Naming the System: The Problem of Definition

The opening of the Tao Te Ching states: The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao. Applied to technology activism, this suggests that defining and naming technological oppressions, while seemingly necessary for critique, can paradoxically stabilize and legitimize them. When activists label something 'algorithmic bias' or 'surveillance capitalism,' they create a bounded concept that corporations can then address with limited reforms, containing the challenge. Laozi suggests power exists more in what remains unnamed and fluid than in fixed categories. Activist strategy might involve maintaining some productive ambiguity about what systems are fundamentally wrong, focusing instead on specific harms without allowing critics to codify limited solutions. This doesn't mean avoiding analysis but recognizing that over-specification can be co-opted. Similarly, activists can work with undefined, shifting definitions of privacy, freedom, or justice that resist commodification into platforms claiming to solve them. The challenge becomes maintaining critique without creating spaces for corporations to claim they've addressed named problems through superficial changes.