Priyavrat Feb 29 th 2016 Semantic empires and self-colonisation empire |ˈɛmpʌɪə| noun an extensive group of states or countries ruled over by a single monarch, an oligarchy or a sovereign state: [ in names ] : the Roman Empire The layman defines the word empire as quoted above. An empire is the rule of a group of states by an entity. In the construction of this statement one has assumed two things, which will help us understand the implication of this definition and its effects outside ink and paper: 1. being (is) as meaning 2. truth as coinciding of one mapping over another Through the first assumption, one is able to say that an empire is ‘this.’ An empire can be (exist) only through its meaning. As this is also the case for all words that have been constructed and will be, our species have imposed the definition on themselves over the past. In this imposition, we have denied being outside of meaning, reduced our being to a mere signifier and infested ourselves with the task of finding meaning so as to allow ourselves to ‘be.’ The second assumption allows one to legitimise and validate the mapping of signifiers to other signifiers in the dictionary. (An empire is “an extensive group of states or countries ruled over by a single monarch” and not anything else.) Hence, a word is correctly used if the dictionary says so, which has been decided by the community collectively through consensus. Although this process cannot be avoided in language, it has been extrapolated to the validation of human existence. After the denial of being outside meaning, as has been done in existential philosophy and otherwise, a set of correct meanings have been devised collectively and this process has denied lives without meaning (either outright or by looking at them as a Sisyphus) and lives that seek meaning outside of the legitimate set of meanings. By doing so through language, a large part of human species have done that which they have been fighting against, at some point in time: empires, colonisation, imperialism and so on. However, language becomes the tool for self-colonisation, after which the resistance for authoritarian regimes becomes a big paradox. Hence, the first step in the creation of an empire is reducing being (existence) to a signifier, and then creating a set of legitimate meanings. Being can be an object, people, language, cities, cultures, religion, etc. One must note that the process of legitimising is never justified as the word legitimate itself implies conformation to a set of rules. Legitimising can also be done on the basis of conformation with a set of meanings which the ruling community has also colonised itself with, which it occasionally attempts to justify on moral, rational or religious grounds. Sometimes, the justification is not done, or is not appealing enough,