The problem with words

                 While the past century's major theoretical and philosophical dialogues have engaged explicitly, specifically and mostly with various approaches to "words", it has created a reality where words have become suspicious with respect to the ones engaged in using them. We suspect words, now more than ever, because we seem to have acknowledged skepticism as being rooted even in our most commonplace intuitions. And hence, we suspect more than words - we seem to suspect every possible meaning. To be a skeptic is to be revolutionary and to suspect is to revolt. Such is our condition. There is no point denying that a blindfolded eulogizing of this specific attitude has become part of the general trend. One may rightfully ask, what has this led to? To answer it, the by-product is broadly didactic. We either accept blindly that we know, or we accept that we know that we don't know. The fact we really don't know, or fail to realize is that none of these two conditions are exclusively present at a given moment. Or more specifically, we fail to locate words and their meanings with respect to their location in a society. The fact that words have become suspect is not exclusive of a socio-economic basis. Knowledge, and its multiple assertive divergences, various epistemological perspectives arise undeniably from specific social conditions. To realize and engage with this truth gives us clarity, and gives direction to skepticism, gives shape to our questions. To reevaluate a previous statement, we can say that to be a skeptic is to accept the presence of cognition, and to suspect is to realize that actions are performed in accordance with that cognition. But, this is no astounding revelation; it is in fact our most fundamental nature. What adds substance to it is the element of conscious effort. 

To suspect words, is to suspect meaning(s). As much as it is true that language does bear an element of arbitrariness, it is also true at the same time, that this notion of arbitrariness itself has been politicized. Words, in a capitalist society are not mere linguistic artifacts (as alienated academicians tend to emphasize time and again). They are methodically shaped for definite purposes. By utilizing their arbitrariness in correspondence to their relation to the common mass, they are very subtly yet very sharply militarized - aimed at charging ahead and engulfing the whole of society towards ideological alienation, and ultimately to commodification. Note that it takes very few words to propagate propagandas of falsehood and it takes a humongous amount of not words, but entire literature(s) to prove them wrong. Advertisements are short, meant to be captivating, to be ambiguous and arbitrary, to consistently escape suspicion, to constantly mold their encroaching intentions by putting up the illusion of choice. Words, militarized by the capitalist class fulfills two purposes - it hides the perpetrators by holding the common mass as effectuators. Therefore, to say it again, words are not mere linguistic artefacts. Since words are suspicious, socio-economic foundations of society too are suspicious. But to be suspect speculatively either leads to partial action or no action at all. To consciously explicate and investigate into the chain of causes could still be perhaps considered the most basic step towards action. Doing so will at least induce a possibility of further progress; but without it, all falls flat!