Language and Reality
(John Speaking)

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I'm not so sure about your sociology. You say that language creates social institutions, including hierarchies of race and sex and class. It's not very clear what that means. If you're only saying that language is used as part of a complicated process that creates those hierarchies, then of course you're right. But if you are saying that language is causally fundamental in the process of creating and perpetuating those hierarchies, I would disagree.

Let me give you an example. Suppose it's 1930 and we're in Alabama. There is a fairly definite racial hierarchy with many dimensions. There is also a language of race that is fairly widely used. White people don't call married black women "Mrs." They often call blacks by their first names. The word "nigger" is often used, and so forth. Now suppose that the use of language changes. Black men are called "sir" and black women are called "Mrs." The word "nigger" is dropped, and so on. But the land is still mainly owned by the whites, the vote is in the hands of whites, the state is controlled by whites, the main employers are white, and hiring decisions are made by whites. The big question is this: How important is the change of language? I think the answer is obvious. All of the major problems of African Americans would remain the same in that situation in spite of the changes in language. That's because language is not a fundamental cause of the hierarchies you are concerned about.

I think your position on hate speech is flawed because of this mistake in your sociology.

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