Anarchopathology of Language (1/5): From the Poetics of Enchantment to ………..

 Anarchopathology of Language (1/5): From the Poetics of Enchantment to the Clamor of Propaganda in the Language of Political Careerism

Mahmoud Sadeghi Janbahan

“English translation provided by ChatGPT.”

 

Introduction

Political language in modern history has consistently been exposed to a peculiar form of contamination—oscillating between two seemingly opposite yet essentially kindred poles: poeticization and sloganeering. At first sight, they appear as divergent modes of expression, yet in their deeper structure both converge on the same pathology: the reproduction of domination through the cultivation of excitement, deception, and spectacle.

The language of domination, colonialism, and power-centered politics is at times veiled in seductive poetic guise, and at other times resounds through the noisy hollowness of slogans. In both cases, politics is distanced from the horizon of critical rationality, justice-oriented philosophizing, and freedom-seeking discourse. Instead, language is reduced to an instrument for consolidating power.

Anarchopathology of language, as a branch of Anarchology, does not approach this phenomenon merely descriptively or theoretically, but rather as a pathology of language in its foundational function—that is, language as the very medium that opens a world for knowledge, liberation, and freedom.

This article undertakes a dissection of the colonial language of poetry and slogans in the guise of political practice—a language that harbors at its very core an insidious potential for enslavement. It seeks to carve out a new horizon for the critique and understanding of political language: a language that, rather than emerging from its authentic ground, remains entrapped in the alien grammar of power. Such entrapment produces a distorted politics, one that entangles its actors in reproducing the very structures of domination they claim to resist.

From the perspective of Anarchology of Language, language is not merely a communicative tool, but a dynamic mechanism with a protective structure oriented toward sustaining justice and freedom. Although this orientation never fully actualizes in historical reality, it remains an inherent potential, a latent striving for emancipation that dwells within language itself.

Language, in this framework, is understood not only as an instrument for cognitive, ethical, emotional, and social communication—a channel mediating between self and world—but also as a possibility for free and equal dialogue. It is within such dialogue that the ultimate experience of freedom germinates, grows, and becomes manifest. Thus, language is not merely a vessel for transmitting meaning, but a locus of encounter with oneself and the world—a pathway that continually reproduces the conditions of free existence.

In this sense, one may say: language is human, and the human is language.

The essence of language as such is devoid of domination—neither inherently submissive nor oppressive. Yet this emptiness is not a fixed or stable reality; it is a potentiality that may be opened toward freedom or captured in the reproduction of domination. Systems of authority—whether in family, school, society, or state institutions—constantly strive to appropriate this potential and instrumentalize it for their own purposes. Hence, a language whose inherent disposition tends toward freedom is historically transformed into a tool of power.

Anarchology of Language acknowledges that the complete emancipation of language from domination can never be finally achieved. The will to power—rooted in history and in what may be called the rebellion of Cain—perpetually confronts the liberating tendency of language. This tension is inscribed in the very structure of existence. Yet, impossibility of absolute liberation does not imply the futility of emancipatory movement. Just as one can never embrace the sun yet always approach its warmth, so too can one move toward a freer language without ever achieving perfect unity with it. This ceaseless struggle constitutes the existential core of Anarchology of Language, for only through such tension does the possibility of critique, education, therapy, and linguistic emancipation emerge.

From this perspective, the anarchopathological critique of political language becomes an unavoidable necessity. It entails the recognition of language’s pathological functions, the diagnosis of its distortions, and the dissection of its mechanisms of deviation. Identifying the maladies of language—especially its contamination by domination within politics—is among the most crucial steps toward emancipation.

Contemporary politics—particularly in Iran, and even more strikingly within its opposition movements under authoritarian structures—is afflicted with a dual pathology:

• On the one hand, poeticization, which manifests as exaggeration in speech, ambiguity in analysis, inconsistency in orientation, and contradiction in interpretation. This is the language of metaphor, allegory, and aestheticized ambiguity—a language that feigns rationality yet veils truth in the garb of imagination. Not coincidentally, propaganda systems have long exploited art and literature in precisely this way to aestheticize and legitimize power.
• On the other hand, sloganeering, which reduces language to hollow noises and empty promises, detached from praxis and reality. It floods the ears of the people with grandiose rhetoric while remaining devoid of any genuine commitment or transformative power.

Though appearing opposed, these two modes function as complements: both distance political language from the horizons of justice and freedom, reducing it to a mechanism of deception, emotional manipulation, and domination.

Hence, the anarchopathological critique of political language is indispensable. By unmasking the dual sickness of poeticization and sloganeering, this critique opens a horizon for a new politics—one grounded not in spectacle or empty promises, but in moral courage, linguistic transparency, and fidelity to truth.

In this horizon, political language can no longer serve as an aesthetic mask for domination or as an echo chamber of empty noise. Instead, it becomes a space for thinking, dialogue, and ethical resistance.

Citation:

Sadeghi Janbahan, M. (2025). Anarchopathology of Language: From the Poetics of Enchantment to the Clamor of Propaganda in the Language of Political Careerism (Part 1 of 5). Retrieved from: https://anarchology.blogfa.com