Does word policing actually help the left?

The “PC syndrome” —especially in America—is a neurosis that may have its origins in the relative irrelevancy of much of the US bourgeois left, not to mention that it is often the truncheon of choice of what is at bottom a liberal and not really radical positions. When the substance of problems is neglected, then form appears more critical than it is.

By Jon Hochschartner

At first, this made me want to bang my head against my desk. If anything was discourteous in the discussion, it was Jill’s assumption that I, and people like me, were such delicate flowers we might be thrown into an emotional tailspin by someone using a term like “crazy” in a way clearly not intended to be demeaning. But then it got me thinking. Where did this idea com from, that if we could just change people’s language, we could change society?

After all, as socialist writer Freddie deBoer reminds us, in classical Marxist theory, base determines superstructure. What this means is that for much of the left, since Marx’s death in 1883, culture, presumably including language, was influenced by the means of production and the relationship of competing classes to production, not the other way around.

So, obviously from a Marxist standpoint, you can’t fix economic inequality by demanding the rich be less snobby. Similarly, one must assume a Marxist wouldn’t believe you could end the stigmatization of mental illness by excising certain words from our vocabulary. You have to address the underlying, economic factors that create inequality and stigmatization of the mentally ill.

Now, I wouldn’t go so far as to say there is no benefit in trying to change problematic language. But I think the amount of energy the left currently places on this pursuit is wildly disproportionate. We should remember that when we focus on language we’re treating symptoms, not the disease. As deBoer points out, that seems to be a truth the modern left has forgotten.

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