Before answering you, I'll have to say that I have to delve a little deeper into the topic and explore the naming further. Especially getting familiar with horizontalism as practiced in Argentina through horizontalidad, and whether there are other conceptions of it. It seems to me that what is different from horizontalidad and my conception is that horizontalidad focus on being a non-ideological, that's not my appraoch. I focus on an umbrella horizontalism where responsibility of unwellness lokening is put upon each tradition under the umbrella. When I say horizontalism from here on, I refer to umbrella horizontalism.
I'll edit the post afterwards to share what I need to focus more on.
There are strains of ostensibly ‘anarchist’ movements that attempt to enter the anarchist umbrella, and through consensus among anarchist movements have been rejected. If the umbrella was not important there would not be an incentive for entryists to try and usurp it. De-prioritizing the value of the umbrella leaves it vulnerable to future entryism. Fascists in particular love to copy anarchist aesthetics, and opposing this requires vigilance.
That's certainly true. Gatekeeping is necessary. I think this gatekeeping should be done from individual traditions. Each tradition should gatekeep it's own tradition, but they should also challenge other traditions to be consistent with horizontal values.
And as absurd as your example may seem on the surface, it is not unusual in practice. All three are engaged an a morbid game for control for the levers power within a state. In this high stakes contest, the people cannot be said to be honestly represented by any party - they are the chips the players throw into the pot. Anarchism seeks to stop the game, replace it with one that isn’t predicated on casually discarding human lives. Like rival gamblers towards an outsider who has come to upend the card table, the players are more likely to unite in opposition to anarchists than to concede their justice.
That's true. They powder hierarchies as democracies.
If you’re not currently aware, you may want to read up on the concept of Linguistic Relativity. This is a concept that has been explored by many anarchist adjacent authors including George Orwell, Suzette Haden Elgin, and Sonja Lang.
I am very interested in linguistic relativity. I call my approach language bondframe as in how language bind us to everything that is around us. I have looked into George Orwell, but I don't know Suzette Haden Elgin nor Sonja Lang. Thank you for recommendations:)
While there may be some correlation between the structure of language and thought, the scientific consensus is that relationship is not strong. Old words primarily carry their modern connotations, and thus any malformed word can be re-purposed by consistent transformative usage. People rarely think of breakfast as the breaking of a fast, for example. More importantly, people who use the word ‘sunrise’ are not more likely to view the word as flat, or the center of the solar system – as its early usage and etymology implies.
I'd say the way we refer to something says something about our relationship to it. I refer to this as the language bondframe.
If I say that I do juggling as a hobby, you would probably think that I do it for entertainment. If I say juggling is one of my masteries, then you would probably think that I practiced juggling actively in the pursuite of becoming a master. If I say that juggling is my growth, then you would think that I did it because I feel growth from doing it. Or that's how I would view it.
Some words normalize structures of might or romanticize them. Being rich for instance is usually seen as something dezirable. The myth of the rich is that they are wise, well dressed, hard working and deservant of their wealth. This myth makes us think of the rich in a favourable light. Even in a term seemingly unrelated to the rich such as "vitamine rich" the word rich refers to "being abundnat", but we conceptualize this abundance through the image of the rich. That's how I view it at least, but it woulnd't surprise me if I have some blindspots in my reasonings.
I'd claim that a word like sunrise doesn't imply a flat earth regardless of how the sun moves relative to Gaja, from the earth perspective, the sun does move upwards.
Something I would say about the word sunrise is that it is a poetic word in that clearly shows how it's composition into the knots "sun" and "rise", each of these knots has clear images, and the knots are used actively in english in other contexts. The word sunrise is therefore partitionable, has imageclearity and is submerged into the language structure. These qualities strengthen our ability to take guidership for our language in the sense that they increase the general insight into the langauge, increase the word creationability and increase the flexibility of the language. They move the language away away from memorizing towards creativity. This is in contrast to words like "composition", "components" or "quality".
Meanwhile new words of the type you are suggesting are subject to increased scrutiny, based on the implied acceptance of the framing that language determines thought. For example your new vocabulary like ‘relight’ and ‘sightsteer’ could be seen as linguistically re-enforcing existing negative biases against blind people or worse intentionally privileging people with sight as more cognitively capable.
And rightfully so. A word should be challenged, regardless of whether it is rooted or sprouted.
I believe as long as we are okay with words like enlighted, insight, outlook, then making words from these knots is fine. It is fine to challenge light as a symbol of knowledge, but then it isn't about challenging the new word, but challenging submerged structures.
To be clear, I am saying that we as anarchists generally should focus on activities that are likely to further our goals, the ultimate goal being a more just society that collectively respects the importance each of its members’ individuality. I think building alternate vocabularies and languages are less effective means of achieving those goals. Despite that, I also believe your experiments with vocabulary are charming, and if you can absorb my criticism and still find it a worthwhile activity, I hope you continue.
The reason I think language is so important in our struggles is because words steers our attention. By being language aware, we can more effectively control our attention to combat the machine and forward the meaningful.