the institutionalized powers.

And this, at least in part, explains the current situation.

If we reduce things—at least social things—to "discursive facts" produced by the words that speak about them, two inevitable consequences follow.

The first is that there are no things properly speaking, since their dependence on the discursive struggles between rival interlocutors makes them have as little consistency and are as malleable, ethereal and weightless as the soap bubbles that the poet spoke of: they can dissolve into nothing at the slightest speech effect.

Hence the ease with which, nowadays, things or “alternative facts” can be built.

The second is that whoever thinks that it is the words that

things you have to be very careful with what you say: calling someone “sick” can make them sick.

Due to this procedure, there is a risk that the treatment of the sick becomes secondary to the care of the vocabulary that designates them, in the same way that today the vendors beg us to value with an outstanding the verbal attention they have given us. , even if the merchandise they have sold us is damaged.

The best words hurt like stings and are punished like stabs, while the worst things are tolerated or passed over with the scorn and skepticism of those who consider them only relatively real.

Without a doubt, combating, regulating or prohibiting speeches and words is much easier than combating injustices, but it is also much more ineffective,

This vision of politics as a discursive practice that seeks to produce "performatively" (that is, through discourse) changes in social regulations is not new: the ministries of propaganda had been practicing it since its creation, not to go back to the times of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, although it must be recognized that political propaganda has been considerably ennobled by becoming communication advice with an academic foundation.

But when the word becomes an instrument of power to try to impose our vision of the world on the adversary or reject his, its reference to a world recognized as common and shared is lost,

which not only makes the disputes unsolvable but also turns the public discussion into a mere struggle for a naked and abstract power in which only the proper names resonate, voiding the rest of the language entirely of meaning, which in this way loses everything. his credit and all his ability to produce understanding among men.

At the end of the contest, and even if there is no clear winner, it is possible that the things (about which the dispute was allegedly about) have been entirely destroyed or abandoned and that the words that were said inspired by them lie scattered among the debris like hollow armor of a dead language.

that by this means he loses all his credit and all his ability to produce understanding among men.

At the end of the contest, and even if there is no clear winner, it is possible that the things (about which the dispute was allegedly about) have been entirely destroyed or abandoned and that the words that were said inspired by them lie scattered among the debris like hollow armor of a dead language.

that by this means he loses all his credit and all his ability to produce understanding among men.

At the end of the contest, and even if there is no clear winner, it is possible that the things (about which the dispute was allegedly about) have been entirely destroyed or abandoned and that the words that were said inspired by them lie scattered among the debris like hollow armor of a dead language.

José Luis Pardo

is a writer.

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