“How do you speak? Words are important!” said, or rather shouted, Michele Apicella at an astonished interviewer (Mariella Valentini) in the film Palombella rossa. And he was right. Words are indeed important and pregnant with meaning. Their use can be a source of understanding, misunderstandings or even a fully-fledged weapon used for manipulative purposes.
This becomes clear above all in communicative language, which over the years has been deliberately changed. Today, terms like “resilience” or “sustainability” (and their related adjectives, applicable to just about anything) are the order of the day, everywhere. This is no small matter and it has been done artificially. Resilience is the exact opposite of resistance. Once upon a time, this term was used very rarely, and solely to highlight the typical characteristic of flexibility as opposed to rigidity. A reed is resilient in the face of the power of hurricane-force winds. The rush bends and offers no “resistance” to the unequal force of the gusts of air travelling at exceedingly high speeds, precisely so as not to snap and blow away. But here the concept is between two entities of incomparable magnitude: the small and weak rush on one side, the enormous force and speed of the wind on the other. This is the true meaning to be attributed to this term. Today, however, it has been deliberately widespread to signify that anyone, in the face of difficulties or calamities they might encounter, can emerge victorious precisely by virtue of this characteristic. Better to play dead, without fighting, as some animals do when under attack from much stronger rivals. Thus, this sort of “fluid” language is used to express a concept that is not proper to the term, namely resistance to an external catastrophic event. One must be “fluid” in order to resist. Even physically. Hence the step to “gender fluid”, a being without a precise identity, neither woman nor man nor homosexual (or hermaphrodite to include yet another sexual gender already known for thousands of years). Fluidity, therefore non-identity par excellence, has become synonymous with the ideal model of modern society, and a specific language is being created for this model too (see the use of the so-called “schwa”, the upside-down “e” “ә”). Therefore, if one is “resilient”, one is not “resistant” towards the “system”.
As I was saying earlier, another flagship term of the times we are living in is “sustainability”. If we read in the Treccani dictionary (the evolution of which over time should be written about separately, but not here) under this entry we find: «sostenìbile adj. [der. of sostenere]. – 1. a. That can be supported: a thesis that is difficult to support (sostenibile). b. That can be faced/borne: a bearable (sostenibile) expense; this situation is no longer bearable (sostenibile). 2. by extension. Compatible with the requirements of safeguarding environmental resources: sustainable energy; sustainable development, a phrase indicating a strategy of technological and industrial development that takes into account, in the exploitation of resources and production techniques, environmental conditions and compatibilities». Thus, what was once only a meaning by “extension” of the original one, derived from Latin (sub and tenere, i.e. I hold from below, I sustain, I support), has nowadays become the primary meaning of the term. Or rather, they have deliberately made it so. Everything must be “green”, clean. Starting with energy, even the energy used to move you around.
The social sphere
But that is not enough. Your very actions in the social sphere must be “sustainable”. Do you buy a plane ticket? You have culpably contributed to the emission of CO2 into the atmosphere and therefore you must get used to the idea that in the near future this will no longer be permitted without paying a price, both in terms of money and freedom of movement. All this, obviously, irrespective of the fact that no one declares the principles upon which you would be guilty of such a “misdeed” (how exactly you practically did this), nor that the “natural” carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is vastly superior to that produced for anthropogenic reasons and is, moreover, necessary for the much-cited (often inappropriately and without any real understanding) environment. Examples are ten a penny: one to stand for them all, the banking transactions you carry out online. The use of your PC or smartphone for such operations (a bank transfer, a bank statement, etc.) entails a certain amount of CO2 emissions attributable to you, so you will soon have to “pay” for this (again, in the terms cited above).
So yes, words are important and, as we have seen, they are not used at random. Language is slowly being changed in society, so that people slowly get used to it (the Overton window), starting with school textbooks. The latter are by now reduced to branch offices of the “system” and serve no other purpose than to convey to the new generations (even those too young to be indoctrinated via the omnipresent smartphones) this new way of “reading reality” through words and (even visual) examples.
The change in language also occurs at an institutional level. This was clearly seen during the “pandemic” period. The decisions taken were not supposed to fall upon the specific responsibility (even though these were glaringly obvious at a local level) of the individual or the politician in charge at the time, but rather upon the necessity dictated by the course of events. Hence the massive use of the impersonal passive or the pronoun “one”: “it has been decided”, “it becomes necessary”, “it is permitted”, etc. etc. As Martin Heidegger said in Being and Time, the use of the “they” (or “one”) in communication, to express decisions or impositions made to feel inevitable, serves to deprive human beings of their characteristic projectuality and to push them towards massification and levelling, making them feel that they have no freedom of choice. The first form of struggle towards freedom of choice, in fact, begins precisely in language, because arbitrary decisions are presented to you as already taken, and all that remains for those who dissent is disobedience.
All this would already be enough to understand the gravity of the situation and what awaits us in the near future, or rather in our present. However, there is more than just this.
ChatGPT
The “system” uses technology, “Technique” as Galimberti would have said when (I am sorry to say) he hadn’t yet lost his marbles, to subjugate man, the youth first and foremost. And what better tool than Artificial Intelligence to carry out this operation? ChatGPT as a source of knowledge: easy, quick, and above all, free! Young people (and not only them) now use it daily, even to do the homework assigned to them by their teachers. The machine (suitably instructed via algorithms) tells you exactly what you ought to discover or do yourself through study and sacrifice. The result is a concept that does not belong to the person who was supposed to elaborate it, but something that is parroted back, without any critical mediation by the perceiving subject. The machine thinks for us and suggests what we must say and how we must behave. The best of all possible worlds, for the system.
Solutions? Frankly, I see none on the horizon. Those who possess an awareness of what is happening can parry the blows inflicted all around, for better or worse. For all the others, being immersed in it to the marrow, I see no solutions capable of making them “wake up”, bearing in mind that “dialogue” is useless, let alone convincing them otherwise from what they absorb on a daily basis. The struggle is unequal, personally I bow out. Best wishes to everyone! For the future and for the new year.
P.S.: After this more or less lengthy disquisition, I would have liked to talk about our beloved Country, Italialand, and the many “weapons of mass distraction” of this recent period (from the Cecchettin case and associated patriarchy, to the ESM and Meloni, ending with Ferragni). Unfortunately, or perhaps better for you, I have dwelled too long in this chat. I will (perhaps) talk about “Down the Rabbit Hole” (that is how I had titled the article) another time.
