Shouldn't anarchists make their own dictionary?

Miscellaneous General
1

I know we’re all anarchists here (and minarchists) so I thought I’d ask the question on this forum. Hear me out here please. I have some ideas.

I’ve lately been thinking about the dictionary and how wrong it is and how bad it is at explaining things. Many of the terms are written by statists who write terms about government and leave you with no idea of what they mean. These people control the language, and, they control what things mean are, and, they leave people with the illusion that these things are what they are and what the dictionary definition is what they are. I think who controls the language has a lot of control over the way that these words are used. These people are essentially a government themselves. Britiannica whether we like it or not- is an authority- and people take their words at face value from the dictionary. I don’t know about you but there have been many times when I’ve looked in the dictionary and found out some word means something else other than I thought it did. I’m surprised over how many times that some word that described a political philosophy was completely wrong.

These people control the language, and, can control how it’s used, and, if they control how it’s used they can condition the masses. These people are essentially part of the establishment of the elites. These people make meanings of words for those that don’t know better about the word- to read up its actual meaning- and see how much more specific or how unlike the definition- or how the word actually is used… and often times dictionary definitions give you no real meaning or real idea of what something actually is. It’s just basically in my opinion- thought control.

I was wondering if we should come up with our own counter dictionary. I know this idea sounds kind of weird. I just think that the dictionary does seem to have a lot of tendencies to be statist and sometimes outright wrong. We don’t need to control how other people think or what structure other people think in necessarily. I just think that it would be appropriate if we offered our own dictionary for people interested in those other double meanings of various words found in the dictionary that are flat out wrong. As with socialism- we could give the word two definitions which are (1) a system of government control over private industry or we could say (2) a theory that cries out for freedom and equality, perfect equality, which probably cannot be achieved in nature at our current state and even then… it has potential problems. What I’m saying is that we can expand on the dictionary definition of various things. I think it would certainly do a lot of good if more people understood the anarchistic way of looking at things… they already have a statist dictionary for things… so why not make a dictionary with the anarchic form of thought?

2

I don’t know why this is being ignored. It seems our #1 priority, given our entire language is based around statist superstitions. Language is the most powerful weapon we have, and we’re letting the statists control the game entirely, right down to words like “anarcho-capitalist.” I wrote much more about this here.

I think you slipped off track here. The idea of redefining terms is not to advocate anything, or say which is better, but simply to define them more accurately, stripped of the baggage of the superstition that we need a state. Your (2) is not the domain of a dictionary, but of an encyclopedia. If socialism is as much of a total cluster-f**k as we say it is, simply defining it properly may well be enough to disillusion anyone advocating it.

Merriam-Webster defines socialism as a political theory advocating “collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.”

From the anarcho-capitalist perspective, a better definition might be, “a theory advocating monopoly control (usu. legitimatized or accepted by a sufficient portion of the population) of the means of production and distribution of goods, using violence and/or the threat of violence to obtain funding and shut out all free enterprise.”

This is a fair, unbiased definition. It may not appear so, but it is. The reason it makes socialism look so obviously bad is merely because socialism is bad, but the wording in the statist definition was obscuring the way of the truth. I think it’s essential for us to make a dictionary, maybe a wiki, where we make all possible effort to define terms in ways that no one could coherently object to. In so doing, the arguments make themselves!

I think this could be the clearest and easiest way of leading people to libertarian conclusions. Our battle is a semantic one. Anyone that doubts this need only look at how most debates on these forums, especially against socialists and communists, end up being based around differences of definition.

3

I’m not suggesting using the dictionary to make them come up with anarchistic conclusions. If we did that wouldn’t that make us just as bad as the statists who try to monopolize the dictionaries? I used the socialism example because I wanted to point out how we could also let the reader of the dictionary know a bit more about the political terms and various reasons people don’t think they will work or various reasons why they don’t work. We shouldn’t be using it to manipulate them. My main suggestion though was that dictionaries are often statist… and… I think we should at least create a dictionary where two meanings of the terms are given that relate to statist terminology- one being the statist one- and the other being the non-statist point of view. Anarchy is known to many as something that would be complete and utter chaos- to us- however we fight a hard fight because we know there is more to it than that. I believe the fundamental way that people see the world is based on language. If they had more of the language of which we used I would certainly say that they could come to our conclusions or make up their own mind as to what they believe in. I wasn’t recommending anything sinister of the sort.

4

I fully agree with this sentiment, and the idea of having two definitions - the statist one and the anarchist one - seems even better. That way, readers would be alerted to, and inoculated against, all the semantic distortions statists use, which are pervasive in our society and all its language. I really think this could be top priority for bringing about the dissolution of the State, and I know this will be overlooked because most people don’t understand how important language is.

5

I think one of the reasons language is overlooked is because people don’t know of its value that much. People seem to think that they can just pick up sound bites from what they hear or what they see or what they read. People lack original thoughts, well, I wouldn’t go that far- but- people are so used to the language they have that it’s natural to them and they don’t completely understand how the language or thought process which they have has shaped them. If more people understood this in the anarchist movement here- I think- we could make major progress in trying to reshape the way that these other people think about the world. I don’t think of it as brainwashing. I would think of it as persuasion. We could at least tell them about what our words really mean… because it’s like to the statists and us we see two entirely different worlds… if they could see things more our way I bet more of them would be on our side.

6

If people understood what words meant, almost all of them would be on our side. The war we fight is primarily one of semantics. With definitions cleared up, it’s only a matter of time before people see the error of their ways. To see this, note that almost all arguments in most every subject end up in disagreements about semantics.

7

We will also have to educate statists. When they stop being statists they will have to learn to think for themselves. They will have to come up with their own solutions. When I was a statist it was really easy for me to understand the world in black and white terms. To me it was just Republican- good, Democrat- bad… then for a while it was government intervention- bad, and now I see the state for what it is- a monopolistic control grid scheming to gain more and more power over the populace. They think the state regulates things for our own good… when I know that it really does it to increase their power- under- the guise of protection. We can’t get rid of the state right now…

But I think we need to educate statists in the mean time to change their method of thinking about how powerful the state should be. It’ll take time yes… they don’t have to agree with all of our thinking… I mean I don’t agree with anyone 100% ever… but… they should at least really put some critical thinking into changing their ways. So I would agree with that. You remember how being a statist was, so, I think you would know the correct way that one would go about trying to persuade them to come to a certain view, and, changing their stance on a particular issue, or so on.

This is why I say that they should at least know how we think. And we shouldn’t comprise the dictionary of only one school of anarchistic thought. It should be of all of them. Would it be really representative if only your school of anarchistic thought was represented, rather than mine per se, or, if only Rothbard’s school of thought was represented? If only one school of anarchistic thought was represented in the dictionary- like with libertarian school of thought or marxian anarchistic school of thought- it would not do much good. People need to first be freed from the statist doctrine- and- I think multiple views would help get them to think differently about different problems.

And why only stop at a dictionary though? We could go further. We could make our own encyclopedia Britannica. We could make counter versions of statist doctrines so they know our philosophies and where we stand.

I could go on more about this… but it’s getting late… so I’ll post more about it tomorrow… but those are my basic ideas. The dictionary I guess would be the first step- and then the education would come second. That would be the only way to get them to see the errors in their ways.

8

Yeah, I think I agree. I definitely remember what being a statist was like. In fact I was a minarchist until two weeks ago when I discovered these forums and went on a reading spree. And I was a normal statist until a year-and-a-half ago when I learned about Ron Paul. I always hated politics, though, so I guess I was bound to reach anarchy or minarchy eventually, once I really investigated things.

Dictionary then encyclopedia - sure, like our own Wikipedia. But first things first, shall we get some words defined? Off the top of my head…

-Anarchy-

Statist definition: No government, synonymous with chaos. Cf. law of the jungle.

Anarchist definition: No monopolies on anything, power and authority decentralized to the maximum practical extent. Etymology: Greek “without leaders”

-Capitalism-

Statist definition: System where the means of production are privately owned and workers are exploited for big business owners’ profit.

Anarchist definition: System with no restrictions on voluntary exchange of goods and services. Exploitation is not allowed, as all service provision and compensation are voluntary.

-Public-

Statist definition: Of, pertaining to, or for the benefit of the general population. Ex. public good.

Anarchist definition: A contrived word used by the State to imply that its interests are those of all the people under its reign. This is part and parcel with the collective use of we to refer to the State but implying that all people are included.

-Private-

Statist definition: Of, pertaining to, or for the benefit of an individual or special interest group that is not affiliated with the State, and therefore not affiliated with the people. Ex. private profit.

Anarchist definition: A contrived word used by the State to imply, by default based on the contrast with public, that individuals or groups are always “someone else” or “not us,” thereby obscuring the fact that any monopoly-enforced law applying to one individual or group may come to be used against any member of society, naturally including oneself.

etc… sure someone could do better than the above

9

I would like a humorous anarcho-capitalist dictionary, sure. Humor sells ideas more often than serious debate.