{"id":86259,"date":"2025-09-29T07:14:36","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T06:14:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=86259"},"modified":"2025-09-29T07:16:50","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T06:16:50","slug":"language-responsibility-and-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/09\/29\/language-responsibility-and-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Language, responsibility, and care"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday\u2018s post on Plato's Cave was<\/a> not, as it turns out, the only one to have come out of Saturday morning's discussion that Jacqueline and I had at the Weleny Wetlands and Wildlife Trust Reserve. <\/em><\/p>\n

The second of the three ideas that we developed during our discussion relates to a phenomenon long known to us, not least because Jacqueline\u2018s parents were both brought up speaking the Irish language. Although in later life they hardly ever used it, the syntax of that language heavily influenced the way in which my late father-in-law, in particular, used English. The ideas in this post flow from our latest discussion on this issue, and the consequences for the way in which language has itself influenced political-economic thinking.<\/em><\/p>\n

AI was used to ensure that Irish references in this post are, we hope, accurate.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cSadness is on me\u201d: Language, Responsibility, and Care<\/b><\/p>\n

In Irish, you do not say I am sad<\/i>. You say t\u00e1 br\u00f3n orm:<\/i> literally, \u201csadness is on me.\u201d<\/p>\n

At first sight, this may look like a quaint idiom. However, in reality, it embodies a radically different perspective on responsibility, care, and human experience than that to which neoliberal English-speaking societies have become normalised.<\/p>\n

This matters because how we frame misfortune determines whether we treat it as a personal failing or as a shared condition for which society must assume responsibility. Language matters, then, not least in the political-economic inferences it creates.<\/p>\n

1. English individualism and neoliberal grammar<\/b><\/p>\n

English is a language built on the centrality of the word and idea of \u201cI.\u201d \u201cI am sad.\u201d \u201cI broke my arm.\u201d \u201cI lost my job.\u201d Even when accidents or systemic failures are involved, English frames them as though the individual suffering the consequence is responsible for what has happened to them. To be sad in English is not just to experience sadness, but to be<\/i> sadness. To lose your job is not simply to be made redundant by an economic downturn, but to have failed in some way.<\/p>\n

This habit of grammar aligns perfectly with neoliberal ideology. Neoliberalism insists that individuals are responsible for their own fates. Poverty, unemployment, debt, or illness are redefined as personal flaws or bad choices. The grammar of English feeds that narrative: it makes each person linguistically responsible for their own misfortune.<\/p>\n

2. Irish relationality: states \u201con\u201d us, not \u201cin\u201d us<\/b><\/p>\n

Irish undermines this frame. Hunger is \u201con\u201d you (T\u00e1 ocras orm<\/i>). Joy is \u201con\u201d you (T\u00e1 \u00e1thas orm<\/i>). Sadness is \u201con\u201d you (T\u00e1 br\u00f3n orm<\/i>). These states do not describe your essence; they are conditions that come upon you. They may describe your current condition, but they can also pass.<\/p>\n

This phrasing acknowledges transience. Sadness \u201con me\u201d does not mean I will always be sad. Hunger \u201con me\u201d does not mean I am by nature hungry. Emotions and conditions are visitors, not permanent labels. They can come and they can go. Crucially, they do not define who you are.<\/p>\n

That is inclusive and non-judgemental. It recognises that different people may experience different states at different times, without making those states into permanent marks of identity or failure.<\/p>\n

3. Beyond binaries: no \u201cyes\u201d and \u201cno\u201d<\/b><\/h3>\n

This logic extends to the way Irish handles affirmation and denial. Irish has no single word for \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno.\u201d If asked An dtuigeann t\u00fa?<\/i> (\u201cDo you understand?\u201d), you cannot answer with an abstract \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno.\u201d You must respond with Tuigim<\/i> (\u201cI understand\u201d) or N\u00ed thuigim<\/i> (\u201cI do not understand\u201d). The verb itself carries the affirmation or negation.<\/p>\n

That makes answers always contextual, specific, and provisional. They are about the situation<\/i>, not an abstract binary. N\u00ed thuigim<\/i> does not mean \u201cNo forever.\u201d It means \u201cI do not understand now.\u201d Understanding may arrive later. Again, transience is emphasised.<\/p>\n

Contrast this with English, which thrives on binaries: yes\/no, success\/failure, worthy\/unworthy, striver\/skiver. Neoliberal ideology depends<\/strong> on these divides. They allow it to categorise populations into the deserving and undeserving, the winners and losers, the employed and the work-shy. The grammar of English fits seamlessly with this worldview. Irish grammar resists it.<\/p>\n

4. Nature, nurture, and the politics of blame<\/b><\/p>\n

This difference goes even deeper. English is the language of genetic determinism: \u201cI am who I am because of my inheritance.\u201d It frames personal identity as fixed, unchanging, carried in the genes. This dovetails with neoliberal individualism: if your genes make you what you are, then your fate is your own, and society owes you little. Poverty or ill-health are reduced to biology, reinforcing fatalism and cutting away social responsibility.<\/p>\n

Irish suggests something different. If sadness or hunger is \u201con me,\u201d then I am not reducible to my inheritance. I live in a moving environment. I am shaped by the conditions that come upon me, and those conditions can change. Nurture matters. Context matters. Society matters.<\/p>\n

In other words, Irish grammar encodes a politics of nurture, not nature. It recognises that we live in a shifting landscape of influences, some supportive, others harmful. Who we are cannot be reduced to a fixed genetic script; it depends on the conditions that surround and act upon us.<\/p>\n

5. Gaza: hunger imposed, not chosen<\/b><\/p>\n

Nowhere is this distinction more urgent than in situations of extreme suffering. Consider Gaza today. In English reporting, people are said to be \u201chungry.\u201d That phrase carries a hidden implication: hunger is a property of the person. It is their state, as if somehow generated from within.<\/p>\n

But that is profoundly misleading. People in Gaza are not \u201chungry\u201d in the abstract. Hunger is on<\/i> them. It has been imposed upon them by blockade, by war, by the deliberate withholding of food. They have not failed. Hunger has been forced onto them.<\/p>\n

The Irish phrasing captures this truth more directly. T\u00e1 ocras orthu<\/i> \u2014 \u201chunger is on them.\u201d The responsibility is displaced from the individual to the external conditions that created the hunger. That makes visible the politics of famine and suffering in a way English can obscure.<\/p>\n

6. From grammar to political economy<\/b><\/p>\n

Why does this matter for economics? Because the way we talk about misfortune frames the policies we imagine.<\/p>\n