[ttpphd]

Throwing your hands up in the air like this doesn't help build a constructive case for using the word reasoning. It builds a case that words mean whatever

[kelseyfrog]

Yes, words mean whatever. See Saussure and Wittgenstein. To advance the claim that words are objective is to confuse the symbolic with the real.

This is generally regarded by engineer-types as false, but societal taboos and power structures can be revealed by noting what speech provokes the strongest reactions.

[psychoslave]

Saussure didn't use"arbitrary" in the sense "with absolutely unrestricted selection of signifiant/signifié association regardless of the context."

I'm not sure what links you try to show and what you try to argue here though.

[ttpphd]

"societal taboos and power structures can be revealed by noting what speech provokes the strongest reactions"

Ok I'll bite. Who is the marginalized Other?