Does anyone else get annoyed when (often philosophical) words are misused in common speach? Examples: Some anti-consumerist or anti-capitalists say “Materialism is bad,” which is annoying as a dialectical materialist. Materialism is the philosophy of putting matter over mind when studying the world, not liking fancy things. People frequently complain about “cynicism” meaning self-interest, cold-heartedness, or unreasonable skepticism. In reality it’s an ancient philosophy of living naturally and virtuously, rejecting social norms and ideals. I legit heard someone saying Stoicism means seriousness as in taking a sport seriously. It’s a philosophy of living virtuously and avoiding unnecessary psychological pain. These days people only know “op/ps” as opposition not operatives or operations. Finally, I know someone who thinks “dialectics” pretty much just means talking.
(not sure if this is the right comm, but it’s a rant)
Prescriptivism is a dead approach to language. If you cannot be understood when you use very specific, niche Marxist jargon you should simply be more clear about what you mean using words that the listener cannot misinterpret. Of course when you are talking with a Marxist you can code switch and bring the jargon out in order to have even more clarity.
Totally, I don’t go up to people and talk about the bourgeoisie or the dictatorship of the proletariat. I talk about I use words like “capitalist” or “the 1%.” It’s just annoying how some “jargon-y” words are highly watered down and used colloquially.
I know someone who thinks “dialectics” pretty much just means talking.
Oh, yeah! I forgot to mention this, but this is close® to what dialectic is prior to Hegel. There are some disciplines/contexts where the term ‘dialectic’ is still used to describe a verbal process between human interlocutors, like dialectical methods in therapy or education. It’s closely related to the Socratic notion of elenchus.
Your friend probably just has closer or more recent contact with one of those traditions than he does with Marxism or Hegel.
The one that personally bothers me the most is “exploitation”. Correct me if I’m wrong, but when Marx used the word he was referring to how capitalists must organize and reorganize society in order to extract profit from the work of others. It’s the parasitic relationship between owner and laborer.
But a lot of ostensibly Marxist people understand the word to just mean “abuse”. Tbh I blame Marx for giving precise definitions to common words (like value >.>)
words have different meanings in different circles, u just gotta live with it. Its the reason why technical or theoretical works of all kinds almost always start with definitions.
Not only do I get annoyed, I consider it a problem. Postmodernist brainrot set in so deeply it infects even the basic tool of though, which is language, by shuffling terms and meanings around way too quickly, courtesy of the Internet. Substitution of concepts is all over the fucking place.
But yeah, exactly because it’s so bad you have no choice but to grit your teeth, take a deep breath and explain that you didn’t mean colloquial moral “idealism”(naivety) and meant philosophical “idealism”. And then probably give a short lesson on what even is philosophical idealism and what’s it’s beef with materialism… No, not that materialismFUCK deep breath
As with linguistics, it’s constantly evolving.
So, materialism/materialist could mean it in a philosophical context as you’ve mentioned or it could mean valuing goods over currency to the point where there’s a lack of financial planning.
It does take a bit of effort to switch between the two meanings
It’s just weird reading anti-capitalist stuff where they only use the word negatively.
I guess some people just get stuck at the utopian socialist stage.
Well, the book that sparked this post is called Everyday Utopia. It’s a bit overly optimistic about the potential of Utopian experiments, but makes a valuable case against the human nature argument and for hope.
lol i nailed it.
I think that usage comes from pre-capitalist religions, where ‘materialism’ is taken to embody a kind of desacralization of pre-capitalist spiritualities. So it’s counterposed to supernaturalism rather than to philosophical idealism, and sort of synonymous with ‘naturalism’ as in ‘methodological naturalism’ in the sciences. Accumulation of wealth in such discourses is ‘materialistic’ in the sense of secular vanity. So it’s anti-capitalist in a reactionary way, alluding vaguely to a call for a return to a tradition older than (and profaned by) capitalism.
That’s how I think of it, anyway. :)
i do get triggered by it especially when it’s materialism or dialectics lol.
tbf I do try to keep ‘ops’ as in operations separate from ‘opps’ as in opposition; esp bc I’ve been in positions where I had to use both, but I use the latter a LOT MORE OFTEN
Yeah, they’re definitely different, but most people I talk to don’t know what “ops” are and it’s kinda annoying.
This is where I pull out my “we must never stop explaining” card. Correcting people on using a word wrong makes you “annoying” but also teaches them something, and in turn, makes you someone who they can turn to when they are confused by the usage of a term somewhere. I usually try to be incredulous when people use words wrong, feigning ignorance and trying to correct them that way. Works much better than the “umm acktually” that most people imagine when thinking about someone correcting them.
I have managed to teach a few of my lib friends that whenever they use “materialism” they mean “consumerism” at least. And have made a little bit of headway with terms like “authoritarianism” though I will admit that one isn’t too successful.
Also, being very determined to make sure people understand the definitions of words insulates you against the inevitable “But literally 1984!” arguments libs love to make when talking to communists. If you clearly care about words and their meaning, and they don’t, they can’t use one of their biggest easy dismissals of communist arguments.
I often prefer to use a term in a way that’s archaically broad or technically strict, if the contexts in which it is used have narrowed over time, and especially if some older or more specialized uses are retained in some tradition that I am/have engaged with.
Sometimes it even peeves me when people use a word that has a history or tradition associated with it, but in a way that reveals ignorance or disconnection from that tradition.
But the older I get, the easier I find it to keep in mind the fact that most words I experience this way are really, actually technical terms. Technical terms do have special, precise meanings, but only within the special, precise fields that define them. In ordinary language, terms aren’t ‘defined into existence’ but are rather described, captured in snapshots from a messy, vague, ambiguous, and ever-evolving reality of human speech.
It’s also good to have some humility and consider that when someone uses a word in a way that seems off to you, they may be doing so in continuity with another tradition that you’re just not yet aware of. It’s a bit embarrassing but there are times where I’ve mentally corrected people in my head, ‘translating’ their speech or writing to use different phrasing, only to realize later that they were speaking precisely and correctly in a way that I just didn’t understand at the time.
Yeah, I can’t exactly find the exact terms to say this, but I agree (though my mind is quite foggy)…
Honestly, as much as I like the simplification of vocabulary for educational purposes, sometimes, it feels as though the capitalists and liberals uses this to their advantage to oversimplify and obfuscate certain terms that quite eloquently explain one thing or another, and thus recuperate them into their society via their ownership and thus influence and stranglehold over the media landscape superstructure…
It’s funny that it’s like this, considering those same liberals would probably cry their asses over “Newspeak” when Orwell just simply projected on socialist nations what he knew about the British state apparatus’ public media reports…
I was just reading a thread on here, lemmygrad, where people were using the word “left” to mean very different things. I think this lack of a coherent and consistent glossary of terms is a problem for we MLs, let alone libs.
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