When language drifts too far from lived experience, it creates systems that escape our control—until we serve them, rather than the other way around.
Human beings, alone among animals, have the strange ability to become trapped by their own abstractions. A lion does not forget that meat is food. A bird does not confuse its nest with the concept of shelter. But people can lose themselves in words, mistaking them for the things they represent. We are creatures of language, and language, once it takes on a life of its own, can lead us into absurdity, delusion, and disaster.
Consider money. Money began as a simple agreement—a way to store and exchange value. At first, it was tied to tangible things: food, land, gold. But over centuries, it became an abstraction detached from reality, numbers on a screen, debt conjured from thin air. Today, entire economies operate not on wealth that exists, but on promises of wealth that might exist in the future. People starve not because there is no food, but because the invisible mechanisms of finance—currencies, interest rates, derivatives—say they cannot afford to eat. The word has become more real than the thing itself.
The legal system, originally meant to ensure fairness, has become a labyrinth of dense jargon even lawyers struggle to navigate. Justice, a simple human need, has been buried under a mountain of technicalities, loopholes, and meaningless formalities. Once again, words overtake reality.
Religion, philosophy, and ideology often suffer the same fate. Spiritual traditions that began as direct experiences of awe and reverence hardened into dogmas, with people worshiping the letter of the text rather than the living world it originally described. Whole generations have fought and died over the precise wording of doctrines whose meanings have long since eroded. Political ideologies, instead of responding to the needs of the people, became rigid belief systems where words dictated reality.
When language detaches from lived experience, it begins to dictate life instead of reflecting it. This is why totalitarian regimes focus so much on controlling language. Orwell understood: if you redefine words, you redefine thought itself. If “war” is called “peace,” if “ignorance” is called “strength,” if “freedom” is rewritten to mean “submission,” people lose the ability to think outside of the system that oppresses them. Today, corporate and political messaging use the same technique, flooding public discourse with euphemisms that conceal real harm. Layoffs are called “right-sizing.” Bombings are “collateral damage.” Surveillance is “data collection.” The language shifts, and with it, reality.
The antidote to this linguistic drift is a return to the concrete. Societies that endure do not allow language to stray too far from direct human experience. Indigenous cultures have always tied their words closely to nature, to community, to the present moment. They do not separate the name of a thing from its essence. The Navajo concept of Hózhó describes a state of balance and harmony that cannot be captured in a single English word. Tribal languages keep people grounded, preventing them from being swept away by illusions of abstraction.
If we wish to avoid being ruled by runaway systems of our own making, we must take responsibility for our words. We must remember that language is a tool, not a master. It should reflect reality, not obscure it. When we speak, write, and legislate, we must do so with the understanding that the wrong words, left unchecked, can build prisons more confining than any walls.
Therefore, under Folklaw:
Language must be kept as close to reality as possible. Legal, financial, and political language must be clear and accessible to all, not a weapon wielded by the few. Institutions must never be allowed to substitute abstractions for concrete human needs. When words no longer reflect the real world, it is the world—not the words—that must be honored.
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