>At 12:20 AM 6/16/98 -0400, Ingrid wrote:
>>original offensive comment was my perception that too many on the left
>>seem to think that if we could only repair the language we could change the
>>world.
>
>Ditto. I would not say it better myself. Which, IMHO, is yet another sign
>of the Left losing its materialistic roots and venturing into the quagmire
>of culture and symbol manipulation. On the pain of opening that can of
>worms again, I really like culture, especially of the "high end" variety, I
>just do not think it is a substitute (like religion) for material living
>conditions.
It's not a matter of either or. New words tend to emerge from changing self-perceptions of those involved in struggles for a better world. For instance, the term 'sex worker' makes us recognize that prostitution is a labor issue as well as a feminist issue--a question of economics, gender relations, ideology about sex and work, and so on--and forces us to question the socially sanctioned morality (reinforced by the pejorative use of the word 'whore') that says that prostitution is bad but paid employment and marriage are good.
Capitalists know that words have an important function of affecting the self-perception of workers. And that is the reason why, for example, they took to calling retail workers 'sales associates' and have created so many 'managers' who do little managing of consequence.
Yoshie