Existence as Obedience

Digging into the etymology of ‘exist’

There’s just the idea of the very ‘right to exist.’ I don’t believe the right to exist has the right to exist. The very idea is a kind of indefensible idea. It’s an aggressive idea. Right? It makes me want to dig into the etymology of ‘exist.’ — Fred Moten, Millennials Are Killing Capitalism podcast, 11/11/23

To examine the ‘right to exist,’ Moten expresses the significance of examining the etymology of the word ‘exist.’ Implicit in Moten’s statement of interest in the etymology of ‘exist’ is the view that etymology exposes ideology. Digging into the etymology of ‘exist’ reveals the Western, capitalist ideology that to ‘exist’ is to abide by state authority. This linguistic constraint masks state oppression, contradiction, and exploitation. Understanding ‘exist’s etymological backdrop supplements Moten’s view that the “right to exist” intrinsically justifies and reinforces state colonial authority — and provides opportunity for clearer deliberation in fighting for the autonomy of oppressed peoples.

Here’s a simple genealogy of ‘exist’:

English: ‘Exist’ < — French: ‘existere’ < — Latin roots: ’stāre’ and ‘sistere’ (Sanskrit cognate: ‘tíṣṭhati’) < — Proto-Italic root: ’stō’ < — Proto-Indo-European: ’*steh’.

‘Existence’ from Active to Static

The etymology of the word ‘exist,’ from Proto-Indo-European through Latin, through French, to modern English displays a semantic development from a dynamic, fluid conception of existence to a static sense of existence in relation to authority. This semantic development demonstrates European political and ideological changes reinforcing structures of authority and state control.

In tracing ‘exist’s etymology in greater detail, I aim to supplement Moten’s — and other liberatory, anti colonial thinkers’ — examinations of rights, subjecthood, and the nation state. Our exposition of ‘exist’s etymology here, though synthesizing several in-depth etymological sources, aligns with Moten’s playful claim he’s “a pseudo-philosopher at best.” A sufficiently rigorous examination of ‘exist’s etymology requires analysis more rigorous than this brief exposition. That said, this article’s reconceptualization of the word ‘exist’ may serve as food for thought for the more capable linguist’s investigation. Doing so will enable us to understand Moten’s claim that ‘the right to exist’ is indefensible, aggressive, and itself, has no right to exist.

‘Exist’s Proto-Indo-European Roots

‘To exist’ derives originally from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root ‘*steh’, meaning ‘to stand’. ‘Stand’s connotation in modern English varies. These connotations include: stand up (literally), stand up (figuratively, stand up for your rights), stand out, stand by (she stands by her previous statements, and related: the verdict stands), among others. Originally in PIE, ‘stand’s progenitor ‘*steh’ referred to a continuous persistence of something, but with possibility of transformation or evolution. Proto-Indo-European cultures — tribal, with decentralized authority and no codified legal systems — understood ‘to stand’ as more immediate, physical being as opposed to Latin’s later abstract legalistic, hierarchical constructs. Geography was flexible, movement active, existence fluid. From PIE’s ‘*steh’ arose Sanskrit cognate ‘tíṣṭhati’, an evolved ‘to stand,’ connoting a standing persistence based on ‘making a practice of.’ Proto-Indo-Europeans migrated seasonally as nomadic pastoralists, existence was grounded in the immediate world — a contrast to the Roman Twelve Tables of early Latin law, which codified strict hierarchical divisions between social classes and determined harsh penalties for petty crimes.

Where Sanskrit’s ‘to stand’ promotes an active continuity of being, Latin’s semantics demonstrate a rigid Roman society’s hierarchical, legalistic nature. Historical documentation and scholarship exposes Rome’s strong centralized state authority in the form of legal systems and military organization. Etymology does too. In ‘*steh’s later shifts Latin’s ‘sistere’ and ‘stāre’, the PIE root’s connotation transforms from a perpetually-evolving ‘standing’ to a hierarchical, legal conception of ‘standing.’ One of Latin’s ‘exist’ progenitors, ‘sistere’, translates in English to ‘to come to a stop.’ As a Western ‘exist’ comes into being, its meaning grinds to a halt.

Latin Development & Stare Decisis

While Sanskrit’s cognate ’tíṣṭhati’ connotes a fluid persistence, Latin’s ‘stāre’ connotes an adherence to law, to order. ‘To stand’ becomes ‘to stand by something’. Aligned with Roman culture more broadly, to stand is not to stand out, nor to stand up for oneself, but to stand in adherence to iron law. The Latin genesis of ‘to exist’ demonstrates the Roman state’s key values of permanence, stability, and conservative authority. This conception of existence endures. In contemporary legal practice, verdicts often adhere to prior court rulings on similar cases. We know this as ‘stare decisis.’ We stand by our prior verdict.

‘Exist’s Development in Feudal Europe

Over the four centuries succeeding the Roman Empire’s fall, a deeply-entrenched European feudal system took hold, marked by rigid social hierarchies and church dominance. Maintaining the status quo required a static, controlled view of existence. As the nation-state concept developed, Latin’s ‘sistere’ merged with prefix ‘ex-’ (‘out’) to develop into the Old French ‘existere.’ Existence, an external expression of obedience to authority. And from ‘existere’, 16th century English drew ‘exist.’ To ‘exist’ may be borne from ‘to stand,’ but it is to stand in accordance with law, halting in its movement. We, subjects of state authority, exist in order to obey state control. We find the semantic shift of ‘exist’s imperial legacy in the United States’ 1830 Indian Removal Act under Andrew Jackson, forcing the relocation of Southeastern Indigenous peoples to federal Indian territory west of the Mississippi River, displacing dynamic, fluid Indigenous conceptions of land stewardship in favor of an artificially-bounded existence alienated from Indigenous ways of being. And Jackson justified this forced relocation through U.S. eminent domain claims over the United States’ territories.

From PIE to Latin, ‘stand’ — ancestor of ‘exist’ — shifted from fluidity to order. Latin’s legal reconceptualization of ‘to stand’ stood through developing descendent languages. Italian ‘stare’, Spanish ‘estar’, convey states of being (note ‘being’ as a ‘state’). English inheritance includes ‘state’, ‘static’, ‘stable’, ‘stationary’. The latter three imply a lack of movement.

Existence as Hierarchy

This semantic shift codifies Western conceptions of existence in relation to hierarchical order. The root word exposes ideology valuing adherence over autonomy. Culminating in passive, inert definitions of ‘exist’, language abstracts the nature of being from subjective experience. This linguistic abstraction reinforces Western notions of identity as fixed. The Latin shift reconceptualizes notions of a fluid existence arising and enduring through practice into alignment with notions of existence as determined by state authority.

To ‘exist,’ therefore, is to ‘exist to abide by state authority.’ And state authority upholds capitalist modes of production. A proletarian understanding of existence — of life — as fixed, structures a false consciousness wherein, in the state’s eyes, workers and other subjugated peoples are more likely to view obedience to state authority as inherent to existence. A patriarchal slave state (Rome, the U.S., &c) benefits from not only prioritizing order, authority, legal precedence, but from making them second nature. When an empire’s subjects feel that existence is static, they’re less likely to rebel.

Resistance to state subjugation matters. “The right to exist is indefensible,” Moten contends in the Millennials Are Killing Capitalism interview. Using our etymological understanding of ‘exist,’ we find to defend ‘the right to exist’ is to defend the right to state authority over subjugated peoples. Examining etymology matters because linguistic constraints hide state contradictions and exploitation. Our examination of ‘exist’ reveals subtle semantic reinforcement of capital-driven power systems. If we ‘exist,’ it may not be in the way we think we do. Whether we do ‘exist,’ many of us feel we exist. We’re also subjects of state authority. We, subjects of state authority, may feel we ‘exist’ — but ‘exist’s etymology enforces a false consciousness reinforcing state power. Surfacing ‘exist’s etymology illuminates the Western ideology intrinsic to our underlying assumptions of what it is to ‘exist.’ We understand ‘the right to exist’ as ‘the right to stand by state authority.’ The semantic shift in ‘exist’ reinforces settler colonial statehood. Understanding the Western semantic shift of ‘to exist’ is ‘to exist as justified by state authority’ exposes latent justifications of settler colonial states’ claims for just authority over an Indigenous, subjugated people.