Sventipluk OP t1_j0zi0y3 wrote on December 20, 2022 at 3:59 PM

Reply to comment by NoYgrittesOlly in Anarchism at the End of the World: A defence of the instinct that won’t go away by Sventipluk

I can’t see the problem with caveats, or with expanding or deepening the use a word and, thereby, giving us a new understanding of it.

NoYgrittesOlly t1_j0zo5ns wrote on December 20, 2022 at 4:40 PM

When your terminology is so unwavering in its definition, when your ideology is supposedly so absolute, just a single caveat or exception shows it’s fallacy and conceptual failure. If it is a universal truth, then there shouldn’t be any exceptions to the rule. If there are, then your stance isn’t unassailable, and you need to re-examine why that is. If certain people needed to be dominated EVEN in an anarchist society, then how can domination be cast off? Don’t they prove that domination and control is NECESSARY for society to function in their very first paragraph?

And I am not a stickler on language. It’s a living organism, it evolves and grows. But if everyone understands the word ‘horse’ to mean a certain animal, why waste so much of an argument asserting that ‘true’ horses are actually deer? It just further obfuscates the topic and point you’re trying to make. Language should be clear and concise. It’s purpose is to convey meaning. Even after reading their points, I still vehemently disagree that ‘anarchy’ is the term they’re looking for, regardless of the strength of their essay or if their ideology is even attainable.

Sventipluk OP t1_j0zq9ra wrote on December 20, 2022 at 4:53 PM

> If it is a universal truth, then there shouldn’t be any exceptions to the rule.

Have you give that much thought?

> But if everyone understands the word ‘horse’ to mean a certain animal, why waste so much of an argument asserting that ‘true’ horses are actually deer?

A horse is a concrete object; hardly a contentious matter. A better analogy would be the word ‘love’. Nothing wrong with pointing out that few people use the word in anything but a disastrously superficial sense — many of our admired thinkers have said as much.