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- author: "Slavoj \u017Di\u017Eek"
- content: What if, however, humans exceed animals in their capacity for violence precisely
- because they speak? As Hegel was already well aware, there is something violent
- in the very symbolisation of a thing, which equals its mortification. This violence
- operates at multiple levels. Language simplifies the designated thing, reducing
- it to a single feature. It dismembers the thing, destroying its organic unity, treating
- its parts and properties as autonomous. It inserts the thing into a field of meaning
- which is ultimately external to it. When we name gold "gold," we violently extract
- a metal from its natural texture, investing into it our dreams of wealth, power,
- spiritual purity, and so on, which have nothing whatsoever to do with the immediate
- reality of gold.
- id: 928735f8-394f-4c21-8fa5-5fdbe270d71c
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