“Words create things.” With this sentence Nadia Urbinati, professor of Political Science at Columbia University, opened her remarks as a guest on an Italian television program. I stopped listening to her immediately.

The idea that words create things is an ancient superstition.

The Roman physician Quinto Sereno Sammonico advised writing the word abracadabra on a triangle to cure malaria: according to Sammonico, this amulet would reduce the influence of evil spirits infesting the body. Some believe that abracadabra derives from the Aramaic Avrah KaDabra, meaning “I create while I speak,” that is, I create things through words. It is likely, however, that the meaning was exactly the opposite, since the formula was used to make an illness disappear, not to create it. The meaning of magical words is, by definition, mysterious. We will probably never know the truth about the meaning of abracadabra.

The belief that reality can be altered solely through words belongs to a magical tradition: it is an ancient superstition. Some contemporary intellectuals, however, use this superstition as a theoretical justification for lying, attributing to words a power they do not possess, as if they could replace facts.

Repeating an inaccurate reconstruction of events—that is, a lie—does not transform reality. Rather, it turns those who believe they can “create things with words” into liars, manipulators, or madmen.

We live in a difficult world: reality is complex, and it would be extremely convenient to be able to change it by resorting to magical formulas. But in order to change reality, commitment and firm determination are necessary. Sometimes, however, even what is necessary is not sufficient: not everything we dislike can be changed.

There is, however, one thing we can change immediately: we should prevent those who believe that words create things from teaching this superstition and from repeating this lie to young people.

Young people, I believe, should be taught the value of parrhesia, a Greek word that creates nothing, but denotes the ability to speak the truth even when it is inconvenient. It is a word I encountered thanks to Michel Foucault, one of the fathers of postmodernism, whose intellectual legacy still weighs heavily on much of the West today.

In Discourse and Truth, one of his final works, Foucault reconstructs the genealogy of parrhesia, from its birth in the Greek city-states to its demonization by those intellectuals who were convinced that not everyone had the right to speak and that the words of some were worth more than those of others.

I believe that words help us describe and understand reality when they are sincere. When, instead, they are used to “create things,” they almost always serve to conceal a lie, and for this reason they become useless.

Thank you for taking the time to read these thoughts. If you’d like to continue this journey through social critique, contemporary culture, and philosophy, have a look at my book Zombies of Marx: The Return of Practical Reason. It might surprise you.