this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2024
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Radicality, language and oakism (discuss.online)
submitted 1 month ago by vegafjord@discuss.online to c/climate
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The sickness of Earth requires us to become more radical. Because when we see that the system is unable to regulate itself to take care of Earth, it shows that the system doesnt work. The foundations has to change. The discussion has to be, how did the system lead us here? And how can we rebuild society from a healthy foundation?

Being radical is necessary.

But we are not radical in our language. Even those who conciders themselves radicals are very conservative with their word usage.

In particular, we keep on using words from academia, capitalism and classical left wing think tanks. The communist will talk about the borgoisie and proletariat - The climate activists will talk about co2 footprint, the consumer and overconsumption - The academia frames everything in terms of problems and solutions.

We need to examine the words we use, and allow ourselves to relight our language towards a remediated language. Where we stop being part of the machine, and start being part of the global networks of life in Earth.

Because without the willingness of changing your language, you show unwillingness to be the change you want to see.

In this spirit, I have made the thinktank oakism. Founded on 5 frames.

Cohold ٨٨ - To help those who needs it. Allmen ٨ - Let humans be in center of power, not grippers. Degrip 🪰 - To prevent grip. Nurture 🌻 To grow ourselves and our peers. Colife 🐝 To live with, not against nature and our peers.

Oakism is an approach to remediate Earth. To concisely pinpoint attitudes that remediates, and also makes it very visual. Because humans has easier to grasp words when they are visual.

  • I know this post is kind of a mess, but I just wanted to post something.
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[–] rah@feddit.uk 6 points 1 month ago

I just wanted to post something

🙄

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I have some issues with your approach:

  • Intentionality is fine, but language has definite meaning, and forcing culture to adopt specific terms rarely works. Language evolves organically.
  • The only groups we should be disparaging are the Capitalistic ones. Academia (in which I am including scientists generally) has a very specific way of expressing themselves concisely, and think-tanks tailor their language to whichever group they're trying to reach.
  • Academia (and possibly think tanks) should be considered the expert source, and what is needed are more and better science communicators, people who can explain the science and terminology to laypeople.
  • I couldn't find anything about a think-tank called "Oakism." Are you just declaring one yourself in this moment? What are your goals? How do you plan to achieve them? What kinds of research or studies do you plan to do? Who is your audience? Do you have any financial support? Are you a charity or nonprofit?

I don't mean to be overly critical, but this smells like some woo nonsense, especially since it seems like you're disparaging academia and think-tanks. I'm not entirely convinced you know what they do or how they operate.

[–] vegafjord@discuss.online 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

"Language evolves organically"

This is oftentimes true, but there is also efforts to shape language. In particular, commercials has the goal of changing our language. Creating new words, making certain words being associated with certain brands. Creating insecurities with the youth is a way of preassuring them into buying beauty products.

We can also see that the fossil fuel industry inserted the idea of co2/farting footprint into our heads. This has shifted our focus away from the producers of fossil fuel, to the consumer. This certainly has made it a lot easier to extract more fossil fuel.

"We should not critique academic words"

My main critique of academic language is that it is not down to earth. This means that a lot of communication is lost on the way when trying to use these words in an everyday context.

I'll give the example of ecosystem. If you are going to explain ecosystem to somebody, you need to go into etymology and the history of the word in order to fully understand what it means. It's not a very down to earth word although the concept is easily understood.

"Oakism"

I've created the term. I have made this project in order to remediate Earth. I believe the symbolism of anarchism was too divisive, so I created my own symbolism to better communicate what this ideology means to me.

The goal is to remediate Earth by changing language. Because language changes our action, our attitudes and other people's language. The remediation that oakism comes with is that we need to degrip, show cohold, nurture and show colife as well as to let people rule, not grippers.

"Woo nonsense"

Yeah, I get that. That's what I expect people to think. I usually don't get a lot of response on my posts, so I appreciate you took time to respond:)

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It was a bit of a serious critique, but I'm glad you took it in stride. It wasn't meant to be antagonistic.

To your point about academic words, it's not that I don't think we should critique them, it's that it's not a "language" for the common people. That's why I mentioned the need for science communicators, of which there is a current deficit. If you changed or removed that academic language apart from them, you'd lose a lot of vital nuance.

We should absolutely be conscientious of the way we talk and what we're saying, but I don't really see a need or benefit to inventing our own terminology or trying to force a shift in the current terms, since that necessarily creates out-groups, and we need to be as inclusive as possible when it comes to solving the global crisis we face (i.e. this problem is everyone's to solve).

What we need are ambassadors who can translate for common people. There's a lot of bad actors who take advantage of people's ignorance and utilize equivocation to their selfish ends, and if we can demystify the data, fewer people would be taken in by those charlatans.

[–] vegafjord@discuss.online 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

"critique"

Don't worry about that. I'm kind of asking for it when I'm such an language anarchist.

"Demystify"

To put it bluntly, the gripist attitude is why we are where we are today.

Our obsession with control over everything, to have a system that takes care of us so that we don't need to understand the world. The gripist attitude has alienated us from everything and is the reason why we don't stop the poisoning of Earth.

But a science communicator could never say that because it is outside the neutrality paradigm. Because nothing can be political, even when being political is the only way to make the message clear.

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

But a science communicator could never say that because it is outside the neutrality paradigm.

You clearly don't listen to the same science communicators I listen to. 😆

I recommend folks like Forrest Valkai, Erika "Gutsick Gibbon," and Dave Farina (AKA Professor Dave), to name a few. They have no qualms about making science personal and pointing out the bad actors and social issues that stem from disinformation.

[–] vegafjord@discuss.online 3 points 1 month ago

Ill check them out then, thanks for tip;)

[–] piefedderatedd@piefed.social 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Saw your post earlier today and thought it was interesting. Let me just share these thoughts for the sake of sharing thoughts like in a brain storm session :

  • Wanting a sustainable world, solidarity, and live in peace is normal.
  • The more climate crisis denial grows within conservative circles, the more some behavior of opposing people can be called radical by the former conservatives instead of called what it really is : natural.
  • The words left and right in politics were maybe useful many years ago but it has lost its true meaning. Perhaps better words are conservative versus progressive.
[–] vegafjord@discuss.online 1 points 1 month ago

I wouldnt identify as a progressive, because I am not a follower of progress through governments.

I rather want us to move our society away from governments and capital, because I view them as grippers.

Instead I want power to be where people are at. Empowered by for example the oakism framework that will guide them into having good language, attitudes and actions. That includes a response to what happens if somebody unjustifiably takes grip.