[Ads-l] kill talk; necropolitics

Jonathan Lighter 00001aad181a2549-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Mon Mar 9 18:44:51 UTC 2026


2025
 https://asiatimes.com/2025/08/kill-talk-how-us-military-lingo-turns-recruits-into-killers/
<https://asiatimes.com/2025/08/kill-talk-how-us-military-lingo-turns-recruits-into-killers/>
:

This practice carries a whiff of military necropolitics, whereby each
individual serves a role in the military machine and is easily replaced if
they become ineffective or are killed.

To facilitate state necropolitics, US military culture is saturated by
“kill talk” among those who serve as instruments of combat. The defining
feature of kill talk is its refusal to acknowledge the full relational
humanity of and the terrible loss suffered by those on whom potentially
deadly violence is inflicted.... The concept of a “linguistic
infrastructure” in kill talk directs attention more precisely to language
and to combatants themselves.

JL
-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


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