So much of the language that surrounds us - from things like economics, management theory, and the algorithms built into computer systems - appears to be objective and neutral. But in fact, it is loaded with powerful, and very debatable, political assumptions about how society should work and what human beings are really like.
Interpretation
Language is often perceived as neutral but carries hidden political biases.
This quote by Adam Curtis suggests that the language we encounter in various fields, such as economics and technology, is often assumed to be objective. However, it implies that this language is permeated with subjective political assumptions regarding societal structures and human nature, highlighting the importance of critically examining the words and frameworks we take for granted.
In practice
During a lecture on media influence, this quote can illustrate how our understanding is shaped by language.
Ever since the economic crisis in 2008, millions of people have accepted cuts in all sorts of things - from real wages and living standards to benefits and hospital care - without any real opposition. The cuts may be right, or they may be stupid - but the astonishing thing is how no-one really challenges them.
Both individuals and societies tell themselves stories to simplify and make sense of the messy chaos of reality.
In our age of individualism, we see computers as ways through which we can express our individuality. But the truth is that the computers are really good at spotting the very opposite. The computers can see how similar we are, and they then have the ability to agglomerate us together into groups that have the same behaviours.
One of the guiding beliefs of our consuming age is that we are all free and independent individuals. That we can choose to do pretty much what we want, and if we can't, then it's bad. But at the same time, co-existing alongside this, there is a completely different, parallel universe where we all seem meekly to do what those in power tell us to do.
Throughout the western world, new systems have risen up whose job is to constantly record and monitor the present - and then compare that to the recorded past. The aim is to discover patterns, coincidences and correlations, and from that, find ways of stopping change. Keeping things the same.
I and you-We are infinate, rich, large, contradictory, living, breathing miracles-free human beings, children of God and the everlasting universe. That's what we do.
People think that I must be a very strange person. This is not correct. I have the heart of a small boy. It is in a glass jar on my desk.
But before we die, how shall we live? I say with hope and dignity; and if premature death is the result, that death has a meaning reactionary suicide can never have. It is the price of self-respect.
I lock my door upon myself, And bar them out; but who shall wall Self from myself, most loathed of all?
Auschwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they’re only animals.
It is among the evils of slavery that it taints the very sources of moral principle. It establishes false estimates of virtue and vice: for what can be more false and heartless than this doctrine which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity to depend upon the color of the skin?
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