Namenskraft • noun • (nah-minns-craft)
Definition: Naming power, the power of giving something a name
Origin: German, The Sustainable Culture Lab
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For the last couple of weeks, the SCL team has been discussing the power of giving something a name. This discussion extends beyond just acknowledging that names have power, and questions how a person, culture, or society obtains the power of naming something.
This conversation was prompted by the documentary series Exterminate All the Brutes on HBO Max. At one point, the narrator and director, Raoul Peck, questions why the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has not been named an atrocity or a war crime. The answer to his question resides in a phrase commonly attributed to Winston Churchill, “History is written by the victors.”
Essentially, since the United States were one of the victors in World War II along with the rest of the Allied powers, we had the power to name the dropping of the atomic bomb on two Japanese cities however we chose. America had no incentive to use language that could condemn or criminalize our actions. The death of over 200,000 civilians remained essentially nameless and considered a necessary act for winning World War II due to the destructive naming power of American society.
In response to the Holocaust, Raphael Lemkin gave himself the naming power to give the mass extermination of his people a name, and in 1944 the word “genocide” was born. Lemkin also coined “ethnocide” at the same time, and SCL now uses this term to describe the transatlantic slave trade and America’s systemic divisions. However, America still has not used its naming power to give a name for the destruction wrought by dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Tragically, the United States also justified the dropping of two atomic bombs due to mistranslating the Japanese word “mokusatsu.” After the Allied forces ordered Japan to surrender, Premier Kantaro Suzuki was quoted as replying with “mokusatsu” which means both “take no notice of” and “remain in a wise and masterly inactivity.” The American media translated it as the former and not the latter, and since Japan supposedly took no notice of the order to surrender the dropping of the atomic bomb was deemed a necessity by the American military to end the war.
Our society is reluctant to create this name because it may diminish our “victory.”
At SCL, we believe that “omnicide,” meaning “the destruction of everything,” could be the proper term. We all know that nuclear proliferation could bring about the end of existence for all life as we know it. So would that not be the destruction of everything?
Language and history exist outside of warfare, so naming power must exist when there is no clear victor or when victory does not precede language. Victory can only occur when a clear end has been reached or defined, so in order to not live within perpetual warfare and a propagated history, we must find a way to cultivate naming power in the absence of war or victories.
Constructive vs. Destructive Language
When SCL first started, back before COVID-19, we focused on having in-person events where we would introduce new words and philosophies and see if it resonated with our audience. At an event about the word Freecano, a participant questioned if I had the power to create a new word. Or in other words, “Who gave you the power to make a new word and who said a new word was needed?”
I was taken aback by this question and was baffled by the idea that an external force needed to bestow me with power or creativity in order for my words to have legitimacy. The questioner did not articulate a specific person or type of person that I needed to receive approval from, but their words spoke to the tragic idea that a human being should not be able to create language without the approval of an unnamed higher power.
This question troubled me and I began to wonder if the business-centric, linguistic obsolescence of America’s ethnocidal discourse disempowered people within our own language. Had America’s destructive language within a destructive society condemned people to believing that we were merely consumers of an unhealthy language and could never be creators of a healthy one?
The distinction between constructive and destructive language is why this week’s word is Namenskraft and not “Naming Power.”
German is a very constructive language. Their language is a puzzle in which compound words are celebrated. If something new and nameless arises in the society, everyday people are empowered to put existing words together and make a new word in order to fill this void and solve the linguistic puzzle. There is no guarantee that the word that one creates will be accepted and adopted by the masses, but the power to create exists within everyone. German people have created over 1,000 new words this past year to describe our new existence with COVID-19.
In producing The Word with Barrett Holmes Pitner, we have noticed that a decent amount of our words are German. This is because the German language has already constructed much of the needed language that is currently void in American English. Nervenstärke, Geist, and Aufheben are just a few examples, and since English is a combination of Romance and Germanic languages, these words seem less removed from our own language.
Due to the constructive nature of German, it is hard for anyone to explicitly claim the creation of a new word. Namenskraft does not appear in the Deutsches Wörterbuch, the German dictionary, so it is fair to say that it is a SCL neologism while also acknowledging that a German person has most likely already constructed the word.
Namenskraft and Ethnocide
American society is one built upon wars, thus we have a tragic cultural narrative that proclaims the supposed benefit of war and the inevitability of an American victory. These American wars are both foreign and domestic, and America has always waged a domestic war against people on this continent without a white essence. The discourse of America’s ethnocidal society is predicated on the people with a white essence emerging victorious in their perpetual war against existence and anything considered an “other.”
In Exterminate All the Brutes, Peck theorizes that all American wars are a continuation of the colonial wars against Indigenous people, and he reinforces this claim by pointing out the abundance of American fighter jets, missiles, and implements of war that have Indigenous names. America has the tomahawk missile and the apache helicopter, just to name a few examples. America has proclaimed itself the victor in its war against existence, and it has given itself the Namenskraft to use Indigenous words however our ethnocidal society chooses. Perversely, America has decided to name our most destructive weapons after the people who have suffered through both genocide and ethnocide.
Ethnocide does not create a society with a common, unified people. It creates a bifurcated society consisting of the ethnocider who implements ethnocide and the ethnocidee who are the victims of ethnocide. Without a common people, there cannot be a common language. Therefore, the “common” language of an ethnocidal society is forcefully administered by the ethnocider. The language shuns creativity, commonality, and the Namenskraft of the society because the language is largely inseparable from the destruction and oppression of ethnocide.
Within American ethnocide, Namenskraft has included the authority of the ethnocider to create dehumanizing language to describe those with a non-white essence.
However, as many Americans have worked to liberate and emancipate themselves from the hereditary sin of ethnocide, our society’s Namenskraft will begin to spread and flourish amongst the common people that our less divided society will create.
At SCL, we work to create the words that help speak change into existence, and we have always embraced our Namenskraft.
This week, embrace your Namenskraft and realize that you have the power to create words to describe your environment and experiences. Also, remember that the power to create words is not the power to force others to adopt and use your word. Constructive Namenskraft is about the process of creating words and naming things and helping it grow in a sustainable, nurturing way.
Also, today is Mother’s Day, so please take some time to thank your mother, who—in the theme of today’s newsletter—helped give each of our names.