Nigger

Do words have meaning independent of their context?

A simple “Yes” or “No” cannot answer the question.  Instead, we should imagine a continuum, with “Yes” on one extreme and “No” on the other.  People who believe context plays no part in the meaning of a word would fall on the “Yes” extreme, while those who say that words are meaningless outside of their context would be on the opposite extreme.  The greater the power held by words themselves, the closer one veers towards “Yes,” and the greater the influence of context on the meaning of words, the closer one gets to “No.”

I am much closer to “No” than I am to “Yes.”  I believe words have meaning, but that their meaning is incredibly flexible, and molded by the situation in which they are used and the intentions of the person using the word.  A perfect example are those situations in which people use a word or expression incorrectly, and the listeners understand or even accept the new incorrect meaning of the word.  At a recent conference, an audience member made reference to throwing “low balls,” when really he meant to say throwing a “soft ball,” but everyone knew what he meant, and other audience members repeated the “throwing a low ball” expression.

There are many people, however, that lean heavily towards the “Yes” answer.  People on the left and politically correct-types are strong believers in the power of words, and tend to ignore contextualized meanings.  These people believe words (independent of their intended and implied meanings based on the situation) can be offensive and hateful, which leads to a prohibition of words in all contexts and situations. (Caveat: for certain words, the prohibition only applies to certain groups of people) This prohibition has, in my view, ridiculous and nonsensical outcomes.  For example, I, as a white person, am prohibited from reciting lines from one of my favorite rap songs by Nas (“I rap for listeners, blunt-heads, fly ladies, and prisoners,/Henessy-holders and old-school niggers…”), because the word “nigger” is offensive even when quoting someone who is using it in a completely inoffensive way.

Another ridiculous outcome is the use of the term “n-word.”  Saying “n-word” is the same thing as saying “nigger;” everyone listening understands “n-word” to mean “nigger.”  Is it somehow better to use the term “n-word” in an offensive context?  Is it somehow better to speak of an African-American as an “n-word”?  Of course not.  The only thing the speaker is doing when he says “n-word” instead of “nigger,” is signaling to his audience that he is a firm believer that words hold special powers and that context doesn’t matter.  This is the same as religious conservatives who refuse to use curse words, and instead use the term “the f-word” or “the s-word.”  If you are not using “fuck” in an offensive context, why should anyone be offended by its use?

The worst part is that those who lean towards the “Yes” answer have completely imposed their belief system on everyone else.  People are now far more likely to be offended by a word rather than by the meaning of the word given the context involved, due to the influence of political correctness.  So, when someone on the left argues that we shouldn’t use certain words as a precaution, because regardless of their context people might still be offended by them, this person is using circular logic.  The reason someone might be offended by a word regardless of their context has to do with the efforts by this same person to prohibit a word in all contexts.  You can’t promote the death of contextualized meaning and then defend your position by saying context is already dead.  If context is already dead, why are you trying to kill it?

A much saner position would be for a majority of people to move closer to the “No” answer.  To be offended depending on the context rather than on the words.  This is a more subtle approach, it’s not as black and white as some would like, but it entrusts people to be smart enough to interpret various factors and to gleam meaning from them, rather than having someone else impose a meaning on a word in all contexts.  And frankly, I find it far more racist to say that the word “nigger” is always used by white people in a hateful and derogatory way, and should always be offensive, than the alternative, which is to say that it is only offensive when the listener determines it to be offensive depending on the circumstances.