ABSTRACT
Politically-motivated rhetoric marginalizes the pursuit of the impeccability of language, forging an invalidating cultural war against “political correctness.” Consumed like miasma, this rhetoric legitimizes hegemony, justifies systems of oppression, and undermines the transformative and violent power of language. Resurfacing, recycling, there remain the mutations, the resistant viral forms, of cultural narratives that perseverate. Lacan speaks to the web-like, symbolic construction of the sentence, adding that a principal task “is to not become poisoned by this sentence that always continues circulating and seeks only to re-emerge in a thousand more or less camouflaged and disturbing forms” (Lacan, 1955, 113). Introjection of prejudicial and sexist language into the self-system prompts epigenetic changes in egocentric inner speech, with opaque effects for individuation, orientation, coping, and the transition from inter-psychic to intrapsychic function as described by Vygotsky (1986/1934). In consideration of Augustine and Wittgenstein, this chapter examines the emergence of consciousness within the ambiguity of language forms, concluding with a discussion of the atonement that can arise through introspection, confession, linguistic responsibility, and transformation.
