Words can be used and misused.
In 2019, the Guardian updated its style guide to introduce terms that, they felt, more accurately described the environmental crises facing the world. Instead of “climate change,” the preferred terms became “climate emergency, crisis or breakdown” and “global heating” replaced “global warming”. And more recently, in March 2023, the EU approved the Green Claims Directive which, in an effort to prevent greenwashing, requires companies to provide scientific validation for claiming to be “eco-friendly”, “biodegradable” or “sustainable”. Today, under the pressure of cancel culture and cultural polarization, institutions across the world - from newspapers and universities to corporations and nonprofits - have to grapple with a simple question: what words should be used to describe the smorgasbord of crises and challenges at hand?
At the heart of this linguistic shuffle is the power of words. Word tell stories, and stories fundamentally shape how we imagine the world and thus how we act in that world. The Guardian's style shift emerged from the recognition that "climate change" does not communicate risk like "climate crisis" does. "Climate crisis," in turn, says little about climate's entanglement with all the other systems in breakdown. Enter "polycrisis" and "metacrisis," which describe the interconnected nature of the crises of climate, biodiversity, technology, democracy, and meaning. All these become symptoms of a deeper disease driven by a growth-based financial system, rivalrous power games, and anthropocentrism. The power of "polycrisis" and "metacrisis" emerge from their ability to offer alternatives: instead of cosmetic fixes, we can focus on the underlying drivers of devastation.
The impact of words lies not in how they describe reality, but how they empower it. Words are alive, capable not just of transforming the world but also of being transformed by that world, acquiring new meanings and uses. In her book Hospicing Modernity, decolonial scholar Vanessa Machado de Oliveira, makes a distinction between "wording the world" and "worlding the world": "Within modernity, we are conditioned to want to cover everything with a heavy blanket of fixed meanings, to index reality in language, to word the world… In wording the world, we are socialized to treat stories as tools of communication that enable us to describe reality, prescribe the future, and accumulate knowledge. ”
In contrast, when we world the world, our stories serve as “living entities that emerge from and move things in the world. Some of these stories are meant to exist for a long time, others expire early. Some stories are meant to remain as and where they are and to work only with a very select group of people; other stories are meant to travel the world, and to transform and to be transformed by other world-entities, including the storytellers and those who receive the stories.”
Vanessa’s distinction is useful because it nudges the emphasis away from the specific meaning of a word and towards its lifecycle: how does a word or story live on once uttered? Will it freak some out, or invite them to curiosity? Does it promote dialogue and care, or is it a slogan to attract controversy and likes?
I recently heard Israeli peace activist Sharon Dolev express concerns over some of the rhetoric at pro-Palestinian protests on US campuses: "I hear students calling 'from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free' but not calling for a two-state solution or any solutions. I do not hear solutions. I do not hear hope." Her criticism is not aimed at the vision of a free Palestine, but rather at self-serving slogans that out-shout the quieter, harder, and more complex work of dialogue.
We need words that engage and empower, not that divide and criticize. In the ongoing experiment to make sense of our world today, I find the word collapse to be generative. When used carefully, collapse - by which I mean the generalized, irreversible breakdown of modern civilization and its comforts - invites the hard and honest conversations we need to consider the profound transformations we are capable of. Yes, it's a triggering word. Because it's not just our ecosystems and political systems that are falling apart. It's also our sense of self, that thinking, sensing self needs meaning and reasons to get out of the bed in the morning. It's our very dreams that are breaking down.
So yes, it's triggering, but it's also honest, and that honesty provides a better grounds for hope than wishfulness.
There are many other interesting terms to describe this moment in time (I have a fondness for Joana Macy’s “the Great Unraveling” because of its open-ended, light-hearted seriousness). But my goal isn't to enforce "proper" word choice, but instead to encourage life-nourishing, paradox-inhabiting language that avoids the righteousness of polite discourse and the comfort of simplistic framings.
Which brings me to my own addition to lexicon of the apocalypse: "the Great Crumbling". It points to systemic breakdown and the life-saving humor we all need in response. As many have noted, the way we approach crisis is also part of the crisis. Our words, in turn, have the power to restore balance by align us with the majestic, paradoxical, aliveness of our world.
Felix-
Wonderfully said! One of my mantras for the past 40 or so years has been: "We live out of language." You captured the concept beautifully. Thank you!
Magnificent prose that reminds us Yeats’ poem, The Second Coming:
“ Turning and Turning
The falcon cannot hear the falconer.
Things fall apart. The center doesn’t hold…”
Felix help us to hold the center, meaning here the meaning of the words. And therefore the meaning of our soul.
Thank you Felix and congratulations to put in words difficult matters.