Naming as Power Capture in Discourse

The opening of the Tao Te Ching declares that the Tao which can be named is not the eternal Tao—naming fixes and limits reality. In digital activism and technology discourse, naming carries political power: whoever names the problem controls potential solutions. Surveillance becomes "security," inequality becomes "market efficiency," activism becomes "terrorism." Dominant powers invest heavily in naming: they control definitions, standards, and taxonomies. Laozi teaches that refusing to be named preserves power; the revolutionary who accepts the oppressor's name accepts their framework. Activist practice includes strategic non-naming and re-naming: refusing categorical labels, creating new language, operating in unnamed spaces where old power structures don't apply. Encryption exists partly in this unnamed space; underground networks, coded language, and deliberately obscure terminology allow organizing outside surveillance and capture. Yet activists also engage in counter-naming: redefining terms, creating new vocabulary for new consciousness. The tension between refusing names and creating liberatory ones mirrors yin and yang. Digital activists who understand naming as power cultivate both: spaces that cannot be named by authority, and new names that express liberation previously unimaginable.