I wonder if it is even possible to craft language that doesn’t implicitly legitimate *some* pattern of institutionalized structural power. This I think is the fatal weakness of even good-faith wokegramming. Language operations can only move power gradients around, not level them.
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This was one of the things I struggled most with when writing Radical Candor. Power is bad. Hierarchy is inevitable. How can we write about hierarchy while showing it's a job not a value judgement that entitles us to hold others in contempt??
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Welcome to the world of absolutism, where declaratives compile down to imperatives and ostensives (shared attention)
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Even if it were not possible to use language in a way that totally flattened power gradients, if it were possible in some cases to reduce the differential marginally it might still be a valuable exercise. Or it might not, power gradients might be okay.
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If imputing unconscious motivations and attributing unstated assertions is “fair” play, then no, it’s impossible.
It’s universally applicable and unfalsifiable.
It’s like fundamentalist religion.
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Just wait until the heat death of the universe everything will be fair then
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A weakness, sure, but why fatal? We can always try to minimize it further.
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Yes but maybe it’s important to explore and understand the nuances of those gradient shifts and how they affect individuals and groups as we will soon need to build ethical structure around non-linguistic, mind melding tech. Just listened to this: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/lon









