Polis: Revista de Stiinte Politice (Sep 2016)
La responsabilità di ciò che si dice. Una proposta nonviolenta per una nuova dinamica linguistica (The responsibility for one’s words. A nonviolent proposal for a new linguistic dynamics)
Abstract
he article deals with the complex dynamics between violence, power and the words we use in everyday life. According to the violent Western culture we belong to, not always aware of our responsibilities, language is metaphorically a murderous dispute between speakers struggling to assert an incontrovertible truth, although they have no monopoly on it. Those who talk with pretensions to truth have a fundamentalist attitude and speak in a belligerent manner. Basically we can avoid it only by changing our reference conceptual system as well as the way we observe reality. A sort of linguistic violence occurs because dialogue takes place “in a state of war” according to the stringent logic of the principle of non-contradiction. But we should consider the multifaceted dimensions of reality and also that complexity cannot be said once and for all, nor can it be resolved according to the principle of non-contradiction. We should then make a theoretical effort, i.e. get accustomed to considering the single opening of the ego to reality as a mere relative point of view among many other relative points of view. Different opinions can stand together with/in a plurality of positions according to a non-belligerent confrontation style. However, the words which “save” us from violence are not saved once and for all. The one who linguistically acts in a libertarian and nonviolent area should always bear in mind that his words can turn fundamentalist and shouldn’t forget that, despite an attitude based on mutual understanding and reciprocal inter-esse, the total liberation from dominion is not a fixed goal but a moving one, because the liberation from tyranny is not either a fact or an object but a process, something you achieve (if ever) along the way.
