The Politics of Naming!
Foucault warned us: the power no longer demands blood on the battlefield. It requires submission in silence.
Amid the vastness of the galaxies, this place somewhat sticks out as the ugliest variant. Other planets could be barren, but this one, teeming with tiny creatures, sucks, seen broadly. In an attempt to make something of it, ignoring our omissions and commissions, the wisest among us have grown chronically mad. Their madness, oddly enough, bore fruit, though.
Complexities characterize us; frustration, our tiny globe. Our thirst for power and control takes new forms and shapes as we evolve. In the past, we beat the floor, calling for blood-spilling wars, to assert our superiority. Today, we fashion and twist our words and behaviors to fit in the old rough narrative of domination. This is precisely what Foucault dissected: a transition from physical power to subtle, structured control.
Foucault’s brilliance lies in showing us how labels – like ‘mentally ill’ – are a product of culture and time. In the past, we would refer to someone unsound as being possessed; now we use a modern conception of mental illness. Only the language has changed; the power behind the label remains. The proliferation of our current discourse shapes our reality and makes a fine distinction between who is ill and who is not. This in turn tailors our multiple behaviors to people with different backgrounds: being nice with a mentally healthy person and compassionate (?) with a psychologically sick one.
The underlying motivation for treating people differently stands the will to exhibit powerful behaviors. From the current medical discourse, jargons and terminologies to slang terms; we are controlling, as seen in minute details.
Ever asked yourself before calling someone who they are that the words you use could be an imposition of tiny, deep-seated commands?
How many unfortunate cases have come forward just because of deliberately-put artificial languages? ‘He is obese (fat),’ the doctor declared him to be. What if declaring someone obese is a method of creating wedges in our society? People and professionals create discourses, and we internalize them, shaping how we see ourselves and others. As Foucault put it, we fear we are being watched because we have internalized that someone is watching us. A fine, fine example of how power and control (extracted from knowledge or otherwise) play out in our societies.
We declare that the rich are worth something and the poor are worth nothing: our tiny dark spark lying somewhere deep in our cells screams it like anything, however otherwise the manifestation of our words could be. We wish to dissect the hidden play we are up to, and we recognize this is the liberation the civilized us are currently lacking.
The whole point of the foregoing blabbering is that we need a revamp in our discourses and a revisit of how knowledge and power suppress the majority of us. That we need a massive conscious understanding of how common words are nothing but the result of will-to-control, shaping behaviors, bents, and the overall environment.
Imagine yourself as coming to the earth anew. No contrived symbolism. No language favoring or disfavoring some. An obese person can be called a full-figured human being, advised to engage in movement – not judged under the weight of labels.
