“The” PatriarchynNotes on the Underground Life of LanguagenMany words current in our culture carry within them anwhole buried world of political assumptions andnpsychological payoffs. Just to use these words is to submitnyourself to a powerful attempt by the words’ coiners ornredefiners to shape reality and to impose a view of it thatnthey consider advantageous to themselves.nOften such words are used to establish what BronislawnMalinowski called, a “phatic communion,” that is, a tacitnagreement that draws a line around a “we” and excludes an”they.” Such words have a militant as well as a triumphalistnrole: when used against the “they” these words are a way ofnskating over uncertainties in the evidence and reasoning thatnsupport the in-group’s conclusions: the words themselvesnassume the existence of their referents. After all, how cannyou have a word that does not refer to something? Yet, as thendeconstructionists have shown us, the murdered uncertaintiesndo not go away, but continue to haunt the word, sousnrature, under erasure, greatly enriching its emotional andnideological force with the semantic guilt of the originalnerasure.nIn a sense, such words are always lies, not because they donnot refer to a reality (often, no doubt, they do), but becausenFrederick Turner’s most recent book, Genesis, wasnreviewed in the February issue.nby Frederick Turnernwhen used they represent an attempt to sneak through a setnof conclusions without arguing them: to shape the playingnfield in such a way that the nature of the game and perhapsnthe identity of winners and losers are foregone conclusions.nFurther: to use such words is essentially an attempt to tricknthe interlocutor, as in the old journalist’s question, “Havenyou stopped beating your wife?” or the psychoanalyst’s,n”How do you feel about your mother?” The trick is that tonjoin in dialogue on these terms is already to have concedednthe other person’s implied assertion. Yet since the asker ofnthe question or the user of the loaded word has opened anconversation, it would be churlish—breaking the fundamentalnhuman contract to join in dialogue when it isnoffered — to refuse to answer. To refuse to answer would,nmoreover, suggest that you had a guilty conscience, that younhad in fact committed the crime of which the “we” convictsnthe “they.”nAnd this crime is often so horrible and unredeemable —nun-Americanism, say, in the 50’s, or racism or sexismntoday — that the very imputation of it disqualifies thenaccused from standing in his or her own defense; to defendnhimself against such an accusation is to defend the crime.nThe vileness of the crime, by a sort of metaphysicaln”tunneling,” affects the guilt or innocence of the accused.nThe words that are used to do this are words of great power:nnnAPRIL 1989/19n