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Words Have Power

Entry 2274, on 2023-05-17 at 19:26:10 (Rating 4, Comments)

One of the basic ideas behind postmodernist theory, which underlies a lot of modern woke culture, is the power of words. They believe that controlling language allows control of people, institutions, and society. They believe that language is violence. Clearly, words are important to them, and that might explain why so many words we see today are weaponised to produce a particular effect, or have been hijacked to have a, sometimes subtle, sometimes obvious, different meaning to their conventional one.

So let's have a look at a few words which have been manipulated this way, and examine how they might be used to control public narratives.

Word 1: gender

Until recently, gender was used as a synonym for sex (possibly because using the word "sex" was seen as a bit risque), and was generally restricted to male or female. But now, of course, the word has been changed to mean a cultural representation of sexual identity, meaning it can be warped into encompassing dozens (maybe hundreds) of different possibilities, and that a person's gender doesn't necessarily map to their biological sex.

In fact, for this one, I agree that the word used this way might have some utility. The Oxford English Dictionary says "Although the words gender and sex are often used interchangeably, they have different connotations; sex tends to refer to biological differences, while gender more often refers to cultural and social differences and sometimes encompasses a broader range of identities than the binary of male and female."

So, fair enough, the word does seem to be genuinely changing its meaning, so where do we go from here? Well, I am willing to accept the new meaning, but I am not willing to give it too much gravitas. For example, if someone tells me their gender I might say "OK, good to know, but what's you sex?" For situations like gaining access to restricted spaces, like women's change rooms, or participating in events which are specifically for one sex, like women's sport, I don't care about your gender, it is your sex which matters, and apart from fringe cases where there is some medical issue, that is male or female.

As far as all the extra genders which people have dreamed up, again I'm not too concerned. A person can identify as whatever they like, but I reserve the right to take that seriously or ridicule it on a case by case basis.

By the way, here's a selection of the new genders I have come across: agender, androgyne, androgynous, asexual, beardface, bigender, boiled elf, chaka khan, cis female, cis male, cis man, cis woman, cisgender, cisgender female, cisgender male, cisgender man, cisgender woman... And those are just the As Bs and Cs, and no, I'm not making this up!

Word 2: equity

Here's the relevant meaning of this word from the OED: the quality of being fair and impartial. And here's the definition of fair: impartial and just, without favouritism or discrimination; and impartial: treating all rivals or disputants equally. Notice that there is no mention there of treating different groups in different ways to resolve perceived problems, in fact it specifically says that all groups should be treated the same.

But that's not how equity is seen by the woke mob today. That is what they would call equality, and equity has been redefined to giving some groups privileges others don't have in order to attempt to make the final outcome for all groups the same. This is specifically *not* equity, unless you redefine the word.

Many people who object to this idea distinguish between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. Notice that the word equity is avoided there, so that everyone knows what we are talking about. So everyone gets the opportunity to become president, or go to university, or be a doctor, but we don't try to impose artificial quotas on those roles by making it easier for groups who apparently don't do as well otherwise.

Word 3: diversity

Diversity in the general sense means encompassing a wide range of different people, groups, and views, but the woke definiton tends to limit this to gender and racial groups. So from the OED we get the more general sense: the state of being diverse, variety; and the more specific sense: the practice or quality of including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, etc.

A major objection to attempts at diversity is that they tend to concentrate on characteristics which favour the preferences of the people implementing the diversity programs, generally trying to get equal numbers of men and women (let's not worry here about those dozens of other genders) and people of different races. But diversity of political views, age, and other characteristics are ignored.

For example, university social science departments tend to be almost entirely composed of people with fairly extreme left-wing political views, and it is that lack of diversity which would seem to many to be more important than largely irrelevant characteristics like gender or race (although those shouldn't be ignored).

So it's diversity when it suits, and none when it doesn't, but that can be justified if the word is specifically limited to those categories the person is most concerned with. I might say something like "sure, let's have more diversity; when are you going to hire some conservative professors?"

Word 4: violence

The OED has two definitions here: 1 behaviour involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something; and 2 strength of emotion or of a destructive natural force. So technically violence doesn't have to mean what most people take it to mean: physical harm, but by confusing the two meanings, and subtly warping them, the meaning of an action can be changed dishonestly.

So when people say that violence is being perpetrated against them because someone said something that they don't like, you could almost warp the true meaning to say that was violence (because of the "strength of emotion") but that would be quite misleading and dishonest, because it tries to equate that with true, physical violence.

We need to be more specific by using words like "negative emotion" and "physical harm" instead. Maybe that would break the false equivalence of true violence and emotional upset.

Word 5: woman

The only relevant definition in the OED here is: an adult female human being; and female is defined as: of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs. So it seems a fairly simple case here to say that people who started life as males and have transitioned to living as if they were females are not actually women. I am OK to refer to them as "she", if I think they are genuine and not just trying some political power play, but even then, they aren't women.

I am genuinely confused in some discussions who use this perfectly simple word, because I really don't know what they real sex of the person under discussion is. They are trying to redefine this word; don't let them!

Word 6: hate speech

Hate speech is a real thing. The OED defines it as: abusive or threatening speech or writing that expresses prejudice on the basis of ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or similar grounds. This seems fair enough, so maybe we should expect to be criticised when engaging in threatening or abusive or prejudiced speech against any of those groups, but again, the definition is often expanded to include fair criticism, and not only that, but when similar criticism is aimed at the person engaging in this speech it is not hate speech, because that person might not belong to one of those groups.

Personally I think hate speech is OK, as long as it doesn't directly incite violence or other real, physical harm against the target. As many free speech advocates say, the problem isn't the speech, it's the hate, and suppressing the speech often just increases the hate.

But the real problem here is our old friend concept creep. It's just too easy for any criticism to be labelled hate speech, simply for the purpose of stopping dissenting views. And the unevenness of it is also a problem: surely if hateful comments against the groups mentioned in the definition are bad, they must also be bad against other groups too?

Actually, there were several more words in my list, but I think I have made my point at this stage. So watch out for this redefinition of words, and don't let them get away with it! Remember: words have power!

Comment 1 (7434) by Anonymous on 2023-05-18 at 10:39:09:

Heres a few other suggestions for your perusal: liberal, pregnant person, undocumented migrant.

Comment 2 (7435) by OJB on 2023-05-18 at 12:24:15:

Yes, those were the type of words I had in the remainder of my list, but I kind of thought I had said enough already.

Comment 3 (7436) by Anonymous on 2023-05-18 at 14:02:32:

My favourites are "chest feeder" and "uterus carrier". There are 12 billion genders, otherwise known as unique personalities...

Comment 4 (7437) by OJB on 2023-05-18 at 19:30:17:

Yeah, those are pretty good too. I guess ultimately you are right: everyone has their own unique gender expression.

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