A Language of Violence.

We often think of language as a utility. The null hypothesis: language develops because it is preferable (faster, more nuanced, fungible) to speak or write than to signal through bodily signs/gifts/war ect.

The alternate hypothesis is that language is an expression of power on the part of the ruling (sacrificed) class. The mimetic ‘crisis’, which is resolved through sacrifice, produces a symbolic difference between the condemned victim and the collective. In Nietzschean terms it is at the moment of sacrifice that the aristocrats seize the “right to create values”, . The values produced by the sacrificial victim are ad hoc, since the victim can be blamed for anything. While the choice of victim is mostly arbitrary, the place of the victim is of prime importance. Because the victim is different than the rest of the society during the ritual sacrifice, all cultural meaning is conferred upon the victim. This is why sacrifice is always highly ritualized, highly cultured. In the most primitive forms of sacrifice only the body of the victim is a signifies. But over time, two competing genealogies of language develop. The first of the king, the second from the crowd.

Recall that because he brings temporary peace, the victim, even if believed guilty, is temporarily worshiped. Worshiped not always in the strict sense, but in a way that mirrors the mysterious awe and terror of the crowd. The first kings, are victims who manage to abstract or forestall their execution, reshaping the reverence of the crowd into concrete power. Therefore, what the king says, is important. What the king says is copied, repeated and in this way the values and characteristics of this king become codified as language. Whereas the first ‘genealogy’ of language is similar to Nietzsche’s account, the second ‘genealogy’ is more complex. By selecting the victims, the crowd enforces a cultural standard. Remnants of this second claim are unveiled by the founding murder-myths of Romulus and Remus and many others. Just as Remus is killed for transgressing the 7-hills policy in Rome, the successive sacrifice of victims, determine the acceptable limits for behavior in society. Note, that the casual direction is the opposite of what one might expect. The reasons are arbitrary but the sacrifices make those reasons law.

This second ‘genealogy’ suggests that language is “violent”. (Because it is contingent on the order of ancient sacrifice). Language is just the sum of all prohibitions resulting from the order of ancient sacrifice. Therefore, by it’s nature, language is prohibitive. Perhaps this is the brilliant intuition of the post-modernists: language must always be changing, in-motion, words go from being permitted to embraced to taboo, because this is how we outrun the oppressive prohibitions of ages long past.

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