Manipulation and the Social Destruction of Humanity: Vocabularies of Motive and Social Control

Abstract

This article argues that rapid social change inherent in a capitalist mode of production deprives the mass of people of a harmony of habitus, culture formation and meaningful sociation. Such rapid social change, coupled with elite management of relative deprivation on the macro-level, produces confusion in vocabularies of motive on a micro-level, fracturing consciousness and thereby inhibiting collective action. In order to ensure meaningful collective action that leads to structural change, we need to develop a common language of the oppressed, an alternative to the globalized language that represents bourgeoisie hegemony and its situational interpretations. Such a language will involve a congruence of vocabularies of motive (linked to similar societal situations), unveiling the similarity of the social situation of the oppressed on a global level. The development of such a language is the task of critical sociologists.