The phrase “speaking truth to power” is of Quaker origin. It sounds quite old, but is actually from the 20th century and it definitely means witnessing the truth before institutions of power, not transforming truth into power via speaking.

What a word or phrase means and what it’s etymology is are two different things, especially in a language with as few rules and as long a history of nimble evolution as english. Words and phrases might have traditional meanings, but they also mean what speakers intend them to mean and what listeners interpret them to mean. The “truth” of what a word or phrase means is really little more than the interaction of a speaker’s intent and a listener’s interpretation. Saying that a phrase “does not mean X” denies metaphor, allusion, context, culture, and code in a way that flies in the face of not just ordinary usage but also semiotics.

Words really aren’t anything more than abstract symbols which we use, generally with great idiosyncrasy, to reflect our experience. Telling someone that their interpretation of a phrase is wrong seems to miss the entire point of discussing storytelling. Making such an assertion in the context of a discussion of storytelling as a radical act suggests ignorance at the ways in which language has historically been used by oppressed persons to say things which they would not otherwise be allowed to say.

Language is never “definite” because language is always produced by people and we’re a complicated bunch who rarely have the decency to conform to strict rules.

Thank you so very much for existing to write this.

It’s such a great expression of the meaning of writing, the importance of it.

I think using my real name would be more silencing because the privileged people in this instance have the ability to lock me away and deprive me of liberty and autonomy, all with the full backing of the law.

Thoughts?

Alara Rogers covered what I was going to say pretty well.

I guess for me the important part about anonymity and silencing is who makes the decision. If you choose to be anonymous (or to use a nom de plume) then its still your story, all thats happened is that you have made a conscious decision to protect yourself from people who might use what you say against you. That doesn’t silence or dehumanize you (in my eyes) because really its just changing your name for the purposes of a specific interaction. You still have a name (Flowers) its just different from what people call you in a different context.

Names, for me, are much like any other social exchange. What you choose to do with your name (or body, soul, social space, morality, experience, etc) is your business and you ought to be allowed to do virtually anything with it that you can imagine. Thats your right because it is your name and your story. The oppression comes from someone else telling you how your name will be used. I suppose I’d liken it to the things you were told when you talked about your experience. Its possible that there are certain things you might choose not to do because of circumstance, but its a very different thing when someone tells you that you cannot do them. It isn’t necessarily about the outcome (though it may well be) but about the loss of agency that comes with someone else exercising power over you.

I don’t think anyone sits down and says “If I anonymise the details, no one can ever argue with what I say.” I’ve never told a story about a patient in which no one has asked about an aspect of it. It’s nature of the beast, that doctors are a tribe of people who ask questions. And the person who published anonymised details of a patient who said they couldn’t publish their story was wrong and should have been challenged.