Language as a Source of Liberation, and Language as a Source of Control

Abstract

We think and act through language. It determines how we exchange ideas, express emotions and see the world. And as such, language has always been a motor for enlightenment and progress, but also a means of control. It expresses our identity, and that identity takes multiple forms, affecting and shaping our values and priorities, how we view the world and those around us. They also determine the language we use - and this, not surprisingly, often becomes a source of political, social, cultural and ideological struggle.

It also explains why, over the course of history, the wielders of power have sought to restrict or alter the use of language - by controlling education, culture, social customs, awareness of history and perceptions of identity. Poles have their own experience of this from the time of the Partitions, when imperial rulers attempted to curb transmission of the Polish language. Yet the efforts are being witnessed today, notably in Russia's portrayal of events in Ukraine.

Are there grounds for thinking struggles over language have become more extreme today, in the face of new ideological and social pressures, as powerful and well-resourced lobbies and interest-groups manipulate the confusion and self-doubt of the majority to advance their own agendas?

If so, we should remind ourselves that the spread of permissive, self-willed Western mindsets is very far from universal. Indeed, such mindsets are widely contested; and while social media and mass culture have been used as vehicles for promoting radical change, they are also being used increasingly as channels for a more integral, conservative vision of the world and humanity. We need to think and speak with critical precision, with a healthy empirical scepticism - and reject the lazy reliance on epithets, categorisations, stereotypes and simplifications which the new ideological orthodoxies so often rely upon.