Why Use The Term Systemic Pedophilia?

The symbolic meaning of words.

Nov 30, 2022

When I use the term systemic pedophilia to describe “the beliefs, culture, practices, language, institutions, and other social systems that allow children to be harmed,”1 the most common objection I get is not to the truth of what I’m describing, but to the term I’m using to describe it. The word “pedophilia” triggers people.

These objections are best summed up by this reader email:

“You can’t use term pedophilia. That word already has a meaning and use in literature, psychiatry and the social sciences. It’s far better to coin a new phrase than to use a term that has a long history and widely-shared and agreed-upon meaning totally different from the phenomenon you’re addressing.”

All of these objections could be applied to the critical social justice term epistemic violence. One could object that you can’t use the word “violence” to mean “a refusal, intentional or unintentional, of an audience to communicatively reciprocate a linguistic exchange owing to pernicious ignorance,” which is the definition for “epistemic violence” in the academic literature.2 The word “violence” has an agreed-upon meaning of physical force and use in law. Wouldn’t it be better to “coin a new phrase than to use a term that has a long history and widely-shared and agreed-upon meaning totally different from the phenomenon you’re addressing?”

In fact, this criticism could be applied to every critical social justice term, since the way social justice activists use language and define words is different than other disciplines. The social justice definition of equality is not everyone being treated equally, but equity, which means treating some unequally.3 Why does critical social justice use language this way?

Literal vs. Symbolic Meaning

Before writing Children’s Justice, I developed a theory of language that explains why critical social justice uses language the way it does and how it has been so effective at creating power through language. A key piece of this theory is the symbolic meaning of words.

Words have both literal and symbolic meanings. The literal meaning of a word is the definition - literally, what the word means. Whatever you look up in the dictionary is the literal meaning of the word. The symbolic meaning of a word is the subjective emotional and relational qualities a word has for those who experience it. How does a word make you feel? What images does it produce in your mind? What do you associate with a word that isn’t in the dictionary definition? That is the symbolic meaning.

The literal meaning of words is objective. The symbolic meaning of words is subjective. While the dictionary will give the same definition regardless of who looks up a word, the same word might produce different feelings, images, and associations depending on the hearer. For example, the symbolic associations for the word “cat” might be very positive for someone who loves cats, and very negative for someone who does not like cats. Yet the literal definition of the word “cat” is the same for both.

Symbolic meanings matter more to most people than literal meanings.4 Take for example word “moist.” The literal definition of the word “moist” is “slightly wet” or “damp.” This definition is neutral. However, the word “moist” produces revulsion in many. People hate the word. In a 2012 New Yorker survey, readers overwhelmingly nominated the word “moist” as the one word they would eliminate from the English language.5 The literal definition of "slightly wet" is not enough to produce such hatred. What people hate about this word is the feeling it gives them, the symbolic associations with bodily fluids, the image it produces, the sound of the word, etc. They hate the symbolic meaning.

How To Find Symbolic Meanings

To find the symbolic meaning of a word, try thinking in pictures. If you could only define this word with images, what images would this word produce? This might be slightly different for each person, but there are culturally shared images and associations that words produce.

My latest book The Gods of AI: An AI-Generated Art Book draws on the symbolic meaning of words by using an AI image generator to visualize abstract concepts like “faith” or “prayer.” To create the book, I gave an AI-image generator spiritual terms and let it create images of what it imagined those terms looked like. If asked to define the word “faith” in an image, what would you draw? Well, you might create something like this:

This is what an AI-image generator created with only the prompt “faith.” I’ll bet if you saw that image in a dictionary next to the word “faith,” it would seem fitting. While symbolic meanings vary from person to person, the fact an AI can detect and replicate images based on our shared symbolic definitions means that we are more alike than we realize.

We share symbolic meanings because we share the same socialization. If people are socialized into the same culture they will share the same beliefs, and by extension, the same symbolic meanings. The idea of socialization is at the root of critical social justice theory because social justice activists suggest that we are brought into systems and beliefs about race, gender, and other forms of identity through socialization.6

In the view of critical social justice activists, all of society is the result of our shared socialization. If this is true, then this socialization also includes our feelings and associations around words, and words have a shared symbolic meaning due to our shared socialization. It’s not a coincidence that many people react to the word “moist” the same. It’s due to their shared feelings, beliefs, and experiences.

How Critical Social Justice Uses Symbolic Meaning

If I asked you to define the symbolic meaning of the word “racism” what images would you create? “Racism” is an emotionally charged term. While everyone might create a different image in response to this prompt, odds are that our images for the word “racism” would share certain attributes:

They would all likely be negative or show racism as a bad thing. There might be images from the Civil Rights movement or historical discrimination such as Jim Crow or slavery. There might be images of racists or racist organizations, such as the KKK. There might be more modern images of police brutalizing unarmed black men. The term “racism” might also be visualized by large protests, movements, and slogans against it.

You can test these guesses by doing an image search for a term and seeing what images search engines produce as results. Sure enough, if you search the term “racism” and click over to the images tab, all of those images are in the results.

Image search results for the term “racism.”

In critical social justice, the literal definition of the word racism is unequal outcomes between groups of people. In other words, if people from one race receive worse outcomes in some area - income, health, education, etc. - than another racial group, that is racism and the result of racism.7

If I asked you to visualize the concept of “unequal outcomes between groups of people,” what would you draw? Odds are the phrase “unequal outcomes” would not produce the same symbolic meaning as “racism” even though they share the same literal definition. The term “racism” carries more emotional charge than “unequal outcomes.” Sure enough, an image search for “unequal outcomes produces a lot of graphs:

Image search results for the phrase “unequal outcomes.”

If you were a social justice activist and you wanted people to care deeply about unequal outcomes between groups of people, what would you do? Call it racism. You would take the symbolic meaning of the word “racism” and apply it to the literal definition of what you are trying to change: “unequal outcomes.” Now, that is what the word racism means.8

Note that critical social justice activists are still being highly precise and technical with their literal definitions. Every term in critical social justice has a well-defined academic definition. However, the words chosen also inspired the desired emotional reaction through their symbolic meaning.

Those who are anti-woke often complain that critical social justice changes the definition of words, yet this is only half true. Critical social justice uses a new highly precise technical definition for words while keeping the same symbolic meaning the word previously had. Defining “racism” as “unequal outcomes” would not have the intended effect if critical social justice activists did not keep the symbolic associations of the word racism with emotionally-charged historical wrongdoing.

You can see the power of this technique by imagining the opposite. Suppose instead of changing the literal meaning of words, critical social justice activists changed their symbolic associations. Imagine if the image search results for “racism” were merely a bunch of graphs or if when people imaged that concept they saw only abstract data. Would calling someone a “racist” have the same emotional impact?

We Need Both Literal And Symbolic Communication

Let’s go back to the word we introduced earlier: epistemic violence. What is the symbolic and literal meaning of this word?

The literal definition is “a refusal, intentional or unintentional, of an audience to communicatively reciprocate a linguistic exchange owing to pernicious ignorance.”9 Although this concept is nuanced and complex, if we were to put this in concept into highly simplified colloquial language, we could summarize it as "not listening." When people refuse to listen or engage, they are engaged in epistemic violence.

What is the symbolic meaning of the word “violence?” You already know. I won’t list or show images of violence. I’m sure you can imagine gore and blood.

I want to reiterate: epistemic violence is the academic term for this concept. If you want to talk about this specific form of “not listening,” this is the correct term to use. Yet, how does it feel when you’ve been wronged or treated unjustly and no one is listening to you? Worse - how does it feel when no one is even trying or willing to listen to you, or they make it so it is impossible for you to be heard or communicate?

When babies cry out, but their mothers cannot hear them, they die. The urgency one feels when they are in pain and their communication is not heard is comparable. If you want to communicate the pain of not being heard, violence is the right word. Humans register disconnection and breakups as physical pain. When entire groups are separated and unheard, it feels like violence to them. The term “epistemic violence” correctly communicates the literal definition of what is going on and the symbolic feeling those affected by it experience.

This is better communication than if one merely communicated the facts of what was going on, absent their feelings, or merely communicated their feelings, absent a technical definition. By combining the literal and symbolic meanings of words, critical social justice activists communicate more than if they only used one channel of communication. By playing on the symbolic definitions of their audience, critical social justice activists produce the desired response. If someone says that others are engaged in violence against them, many will come to their defense. If they say others just aren’t listening, people will ask “what’s the big deal?” Without these words, how will you see their pain?

So why use the term “systemic pedophilia?” The same reasons.

The Symbolic Meaning Of Systemic Pedophilia

Let’s apply this language theory to the term “systemic pedophilia.” What is the literal and symbolic meaning of this term?

The literal definition of “systemic pedophilia” I give in my book Children’s Justice is “the beliefs, culture, practices, language, institutions, and other social systems that allow children to be harmed.”10

The symbolic meaning of "pedophilia" is the worst. It’s so bad, that the term produces no search results because the images would be too awful and illegal for any tech company to show. Yet we all know what they would be.

If people are harming children, how do I convey the feeling of that harm, even if they personally are not taking a knife to children’s genitals or personally carrying out the harm themselves? Simple: you need a word that conveys both a highly technical literal definition and the symbolic meaning of what is occurring. “Systemic pedophilia” fulfills both these requirements.

The reason some are not comfortable with the phrase “systemic pedophilia” is that they are not comfortable with the pain of survivors or are unwilling to see their own complicity in harming children. If the problem is that serious and the pain that great, then it demands an even greater response from them. The discomfort is not with the words themselves, but the implications those words have for their actions.

Yet we need these words to communicate. When I processed the harm done to me as a child, it felt like rape. The consequences were more serious and long-lasting than other forms of sexual abuse. What happened fits the legal definition of rape as well. Many others have expressed the same feelings as me. When we speak, others dismiss it. This term communicates the literal definition of what is happening and the symbolic meaning of our experience. Systemic pedophilia is the correct term to describe what is happening. Without these words, how will you see our pain?

Marotta, Brendon. Children’s Justice. Hegemon Media, 2022, p. 31.

Dotson, Kristie. “Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing.” Hypatia, vol. 26, no. 2, 10 Mar. 2011, pp. 236-237.

Kendi, Ibram. How to Be an Antiracist. 1st ed., One World, 2019, p. 19.

By most people, I mean neurotypicals. Literal meanings matter more to autistic and neurodivergent people. Yes, I intend to write a book about this at some point, because fully unpacking what I just wrote would take a full book.

“Words Came in, Marked for Death….” The New Yorker, 23 Apr. 2012, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/words-came-in-marked-for-death

Sensoy, Ozlem, and Robin DiAngelo. Is Everyone Really Equal?: An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education, 1st ed., Teacher’s College Press, 2012, pp. 15–16.

Kendi, Ibram. How to Be an Antiracist. 1st ed., One World, 2019, pp. 9, 15-19

BBC News. “Racism Definition: Merriam-Webster to Make Update after Request.” BBC News, 10 June 2020, www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52993306. Accessed 30 July 2022.

Goerdt, Cristina. “Why Merriam-Webster Changed the Definition of Racism.” VOA, 16 June 2020, www.voanews.com/a/student-union_why-merriam-webster-changed-definition-racism/6191215.html. Accessed 30 July 2022.