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Title: The Label of Things Author: Val Basilio Date: 1999 Language: en Topics: anti-globalization, Diavolo in corpo, language Source: Personal communication with the translator Notes: From Diavolo in corpo #1, December 1999
Journalists, politicians, economists, intellectuals, the great people of
the world of the spectacle, all are in cooperate in showing the world in
which we live as the best of all possible worlds. A world in which
inhabitants live to work and are forced to work to live, where anyone
who does not have a job feels deprived of his own life. And where
demanding anything else is considered a tragic illusion refuted by
history. Nothing must disturb this conviction that has been repeated so
often that it has become a matter of fact, an established truth. Thus,
the problem of abolishing everything that constitutes a threat to the
peace that reigns in the market paradise is posed. Softening contrasts.
Placating tensions. Moderating extremism. A difficult undertaking, but
possible.
There is no objective, single-voiced reality. What we call reality is
always a partial aspect of a totality never completed, a selection from
it. Its consistency is limited not only by the means we use to grasp it,
but above all by our ability to use it. We define reality not as the
totality that surrounds us, of which we ourselves are a part, nor even
as the part of this reality that we have managed to grasp, but only as
that last little bit that we are able to keep, to make our own, to give
any sort of meaning. The reality we speak to ourselves about is always
just of our own making. It could be said that reality does not exist,
that only our interpretations of things exist. Omitting at this time the
question of pictures, the human being communicates her vision of reality
through words. So it is through words that the human being has justified
the conditions of life in which she has found himself, but has also
incited to overthrowing them. All the actions that has committed to this
end have always been preceded or followed by words: in order to express
analysis, demands, comments, proposals.
We come to the world as speaking beings; language precedes us as
structure and as social milieu. It is the expression of concrete social
relationships and as such cannot be neutral. It is transformed as a
consequence of social changes, it matters little whether these are of
grand dimensions (in France, after the revolution of 1789, the new
dictionary of the Academy incorporated about 11,000 new entries) or
concern somewhat minor changes at the peak of politics. Thus, even a
critical perception of reality possesses its vocabulary. Reducing this
vocabulary means reducing the possibility of critically perceiving
reality. And this reduction can occur in different ways. For example,
causing a term to move from the vocabulary of criticism to that of
consent through a mutation of meaning. Nobody will be afraid of the word
revolution anymore when this indicates the advent of a new wave of
technological instruments. Everyone will be suspicious of anarchy if it
allows anyone to attack us on the street corner. But this critical
vocabulary can lose its terms in other ways as well. Inventing new,
apparently neutral definitions capable of replacing old, already
discredited ones. If a thing corresponds to every word, the introduction
of a new word to indicate an old thing would serve to reconstitute its
virginity. An ancient philosopher used to claim that words are “the
label of illusive things”, while according to one writer, “expression is
substitution”. It is decidedly not by chance that philosophers and poets
have always found posts in the king’s court. So in order to modify
reality while leaving it unchanged, i.e., not to modify its substance so
much as perception, it is enough to replace the label. In this sense,
the places where this technique is best put to the test are, not by
chance, supermarkets in which each day damaged goods are as fresh as the
day, because freshness is guaranteed by a label. Maybe now it is
possible to better understand the origin of this noisy invasion of
language by the activity of subjugated words, their race to remove and
replace old words that have become inadequate not due to their effective
old age, but due to their irreverence towards the requirements of the
new social order.
One can find an infinite number of possible examples of the ability of
the word to render the unpleasant pleasant. Such guile neglects nothing;
it is used on great occasions as well as in tiny everyday activities.
The street sweeper who gathers trash has become an “environmental
technician”. The terminological innovation has not improved the air that
one who carries out such a job breathes, nor has it called into question
the consumerist lifestyle that produces tons of rubbish, but these
aren’t the motivations that have led to the introduction of such a
neologism. Quite simply, it is meant to make those who go through their
life dealing with other people’s garbage feel good. The same concern for
comforting those who carry out humble jobs has led, for example, to
rebaptizing the cleaning woman as “domestic collaborator”. If it has not
already done so, this sort of uniformed fantasy will have to satisfy its
whim by finding a description that compensates for the fatigue and
frustration of porters, waiters and waitresses, doorkeepers, miners and
the list goes on.
The need to banish every outrage from the horizon of existence is pushed
in the end to the suppression of physical differences between
individuals. Waiting until genetic engineering finds the way to make us
all Adonises and Venuses, the task of toning down the contrasts that can
originate in the manifest reality of our bodies is handled through
words. The blind have become “not seeing” and the deaf “not hearing”,
the obese “fat bearers”, dwarves “vertically disadvantaged”. From behind
the charitable aim of alleviating human despair, the objective of
eroding space for occasions of “disturbance of the public peace” peeks
out. The examples just related might even move one to smile. At bottom,
it’s simply a matter of wordplay. But wordplay loses all its
innocuousness when it is carried out on certain other themes. In spite
of all the praises that are sung to the progress of civilization, wars
continue. It is impossible to stop them since they serve economic,
political and religious interests which cannot be ignored, considering
the present social system. Nonetheless, it is necessary to obliterate
the impression caused by all the dead, the wounded, the sorrow. Easy. It
is enough to call them “humanitarian missions”. After all, the missiles
have already been baptized “peacemakers”. The roar of the planes will be
likened to the providential siren of the ambulance. Military bases will
appear to be hospitals. Generals become medical chiefs of staff to whom
we entrust our lives. Not by chance, bombings are contrived with
“surgical precision”. Here is how the horror of war, if opportunely
sterilized, can find approval.
And social inequalities? They don’t exist anymore; they have been
abolished. A social revolution was not necessary: neither assaults on
the Winter Palace, nor attacks at the heart of the state, no
generalization of revolt. Exploitation has been erased in one stroke
through a lexical revolution. Years ago — do you remember — the holders
of wealth were “masters”. As was appropriate, they were considered
enemies, because they reminded slaves of their own condition. But now
that they have become “contractors”, everyone respects them. Not that,
in the meantime, their wealth has at all diminished, it is understood.
Nor their privileges. Nor their power. But all these characteristics
oozed precisely from that word “master”. The one disappeared and so did
the other. Today “contractors” respect the misery of their “employees”
or those who aspire to be such, to the extent that the latter respect
the wealth of the former. In this way, everyone manages to live happy
and contented lives, or nearly so.
Of course, every now an then, the cosmetic of words isn’t able to cover
all the ugliness to which it is applied. For example, a “smart bomb”
happens to mistake the heart for a tumor and butchers civilians. Or
else, a UN report publicizes that the personal fortune of just three men
surpasses the wealth produced by more than forty countries in the world.
There is more money in the bank accounts of these three people than in
the combined pockets of several billion human beings. In the face of
these facts, a certain discomfort continues to spread. But it is
exhausted in a very short period of time, after everyone has hurled
their sighs of disagreement or their curses of rage. For a few dozen
hours those bombs will be seen as instruments of death and those three
people who could buy half the world will be seen as masters. Then they
will again be, respectively, “scalpels” and “employers”.
Besides, why be surprised? Capitalism has triumphed everywhere, its
omnipotence is enough to make speaking about it superfluous. Not to
pronounce its name in vain, this is the first commandment of its law,
the law of profit and money. But capitalism is not only omnipotent. It
is also omnipresent. There is not a corner of the world that has escaped
its intervention. From Peru to Australia, a single colored shopping mall
extends itself. One of the three lords mentioned above, Bill Gates, the
richest man in the world, loves to repeat that “it is all a matter of
how, not if.” In this way, the reasons of the Economy become the very
reasons of Humanity. Capitalism can thus even vanish from our lips that
should learn to concern themselves exclusively with its effects,
“neoliberalism” or “globalization”.
The power of words. When properly spurred, they are able to transform a
tiger into a chick their anesthetic quality seems inexhaustible. Let’s
take the Idea. What is an idea? It is an armed thought, a thought that
moves one to action. One can live and one can die for an idea. The idea
challenges its possibilities, seeks its realization. When suitably
supported and accompanied, it is able to open a breach in history and
transform it. The examples are not lacking. But it is dangerous to allow
armed thoughts to circulate in the world. Therefore, it is necessary to
get rid of the idea. For decades, human beings have been taught not to
express ideas, but rather “opinions”, i.e., disarmed thoughts, thoughts
that are somehow satisfied with mere oratory. Needless to say, no one
would want to live or die for an opinion that, as such, does not refer
to a practice. Of course, this substitution should still appear as a
step forward, not as censorship or an act of obscurantism. It is enough
to say then that opinion is the democratization of thought, its
universal surrender. Possessing an idea requires an effort, of study, of
understanding, of interpretation. And even greater effort is required to
put the idea into practice. All that is needed to have an opinion, on
the other hand, is to open one’s mouth. Simple, and within the capacity
of all. All opinions are equal, because all people are equal. The end of
the Idea has led to the disappearance of its products. The end of
theories, the end of ideologies. The end as well of great ideals and of
utopias. The end of struggle and the end of enemies against which to
struggle. Too dangerous, it is necessary to lower the pitch, tone down
the color, numb the senses. The weight of the past, the weight of a
varied arsenal has been replaced by the lightness of inconsistency.
Yesterday, ideas were rocks to launch against the enemy to demolish it;
life, a barricade. Today, opinions are feathers to launch into the air
in order to get lost in the contemplation of their somersaults; life, a
sterile limbo. Let’s get this straight, nothing has changed. It’s just
that nothing remains that can be criticized. At the most, the world we
live in is open to opinion.