The Power of Ideas and Words

Libertarians generally tend to think of power in terms of the use of force or in terms of "political power". However, there are layers of power other than "political power", some of which overlap with "political power". It could be said that the most fundamental layer of power is the power of ideas in the sense that people are motivated by ideas, often dedicating their very lives to them (and arguably, sometimes effectively enslaving themselves to them). This is a more fundamental psychological level of power - the power that an idea has over a man, as well as the way in which ideas can be and are used to obtain a more political sense of power over those whom the ideas hold power over (or ideas as a means to power). It is also a partially linguistic matter, since the ideas are associated with certain words, which in turn can function as a means to power.

In conjunction with this, there is the modern phenomenon of identity politics. Identity politics is not a strictly "left" or "right" phenomenon in terms of common political categorizations (in fact, these categorizations themselves could easily be seen a manifestation of identity politics), but a broader phenomenon that encompasses much of mainstream politics in general (as well as certain elements within radical politics sometimes). The way that I'm defining identity politics here, identity politics involves a whole series of political, national, economic, racial and gender categories (in short, the categories of "mass culture" in general) that are used as "floating abstractions" (to use more Randian lingo) that people allow to determine their identity for them (in opposition to any meaningful sense of individuality) and that are consequentially used by people as a means to power.

This could be seen as allowing one's conception of oneself to be dependant on social constructions that one did not create or that contradict one's individuality, which is in some sense beyond such social constructions. Such social constructions may be in conflict with genuine self-assertion and are prone to be used by others as a means to power. The person confuses their identity with the social construction, and consequentially the person is potentially open to be controlled or more likely to be obedient to authority in some sense when others invoke the social construction. The social construction becomes the authority one appeals to in order to justify power. For example, consider the way in which the nationality of "America" is often used to justify just about any kind of political power - appeals to patriotism and invokations of nationalism are among the oldest tricks in the book as far as legitimizing power goes. And the matter is hardly restricted to just nationalism.

An extended analysis of this opens up an entire (and much neglected) area of inquiry for libertarians, one that touches more explicitly on psychology and epistemology. It also seems to indicate that the sense of individualism that libertarianism entails and is grounded upon is broader than has often traditionally been thought. There is a sense in which it should be a goal of libertarians to demystify such social constructions when one considers the degree to which power has historically and contemporaneously been intertwined with them. It could be said that any social construction can potentially be used in such a way, although some have been and are used more than others and not all social constructions necessarily function in such a way. Nonetheleess, while not all social constructions are "equal" in this sense and it may be wrong to indiscriminately condemn all social constructions, the fact that social constructions and the language associated with them can and have had a power-serving function seems fairly certain.