I recently discovered that I have been set free.
Not by a court, or a therapist, but by the zeitgeist itself. We have been told, for years now, from podiums and op-eds and seminar rooms, that words have no fixed meaning. That meaning is something you choose yourself. That even the most basic words - man, woman, sex - no longer mean anything specific, but are empty containers the individual fills in for themselves.
And that is, when you really think it through, an enormous freedom.
For if words have no fixed meaning, one can write anything to anyone. And should the recipient become offended, one can simply inform them that the words one wrote actually meant something else.
For the meaning is mine. It was decided in my interior, and there no one has access. One can even change the meaning retroactively, should the words be received incorrectly - precisely as one can change one's sex retroactively on a birth certificate. Where we can probably soon also change age and ethnicity, to what one feels most like.
I'm going to be African American with a little hint of Latino - I might as well reveal that right away.
Anyway. Let me demonstrate how beautifully it works. Purely hypothetically, naturally. A little laboratory experiment in modern linguistic freedom.
For example as a reply in a comment thread -
"Oh, so that's what you think, you fat crazy bitch."
In the old days - meaning about ten years ago - that would be an insult.
But in newspeak it's a bouquet. Fat is a body-positive ideal we're encouraged to celebrate. Crazy is the very admission ticket to the creative mind, every artist wears it with pride. And bitch simply means person with a sex, which as is known is an open category, so it actually just says - person. I have called you person. You're welcome.
Similarly with -
"You old idiot."
Age is just a number, we've decided that, so old is contentless. And idiot comes from the Greek idiotes, which means private person. So it says: citizen with a private life. That's barely even newspeak. It's etymologically correct.
Or what about -
"You hopeless loser."
For competition is an oppressive structure, we've been told that by people with tenure, and to lose is therefore no longer a defeat but a form of protest - a quiet refusal to participate in the performance society's hierarchy. And hopeless? Hopeless simply means free of hope's tyranny, a human who has released expectation and rests in the now. So it says - present system critic. And that can't be an insult. It's a mindfulness retreat.
One can also stretch it all the way out over -
"Liar."
For truth is just your narrative against mine, we've learned that too, and so liar simply means - human with their own narrative. Which is to say everyone. I have called you human. Again - you're welcome.
There is just one thing that doesn't fit in the equation.
For try doing it. Try in all seriousness to use one of the examples or similar and refer afterwards to the meaning being your own. See how quickly the meaning returns. See how quickly the people who have told us that words are empty and fluid and private and exist on a spectrum you yourself can determine, suddenly know EXACTLY what the words mean, how deeply they strike, and how dearly it must cost. 😁
For it was never the intention that words should be empty. The emptiness was only an intermediate stage.
One empties a word in order to be able to fill it again - with one's own content, one's own morality, one's own power.
Racism once meant something specific.
Tolerance once meant something specific.
Woman once meant something so specific that no one dreamed for three seconds of asking.
All three words have been emptied, and all three have been refilled, and in none of the cases was it the language that evolved organically - or the population that wished them to change.
It was someone who moved in. Who additionally had an intention in doing so.
And that is the real revelation in this little experiment -
None of them believe that words mean nothing. On the contrary. Had they believed it, they would be indifferent to what we or anyone says. They are not. They are more preoccupied with what we say than any priesthood before them has ever been.
They know words mean something, and they are hysterically preoccupied with us believing they mean what their little red manual says they should.
One does not fight over empty containers.
One only empties the words one intends to own.
I have not, however, quite intended to let go of them. Have you?
