Something that’s troubled me over the course of the last few years is the degree to which necessarily nuanced theory is distilled to punchy labels, then slowly loses meaning and is inevitably coopted and weaponized by the powerful people it originally critiqued.
I’m thinking in particular of the idea that language can be “violence.” Not simply when it explicitly encourages violent acts, or when it is so viciously over the top that it constitutes psychological abuse, but when it is the “soft edge” of a broader system of cultural force.
Over time that can dilute to the point that ideological opposition, quiet or open disagreement, or the existence of disagreeable ideas, is treated as being an act of aggression tantamount to genocide using the terminology (but not the rigor) of the original complex critiques.
The analytical power of “those words were violence” lies in its insistence that the connection between words and actions, between “talk” and the culturally synchronized actions that align with it, can perpetuate systems of oppression even more effectively than overt aggression.
But the rhetorical and emotional power of the phrase lies in its strength as an accusation: “you do not simply disagree with me, you are trying to destroy me, and your words carry the implicit threat of your intentions.”
Once that framing is decontextualized from the analysis thst it summarizes, it becomes parody: a rush to be the first who convincingly frames the other as “inherently violent.”
The “gender critical” movement accuses trans people of genocide, but a broader public unaccustomed to dissecting competing claims has few tools to compare that cry with the unfolding Actually Encoded In Law annihilation of trans existence.
The religious right now commonly twists this language to argue that societal acceptance of people it finds unacceptable is an act of violence against it — an assault on faith, by welcoming what the faith wishes to attack.
None of these will be solved by more vigorous application of the rhetoric; Gamergate and its endless culture war offshoots demonstrated that the competing claims dissolve into noise for a public used to using volume as a proxy for sincerity.