Yet sometimes we forget language is also an important social and cultural institution. And like all institutions, it is subject to corruption, in the form of capture by elites with agendas quite contrary to those of average people. Since language shapes our understanding of all human interactions, academics from all disciplines—but particularly social scientists—ought to pay more attention to linguistic corruption. When language becomes politicized, managed, and policed, we ought to notice, and we ought to fight back.
The great Spanish Austro-libertarian economist Jesús Huerta de Soto applies Carl Menger’s theory on the evolution of money to language:
“Thus there is an unconscious social process of learning by imitation which explains how the pioneering behavior of these most successful and creative individuals catches on and eventually extends to the rest of society. Also, due to this evolutionary process, those societies which first adopt successful principles and institutions tend to spread and prevail over other social groups. Although Menger developed his theory in relation to the origin and evolution of money, he also mentions that the same essential theoretical framework can be easily applied to the study of the origins and development of language, as well as to our present topic, juridical institutions. Hence the paradoxical fact that the moral, juridical, economic, and linguistic institutions which are most important and essential to man’s life in society are not of his own creation, because he lacks the necessary intellectual might to assimilate the vast body of random information that these institutions generate. On the contrary, these institutions inevitably and spontaneously emanate from the social process of human interaction which Menger believes should be the main research in economics.”[1]
Today, it appears linguistic interventionism is alive and well in the West. Language is a subset of culture, albeit a very important subset, and we can hardly expect progressives to leave it alone. Like culture, language is not property, and it cannot be “owned.” But it can be influenced and steered by linguistic vandals seeking to topple old understandings and leave us all overwhelmed and demoralized by the ever-shifting new terminology.
“Political correctness is the conscious, designed manipulation of language intended to change the way people speak, write, think, feel, and act, in furtherance of an agenda.
“PC is best understood as propaganda, which is how I suggest we approach it. But unlike propaganda, which historically has been used by governments to win favor for a particular campaign or effort, PC is all-encompassing. It seeks nothing less than to mold us into modern versions of Marx’s un-alienated society man, freed of all his bourgeois pretensions and humdrum social conventions.
“Like all propaganda, PC fundamentally is a lie. It is about refusing to deal with the underlying nature of reality, in fact attempting to alter that reality by legislative and social fiat. A is no longer A.”
“‘Woke’ is defined as being aware of injustice in society, especially, but not limited to, racism. Which doesn’t seem anything that most people would be opposed to, especially superhero comics, which would seem to be all about fighting injustice but, I guess, welcome to the internet.”
Well, no, that is distinctly not what “woke” means. It is self-serving claptrap: “All good people (Us) are woke, which is really just left-wing code for caring and empathetic! Who could deny injustice and racism! I’d hate to think what unwoke people (Them) really believe, ho ho ho!” But these language imposers are not good people at all, or even well-intentioned people. Quite the opposite; they are lying, dissembling, projecting ideologues who want to commandeer the English language. Woke is the animating force behind today’s relentless progressive attempts to impose and corrupt language to advance a host of wholly politicized movements.
From my paper:
“Even five years ago, the top-down or centralized force operating to corrupt the language of politics and economics could have been broadly termed ‘political correctness’ (PC). Today the term is obsolete, another example of the rapid (unnatural) evolution of usage in Western society. PC referred more narrowly to acceptable speech, whereas today’s linguistic enforcers seek to impose a whole new mindset, attitude, and way of thinking. Thus, PC has been replaced by an even broader and more amorphous term, ‘woke.’ Woke, whether a slur or not, may be used very broadly to represent strident left progressive beliefs regarding race, sex, sexuality, equality, climate change, and the like. Woke demands ever-changing language, and constantly creates new words while eliminating old ones. As a result, ‘cancellation,’ de-platforming, and loss of employment or standing all loom large, giving pause to speakers and writers who must consider a new woke orthodoxy.