In the 19th century, people with mental disabilities were called cretins, imbeciles, and idiots. By the early 20th century, this became a formal classification: idiots, whose mental age never exceeds that of a typical two-year-old; imbeciles, whose mental age never exceeds that of a seven-year-old; and morons, whose mental age never exceeds that of a twelve-year-old. Cretinism became a specific term for congenital hypothyroidism, leading to a syndrome that includes cognitive disability.
Of course, these terms became insults in popular vernacular for anyone who does or says something stupid. Bugs Bunny was fond of saying of inept adversaries, "What a maroon!" That's clearly not a reference to escaped Haitian slaves, but a variation on "moron." More recently, Ren Hoek of Ren & Stimpy had frequent outbursts at Stimpy the Cat, calling him an "eediot."
Because some well-meaning people thought they could end the hurt behind the use of these words by banning the words, they were replaced with the concept of developmental rates. The accepted terminology became "mental retardation" to reflect that these persons were just, as the euphemism goes, "slow." The truth is that many people with such disabilities are not just slow to develop intellectually, but incapable of developing beyond certain limitations.
"Retarded" was the politically correct term for such people in the mid-20th century. But of course, "retarded" and "retard" entered the vernacular as insults. This spawned an ongoing struggle to find an acceptable term for cognitive and intellectual disabilities: developmentally disabled, developmentally challenged, developmentally delayed (note that "delayed" is a direct synonym of "retarded"), mentally challenged, and so on.
The issue isn't the words. If you want to put someone down by calling them profoundly, inherently stupid, you will use whatever term people currently used for the developmentally disabled - even "special."
The point of controlling the words is to attempt to control people's ability to think, as with Orwellian Newspeak. If you can relegate the population to a constant scramble to keep up with the right words on pain of ostracism, you can keep them from questioning the control you have over them - even as you expand and extend that control to all aspects of their lives. In effect, you reduce them, to (in the words of MAD Magazine) a gang of idiots.
The effort by elite urbanists to control thought through speech also extends not too subtly to the way that words are capitalized or not. Consider the dictum from the elites in media to capitalize "black" with reference to black people, but not "white," because capitalizing "white" was considered to be a "dog whistle" for white racism. (As a supporter of genuinely equal treatment, and no "Master Race," I would have just left alone the convention of not capitalizing either.)
There is a similar history lesson with regard to the terms used to refer to people of indigenous sub-Saharan African origins or descent, excluding the Africans descended from European settlers. For example, "African-American" was originally meant to give Black Americans a sense of connection to the Mother Continent, but it awkwardly includes (technically) someone like Elon Musk or Sam Esmail, and it hardly can be used to describe Europeans of African or Afro-Caribbean descent.
The problem with this approach is that there is no mass public input. Before referring to moms as birthing people, shouldn't someone ask moms if this is okay with them? And, then you have people like my husband who works 12 to 16 hours a day. He depends on me to keep him informed of IMPORTANT matters. He has no time or energy for trivial word games. He's in the beginning stages of building up a business, so he has dedicated his time to that pursuit. Now, let's say one of these hall monitors comes in to his business and he unknowingly uses a word he's always used. In some circles, that is cause to destroy him, his business, his family, and his good-hearted nature. Why? What good does that do? Lots of people will lose their job because he can barely hold his eyes open long enough to even remember what day it is. It's ridiculous and people who do this to others are the ones who should be shunned. They obviously have too much time on their hands.
I find the phrase 'birthing people' repugnant. Simply because it's just another subtle attack on absolute truth. They know that when 2 + 2 = 5 those that 'should be shunned' are winning, as several have pointed out in this thread. Good comment!
It might also be time to decriminalize racial slurs. Not that they should be used casually, to be clear. However, having used them in the past or using them in a generic sense, say, describing a historical quote or something, should not be grounds for summary banishment from the public square.
Younger people often seem unable to cope with the language in Huckleberry Finn, deeming it a racist work, when literally the whole journey is that Huck (who in Southern terms is capital-T Trash) comes to understand and accept Jim’s humanity, even if he has to go to hell for it. It is one of the greatest literary works ever produced in America, and the thought that it is falling by the wayside because of uprighteous people playing language power games is deeply sad.
I'm a little skeptical of the survey, it wouldn't surprise me if they primed participants toward a more PC-minded awareness before the questions came, those numbers still look a bit too "leftist."
I also think this article highlights why the US being a center-right country politically may again stick with us for a long time. Even for people who support liberalism, it's such a relief to have a no-nonsense conservative in charge, holding the reins of power. As that person quoted above said, it's like you're not sure what to say, it's confusing and always changing. Even liberals who are on board with the idea behind PC politics are intimidated and mistreated by it.
As we've seen over the last four years, the country feels similar to household where the power structure has been inverted, and the children make the rules. The dominant liberal hierarchy is highly neurotic, prone to indulging into intellectualized fantasies and big ideas over practical reality, ideological over empirical, catty and emotional, basically a teenager. I can easily imagine that this country will have a good number of "low key" swing voters over the next couple decades, people who are really liberals who would support the Democratic Party, but who throw in a vote toward Republicans because they fear what their own side would do if they actually got back into power again.
"Even for people who support liberalism, it's such a relief to have a no-nonsense conservative in charge, holding the reins of power."
A 'no-nonsense conservative' in the classical liberal, civil libertarian mold, yes--but that is not Trump. If you really support liberalism, you should not feel at all relieved that Trump holds the reins of power. Even setting aside his most egregiously illiberal actions--the fake electors scheme to throw out the results of the 2020 election being the worst of all--and focusing just on the policing of language, he's as bad as the woke-ists, only he's already showing he's not afraid to use the power of the executive to clamp down on the language he doesn't like, as he said he would during his campaign. He's always threatened to 'seek vengeance' on press outlets (and individuals) critical of him, and we're now seeing him begin to follow through, as the lawsuit just settled by ABC (and the new one filed against the Des Moines register) clearly indicates. A manner of lawsuit, one should note, that neither Biden nor Congressional Democrats ever brought against their critics.
It's important to remember that, historically, when liberalism has been corrupted, it has been in a dialectical fashion--turning to illiberal leaders like Trump, for example, because you're fed up with the illiberalism of the woke-ists. A true (small l) liberal should not feel comfortable with either holding the reins of power.
In this particular case, the Democrats ran an enormously incompetent and feckless government. We have only two choices. Choosing the very imperfect alternative may not get us better government, but it does make the point that if you screw up the people will throw you out no matter how much you argue that the other guy is worse. Thus motivating both parties to avoid screwing up.
You are broadly correct, and I don’t think any of that is mutually exclusive with what I said, really. (although I think the Biden administration’s performance in terms of domestic economic policy—as opposed to their clear failure in terms of border policy—is actually quite good when compared to the performance of the rest of the G20. But voters generally don’t think in those comparative terms)
The only nuance I would say you’re missing is that we *also* have a primary system, and in contrast to the general election, it does not present its voters with binary choices between partisan candidates. It is troubling that Republican primary voters did not select a more liberal alternative to Trump, when several existed, and the GOP has traditionally been the party of classical liberal ‘purists’.
I’m not sure how a domestic economic policy that also involves a lot of inflation is something to call good. You don’t get props for doing half of a good job. But the border issue isn’t just bad in itself, how it happened is an indication of the party’s factionalism and ungovernability. They knew the issue would kill them but couldn’t get it together to stop it. Foreign policy, same story. That’s *bad*
Did you forget that the Democrats effectively did not hold a primary this cycle? That Old Joe was brought in by the party establishment in the first place because the primary process could not surface anyone reasonable enough to win an election? And the concealment of the Presidents debility and ultimate appointment of a candidate who had not won a single delegate in an open primary? This is not even a binary choice. Trump starts to look like a statesman by contrast. How bad do you have to be for *that* to happen?
The domestic economic policy is good when you look at the American economy's performance vs the rest of the world's during the same period.
The US under Biden had the lowest amount of inflation and the highest rates of employment and output growth in the G20 in the post-pandemic period. Inflation and growth was worse in literally every other major Western economy. (and it's worth stating that we're talking about a rise in relative consumer prices, not the value of the currency--the dollar actually rose to its highest value in over 20 years under Biden, and is still worth more now than it was at any point during Trump's first term) But I fully acknowledge voters do not think in those comparative terms.
No disputing that his border policy was a huge failure, though, and that he was ineffectual on foreign policy. (However, I do think Trump bares some blame for the Ukraine situation, since the build-up of Russian military supplies and personnel on the Ukrainian border and logistical preparations for the invasion got going during Trump's term, while he was busy calling our NATO allies leeches--and he didn't really do anything about it. I also think if Biden had refused to intervene and let Russia simply take Ukraine, it would be seen as an even *bigger* failure of foreign policy, and there was also no appetite to commit to a full war, so he was kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place.)
I do wonder what would have happened in Ukraine if we had gone in there to win in the first instance, instead of vacillating over weapons, releasing them slowly and putting restrictions on them. But as you say it was a tough call.
To me, the Gaza war is the really bad part. Regardless of what you think about the rights and wrongs of it, Israel is our ally, and the gross public vacillation, with leftist protesters pushing a military operation off its foundation, and the endless red lines and reversals made it clear that we cannot be trusted to back our allies. The Democrats single-handedly destroyed our deterrence, ensuring that we will have to fight in the future for what we could have gotten without fighting. This has worldwide implications for our national security. In the Middle East, we are fortunate that Netanyahu ignored us, destroyed Israel’s enemies, and are now in a dominant position. The other states in the region now fear them, and that is deterrence that we no longer have. The same is not true of other world crisis areas. China will take Taiwan in the next few years and I hope we are wise enough not to fight them because we would lose. It is irretrievable and future historians will judge them harshly.
The policing of speech by woke cultists is about their intention to control every aspect of everyone else's lives. It is not just an example of evolving use of language, as McWhorter has said. Postmodernists specifically believe that words equal power, and controlling words is the means to seizing power, which they have done very effectively in many Western countries. Americans should resist them as strongly as possible.
Back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and I was in college, we studied a linguistics scholar named Whorf. He theorized that language does indeed influence thought. He fell out of favor in intervening years due to criticisms that his theories couldn't be falsified and the so-called universalists (e.g. Chomsky) took over. Their theories couldn't be falsified either. Lately, though he has come back into fashion and presumably influenced some of the inventive language leftists. However, they seemed to have developed a fusion of Whorf and Lysenko in their approach.
I think there's good evidence that it works in both directions. That's why Wittgenstein's view still seems to me to be far and away the most accurate linguistic framework. Words are aspects of a broad pattern of behavior (a 'language game') that are used to express meaning between conscious subjects. Therefore, yes, changing the nature of a language game's words changes human behavior, but the reverse is also true--changing human behavior precipitates changes to the words of the language game. (because they're the same thing)
IMO, the bigger story here is that technological changes--in particular the rise of social media, and the incentive-structures built into the dominant business model of social media, which focuses on 'engagement'--led to the rise of woke policing of language. And that in turn led to a backlash. And now, linguistically, we're sort of stuck between the vulgarian impulses of Trump and the neurotic oversensitivity of the woke mob...neither of which have been of much benefit to society.
In the white South of my boyhood, “colored” was the polite, respectable way to speak, as opposed to other ways. “Black” was an insult, which caused confusion and consternation when it suddenly became correct. Your Missouri guy, if old enough, was probably just unable to keep up.
I'd be curious what the objection to "nonwhite" is since it's a term us voter poll nerds use all the time. I know antiracists believe that it's offensive to refer to people in a way that's derivative of 'white', as though white is the default/norm. But I kinda doubt most ordinary Americans are thinking that way so what's their problem with the term? I've kinda come to hate saying "people of color" -- it feels really contrived and patronizing to me. So that leaves me with "non-white" as the only alternative I can think of.
Yeah, there aren't many great options in sort of day-to-day language, but for now, when white Americans continue to be a majority of the population (and far larger than any other racial or ethnic group), I think it's reasonable to say "nonwhites" in certain contexts. I will also sometimes go with "racial minorities." I think both are more natural, ubiquitous, and, frankly, less obnoxious than BIPOC. (Also, agreed re: "people of color." I thought Carville had a pretty good response to that one: https://www.vox.com/22338417/james-carville-democratic-party-biden-100-days)
It's ridiculous that "people of color" is politically correct for the moment, but "colored people" is as bad as the N-word. Speaking of which, the N-word and all of its variants, such as "Negro," "nigga," "nigra," etc., all mean "black," which black Americans reportedly now prefer as the term of the moment.
The N word continues to be used by black people in describing blacks who are particularly anti-social in various ways. The thing that makes the word so offensive is the way that it was applied so indiscriminately by many whites in referring to all blacks.
“People of color” gets on my nerves. It is open to every category of person except people of European descent. We couldn’t join this club if we tried. If you’re in the club, you get the deluxe civil rights package. If not, only the basic one. In that sense it is the inverse of “white” as understood for the first 200 years of our history and in every way as racist.
Lately, people of all kinds have been falling all over themselves to join that club. The latest is MENA which includes Arab-Americans (who have never been discriminated against in this country) but not Italian-Americans (who have) and certainly not Jews even if Mizrahi.
This is interesting, but I think there's another dimension: I think a lot of people abhor euphemisms (at least, I do). They tend to get more and more complex and obscure, and end up no better than the words they are replacing (McWhorter has addressed this as well). Yet the intolerant Puritans of the left keep inventing them, and insisting on their use. I'm pretty old (74) but I hate euphemisms for age: why not just admit we're old folks, and being old has some consequences? Etc.
It’s not really about ‘progressives’ being hall monitors, but about them being the Thought Police. While Latinx comes across as a joke, most of their language policing is illiberal and Orwellian, and inspires dread. They’re not annoying - they’re offensively and dangerously totalitarian.
Fix everything by federal legislation that bans all hate crime statutes because they are unconstitutional.
You cannot have free speech if allowed to prosecute people based on a guess at the emotional basis for their speech. In fact, there should be zero prosecution of speech of any kind. And there should be complete allowance of zero tolerance of speech found offensive. And instead of criminal laws for claimed harm from speech, we need to support a civil process for claims of harm from speech.
Re: "...most people likely want to be respectful of others and have no desire to actively offend them."
Perhaps, but the last 25 years of speech codes and language police have inadvertently highlighted a more pertinent notion, and that is that we shouldn't concern ourselves as to whether plain language, in any setting, offends others or not.
Re: Disagreement over terms like “pregnant people” in lieu of “pregnant women” have seemed to pit the modern-day concept of “gender identity” against the female experience."
No. This anti-reality phrase of the transactivist fringe has not "seemed" to move against the female experience. It actually does precisely that.
Re: :Americans continue to embrace conventional terms like “pregnant women” (over “pregnant people” or “birthing people”) and “breastfeeding” (over “chestfeeding”)."
No. Those are not "conventional terms." They are based on objective, empirical, undeniable scientific facts, unlike the fantasy-based terms "Birthing people" and "chestfeeding."
Re: "...aversion to “political correctness,” which has made some people feel anxious about using the wrong word and risking backlash for doing so."
Yes, for the cowardly, and for the political class. But rational people are not anxious about language police and political correctness. Our opposition is rooted solely in a repugnance for disingenuous and/or false terminology and the hall monitors who enforce their use.
We have no desire to "keep up." We cannot possible locate a legitimate concern for what is acceptable.
Re: "...there is some perception that these changes are often being declared almost by fiat by people who work in institutions that have outsized influence over shaping the culture."
JFC. Perception?! This is precisely where the foolishness of language policing derives.
Re: "Activists who are sincerely committed to social change might exhibit some grace in these conversations if they hope to convince people to consider their beliefs and ideas."
They have no wish to convince anyone of anything, any more than a security guard would attempt to "convince" you not to rob the bank where he works.
Enforcement is the order of the day for activists. There's no "grace" involved. No persuasion.
The 'top-down dictates' part is about to get very interesting, because the next leg of the 'Language Wars', such as they are, is probably going to be much more existential, and will take the form of whether the fourth estate is going to be allowed to use properly critical language to criticize the actions of a strongman.
This is the way you clamp down on the press in the 'soft fascist' model. You file an endless number of frivolous lawsuits that press outlets have to spend tons of money and time fighting; eventually, this weighs down on their bottom line enough that they tell their writers and reporters to stop criticizing your bad behavior.
You're going to see a push on the right to equate Trump's smothering of the press with people being mean to you on Twitter or Facebook, when the two are not remotely equal. The big coming question in the 'Language Wars' is whether anyone will push back--including the right's remaining civil libertarians--or whether every critic will just do what ABC did, and bend the knee.
So, none of the charges brought against President Trump seemed 'frivolous' to you, none of them? With all due respect Minsky, I have to say I disagree with most of what you've said in this thread, but let me focus on this post. You are concerned that the press will be cowed by 'the strongman'. So to you, what we've seen since 2016 has been a fair, objective approach from the legacy media towards DT? Or maybe you saw it as 'yes, it was a little biased, but that's to be expected when dealing with such an existential threat to democracy'?
If there is a character limit on posts, I believe I could easily reach it while recounting all the unfair, unfounded accusations of President Trump (to me though, nothing was worse than the 'very fine people' hoax, or did you not approve of Pres Biden when he promoted it along with the help of the legacy media to kick off his 2020 campaign, in order to cement Trump and racist together?). I'm sure you are aware of at least some of these, yet, to you, that doesn't justify his current actions? It kind of sounds to me, like you are saying just let the press do what the press is going to do? Don't you think that ABC settled because they knew they were liable for saying ten times that he raped her? Surely, you know how hard it is to win a defamation lawsuit against a public figure? And does nothing seem fishy to you in that case, at all? Set aside the timing, the venue where it was tried, and just ask yourself, do you think this case would have been brought if it wasn't DT trying to be President again? Did you think Blassey Ford's intentions were pure too, that it had nothing to do with a faction of the progressives who are obsessed with the taking of innocent life? To me, they were both politically motivated.
And you didn't see any nefarious intentions with a last minute poll from a respected pollster (formerly) saying that DT was behind by 3 points in a place just a month prior he was up by 4, when he wound up winning by 13 points (off by 16 points!)? That there was no chance that this was purely to try to sway an election?
IMO, President Trump has not received a fair shake from the legacy media since he first became President. This does not mean he shouldn't be criticized, he should, but with integrity. Nor do I want him to receive the same treatment that President Biden received (of course they knew he was suffering from dementia, that his son was influence peddling, that he wanted an open border, etc, etc). The real menace is a forth estate hopelessly biased against someone who represents a real threat to secular arrogance (not all things secular are arrogant, but how many 'experts' do you still trust . . ), a real threat to the powers whom the 4th estate have aligned themselves with, but most of all, a real threat to the disciples of intellectualism over the disciples of God/faith/wisdom. Often God uses imperfect tools (every man is imperfect) to bring about good as we know from the entire Old Testament.
I know my post is in your face, I hope it doesn't sound too disrespectful, because though I disagree with you, I honestly tried to be respectful, and of course you deserve respect for your opinions. As once we stop championing the respectful exchange of ideas, we risk the Republic. God bless Minsky, and I look forward to your thoughtful reply.
---"It kind of sounds to me, like you are saying just let the press do what the press is going to do?"---
When you are the *president*, in essence, yes--this is part of the gig.
These cases wouldn't be nearly as concerning, frivolous as they seem to be, if Trump were just an ordinary private citizen, or if he were filing them *after* his time in office; but he is the president-elect, soon to be the president, and as such is vested with the vast powers of the US Commander in Chief. A key aspect of the 'liberal' part of a liberal democratic republic is that the powers of the executive are checked by institutional constraints, and an autonomous press is one of the most crucial of these; when a private citizen legally goes after members of the press, they are not wielding state power, so this autonomy isn't really threatened.
Whereas when the *president* (or soon-to-be-president) goes after them, he is going after them with immense state power, and it *is* a threat.
I think you could definitely find instances of Trump being treated unfairly by many press outlets, I don't disagree with you there; but nearly all presidents are treated thusly at some point, ever more so since the 1980s. I could similarly cite plenty of examples of Biden or Obama being treated unfairly by, say, Fox News. But I wouldn't want President Biden or President Obama filing lawsuits against Fox News.
---Don't you think that ABC settled because they knew they were liable for saying ten times that he raped her?---
My guess is they settled because they do not want a long, protracted legal battle against someone who has all the levers of presidential power at their disposal. My guess is that a lot of other press outlets (many of whom are already struggling financially) would be pressured to do the same, because of the financial toll such a battle would take. And, like I said, when press outlets start to do this, they become, bit by bit, more reluctant to criticize that person. That is a key aspect of how Erdogan, Putin, Orban and--in an earlier time--Mussolini effectively silenced their critics in the press.
---"And you didn't see any nefarious intentions with a last minute poll from a respected pollster (formerly) saying that DT was behind by 3 points in a place just a month prior he was up by 4, when he wound up winning by 13 points (off by 16 points!)? That there was no chance that this was purely to try to sway an election?"---
Even if I did, biased polling is nothing new, and by this logic Biden should have sued Trafalgar or Rasmussen, who undercounted his support in 2020 (and Obama's support in 2008 and 2012) in key states, and have a well-documented 'house bias' against Democrats. In fact, it would be grounds to sue anyone who publishes a poll that is favorable to your opponent. This is why the suit is pretty self-evidently frivolous, and won't go anywhere--but it *will* be a financial burden on Selzer and the Des Moines Register.
FWIW, in the particular case of Selzer, she is actually very open about her methodology and has a reputation as a pollster who publishes their results regardless of whether they resemble the results of other pollsters. (as opposed to fudging her findings if they don't comport with trends in the polls) She was one of the few pollsters to actually predict Trump's surge in Iowa in 2016. Clearly she got something wrong this election, but that's not grounds to sue her.
And lastly, I would argue it's a bad idea to place the 'disciples of intellectualism' and the 'disciples of God/faith/wisdom' in different camps. This is what the 'New Atheists' do, too, and I think it's too simplistic. Intellectuals can be religious, and religion is not inherently opposed to intellectual inquiry--how could it be, when the vast majority of history's intellectuals were religious? In some cases, the two do come into conflict. But that is not a given.
I appreciate your comments, you make some good points, and yes, I should have been more precise regarding my last comment, there is no question that there has been, are and will be intelligent 'scientific method', so to speak, religious people. What I see over represented, coming from academia (thus filling many roles of influence in all our institutions), are people who do what is right in their own eyes, with a great lack of wisdom.
I actually don’t have a strong opinion on that one. I get the reasoning behind changing it to “enslaved person” — it reframes slavery as something that happened to a person rather than a defining feature of who they were. I suppose in some settings like museums or even newspapers I don’t see an issue with it. But “slave” is also a common term in everyday parlance and also outside the context of the US, so I don’t necessarily see a problem with using it in conversation either.
Thank you for your opinion Michael and for a great article. I’m fairly conservative and somewhat reluctant to buy into a lot of these “top-down dictates” as you correctly put it. That being said, I find myself gravitating towards using the phrase “enslaved person” as it highlights the humanity of our brothers and sisters who were treated with such a lack of human dignity at the time.
History lesson:
In the 19th century, people with mental disabilities were called cretins, imbeciles, and idiots. By the early 20th century, this became a formal classification: idiots, whose mental age never exceeds that of a typical two-year-old; imbeciles, whose mental age never exceeds that of a seven-year-old; and morons, whose mental age never exceeds that of a twelve-year-old. Cretinism became a specific term for congenital hypothyroidism, leading to a syndrome that includes cognitive disability.
Of course, these terms became insults in popular vernacular for anyone who does or says something stupid. Bugs Bunny was fond of saying of inept adversaries, "What a maroon!" That's clearly not a reference to escaped Haitian slaves, but a variation on "moron." More recently, Ren Hoek of Ren & Stimpy had frequent outbursts at Stimpy the Cat, calling him an "eediot."
Because some well-meaning people thought they could end the hurt behind the use of these words by banning the words, they were replaced with the concept of developmental rates. The accepted terminology became "mental retardation" to reflect that these persons were just, as the euphemism goes, "slow." The truth is that many people with such disabilities are not just slow to develop intellectually, but incapable of developing beyond certain limitations.
"Retarded" was the politically correct term for such people in the mid-20th century. But of course, "retarded" and "retard" entered the vernacular as insults. This spawned an ongoing struggle to find an acceptable term for cognitive and intellectual disabilities: developmentally disabled, developmentally challenged, developmentally delayed (note that "delayed" is a direct synonym of "retarded"), mentally challenged, and so on.
The issue isn't the words. If you want to put someone down by calling them profoundly, inherently stupid, you will use whatever term people currently used for the developmentally disabled - even "special."
The point of controlling the words is to attempt to control people's ability to think, as with Orwellian Newspeak. If you can relegate the population to a constant scramble to keep up with the right words on pain of ostracism, you can keep them from questioning the control you have over them - even as you expand and extend that control to all aspects of their lives. In effect, you reduce them, to (in the words of MAD Magazine) a gang of idiots.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. Much to chew on.
The effort by elite urbanists to control thought through speech also extends not too subtly to the way that words are capitalized or not. Consider the dictum from the elites in media to capitalize "black" with reference to black people, but not "white," because capitalizing "white" was considered to be a "dog whistle" for white racism. (As a supporter of genuinely equal treatment, and no "Master Race," I would have just left alone the convention of not capitalizing either.)
There is a similar history lesson with regard to the terms used to refer to people of indigenous sub-Saharan African origins or descent, excluding the Africans descended from European settlers. For example, "African-American" was originally meant to give Black Americans a sense of connection to the Mother Continent, but it awkwardly includes (technically) someone like Elon Musk or Sam Esmail, and it hardly can be used to describe Europeans of African or Afro-Caribbean descent.
Perhaps if we just stopped calling eachother names, there would be no need to find new words to replace old ones.
Yes, but we probably need to evolve much further as a species to get to that point.
Excellent post! I enjoyed reading your history of the evolution of the low IQ labeling.
The problem with this approach is that there is no mass public input. Before referring to moms as birthing people, shouldn't someone ask moms if this is okay with them? And, then you have people like my husband who works 12 to 16 hours a day. He depends on me to keep him informed of IMPORTANT matters. He has no time or energy for trivial word games. He's in the beginning stages of building up a business, so he has dedicated his time to that pursuit. Now, let's say one of these hall monitors comes in to his business and he unknowingly uses a word he's always used. In some circles, that is cause to destroy him, his business, his family, and his good-hearted nature. Why? What good does that do? Lots of people will lose their job because he can barely hold his eyes open long enough to even remember what day it is. It's ridiculous and people who do this to others are the ones who should be shunned. They obviously have too much time on their hands.
I find the phrase 'birthing people' repugnant. Simply because it's just another subtle attack on absolute truth. They know that when 2 + 2 = 5 those that 'should be shunned' are winning, as several have pointed out in this thread. Good comment!
"No one likes a hall monitor" -- that about covers it!
It might also be time to decriminalize racial slurs. Not that they should be used casually, to be clear. However, having used them in the past or using them in a generic sense, say, describing a historical quote or something, should not be grounds for summary banishment from the public square.
Younger people often seem unable to cope with the language in Huckleberry Finn, deeming it a racist work, when literally the whole journey is that Huck (who in Southern terms is capital-T Trash) comes to understand and accept Jim’s humanity, even if he has to go to hell for it. It is one of the greatest literary works ever produced in America, and the thought that it is falling by the wayside because of uprighteous people playing language power games is deeply sad.
I'm a little skeptical of the survey, it wouldn't surprise me if they primed participants toward a more PC-minded awareness before the questions came, those numbers still look a bit too "leftist."
I also think this article highlights why the US being a center-right country politically may again stick with us for a long time. Even for people who support liberalism, it's such a relief to have a no-nonsense conservative in charge, holding the reins of power. As that person quoted above said, it's like you're not sure what to say, it's confusing and always changing. Even liberals who are on board with the idea behind PC politics are intimidated and mistreated by it.
As we've seen over the last four years, the country feels similar to household where the power structure has been inverted, and the children make the rules. The dominant liberal hierarchy is highly neurotic, prone to indulging into intellectualized fantasies and big ideas over practical reality, ideological over empirical, catty and emotional, basically a teenager. I can easily imagine that this country will have a good number of "low key" swing voters over the next couple decades, people who are really liberals who would support the Democratic Party, but who throw in a vote toward Republicans because they fear what their own side would do if they actually got back into power again.
"Even for people who support liberalism, it's such a relief to have a no-nonsense conservative in charge, holding the reins of power."
A 'no-nonsense conservative' in the classical liberal, civil libertarian mold, yes--but that is not Trump. If you really support liberalism, you should not feel at all relieved that Trump holds the reins of power. Even setting aside his most egregiously illiberal actions--the fake electors scheme to throw out the results of the 2020 election being the worst of all--and focusing just on the policing of language, he's as bad as the woke-ists, only he's already showing he's not afraid to use the power of the executive to clamp down on the language he doesn't like, as he said he would during his campaign. He's always threatened to 'seek vengeance' on press outlets (and individuals) critical of him, and we're now seeing him begin to follow through, as the lawsuit just settled by ABC (and the new one filed against the Des Moines register) clearly indicates. A manner of lawsuit, one should note, that neither Biden nor Congressional Democrats ever brought against their critics.
It's important to remember that, historically, when liberalism has been corrupted, it has been in a dialectical fashion--turning to illiberal leaders like Trump, for example, because you're fed up with the illiberalism of the woke-ists. A true (small l) liberal should not feel comfortable with either holding the reins of power.
In this particular case, the Democrats ran an enormously incompetent and feckless government. We have only two choices. Choosing the very imperfect alternative may not get us better government, but it does make the point that if you screw up the people will throw you out no matter how much you argue that the other guy is worse. Thus motivating both parties to avoid screwing up.
You are broadly correct, and I don’t think any of that is mutually exclusive with what I said, really. (although I think the Biden administration’s performance in terms of domestic economic policy—as opposed to their clear failure in terms of border policy—is actually quite good when compared to the performance of the rest of the G20. But voters generally don’t think in those comparative terms)
The only nuance I would say you’re missing is that we *also* have a primary system, and in contrast to the general election, it does not present its voters with binary choices between partisan candidates. It is troubling that Republican primary voters did not select a more liberal alternative to Trump, when several existed, and the GOP has traditionally been the party of classical liberal ‘purists’.
I’m not sure how a domestic economic policy that also involves a lot of inflation is something to call good. You don’t get props for doing half of a good job. But the border issue isn’t just bad in itself, how it happened is an indication of the party’s factionalism and ungovernability. They knew the issue would kill them but couldn’t get it together to stop it. Foreign policy, same story. That’s *bad*
Did you forget that the Democrats effectively did not hold a primary this cycle? That Old Joe was brought in by the party establishment in the first place because the primary process could not surface anyone reasonable enough to win an election? And the concealment of the Presidents debility and ultimate appointment of a candidate who had not won a single delegate in an open primary? This is not even a binary choice. Trump starts to look like a statesman by contrast. How bad do you have to be for *that* to happen?
The domestic economic policy is good when you look at the American economy's performance vs the rest of the world's during the same period.
The US under Biden had the lowest amount of inflation and the highest rates of employment and output growth in the G20 in the post-pandemic period. Inflation and growth was worse in literally every other major Western economy. (and it's worth stating that we're talking about a rise in relative consumer prices, not the value of the currency--the dollar actually rose to its highest value in over 20 years under Biden, and is still worth more now than it was at any point during Trump's first term) But I fully acknowledge voters do not think in those comparative terms.
No disputing that his border policy was a huge failure, though, and that he was ineffectual on foreign policy. (However, I do think Trump bares some blame for the Ukraine situation, since the build-up of Russian military supplies and personnel on the Ukrainian border and logistical preparations for the invasion got going during Trump's term, while he was busy calling our NATO allies leeches--and he didn't really do anything about it. I also think if Biden had refused to intervene and let Russia simply take Ukraine, it would be seen as an even *bigger* failure of foreign policy, and there was also no appetite to commit to a full war, so he was kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place.)
I do wonder what would have happened in Ukraine if we had gone in there to win in the first instance, instead of vacillating over weapons, releasing them slowly and putting restrictions on them. But as you say it was a tough call.
To me, the Gaza war is the really bad part. Regardless of what you think about the rights and wrongs of it, Israel is our ally, and the gross public vacillation, with leftist protesters pushing a military operation off its foundation, and the endless red lines and reversals made it clear that we cannot be trusted to back our allies. The Democrats single-handedly destroyed our deterrence, ensuring that we will have to fight in the future for what we could have gotten without fighting. This has worldwide implications for our national security. In the Middle East, we are fortunate that Netanyahu ignored us, destroyed Israel’s enemies, and are now in a dominant position. The other states in the region now fear them, and that is deterrence that we no longer have. The same is not true of other world crisis areas. China will take Taiwan in the next few years and I hope we are wise enough not to fight them because we would lose. It is irretrievable and future historians will judge them harshly.
The policing of speech by woke cultists is about their intention to control every aspect of everyone else's lives. It is not just an example of evolving use of language, as McWhorter has said. Postmodernists specifically believe that words equal power, and controlling words is the means to seizing power, which they have done very effectively in many Western countries. Americans should resist them as strongly as possible.
Back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and I was in college, we studied a linguistics scholar named Whorf. He theorized that language does indeed influence thought. He fell out of favor in intervening years due to criticisms that his theories couldn't be falsified and the so-called universalists (e.g. Chomsky) took over. Their theories couldn't be falsified either. Lately, though he has come back into fashion and presumably influenced some of the inventive language leftists. However, they seemed to have developed a fusion of Whorf and Lysenko in their approach.
I think there's good evidence that it works in both directions. That's why Wittgenstein's view still seems to me to be far and away the most accurate linguistic framework. Words are aspects of a broad pattern of behavior (a 'language game') that are used to express meaning between conscious subjects. Therefore, yes, changing the nature of a language game's words changes human behavior, but the reverse is also true--changing human behavior precipitates changes to the words of the language game. (because they're the same thing)
IMO, the bigger story here is that technological changes--in particular the rise of social media, and the incentive-structures built into the dominant business model of social media, which focuses on 'engagement'--led to the rise of woke policing of language. And that in turn led to a backlash. And now, linguistically, we're sort of stuck between the vulgarian impulses of Trump and the neurotic oversensitivity of the woke mob...neither of which have been of much benefit to society.
In the white South of my boyhood, “colored” was the polite, respectable way to speak, as opposed to other ways. “Black” was an insult, which caused confusion and consternation when it suddenly became correct. Your Missouri guy, if old enough, was probably just unable to keep up.
Yet another issue that could really use a vital center pushing back against illiberal types across the left-right spectrum
I'd be curious what the objection to "nonwhite" is since it's a term us voter poll nerds use all the time. I know antiracists believe that it's offensive to refer to people in a way that's derivative of 'white', as though white is the default/norm. But I kinda doubt most ordinary Americans are thinking that way so what's their problem with the term? I've kinda come to hate saying "people of color" -- it feels really contrived and patronizing to me. So that leaves me with "non-white" as the only alternative I can think of.
Yeah, there aren't many great options in sort of day-to-day language, but for now, when white Americans continue to be a majority of the population (and far larger than any other racial or ethnic group), I think it's reasonable to say "nonwhites" in certain contexts. I will also sometimes go with "racial minorities." I think both are more natural, ubiquitous, and, frankly, less obnoxious than BIPOC. (Also, agreed re: "people of color." I thought Carville had a pretty good response to that one: https://www.vox.com/22338417/james-carville-democratic-party-biden-100-days)
It's ridiculous that "people of color" is politically correct for the moment, but "colored people" is as bad as the N-word. Speaking of which, the N-word and all of its variants, such as "Negro," "nigga," "nigra," etc., all mean "black," which black Americans reportedly now prefer as the term of the moment.
The N word continues to be used by black people in describing blacks who are particularly anti-social in various ways. The thing that makes the word so offensive is the way that it was applied so indiscriminately by many whites in referring to all blacks.
“People of color” gets on my nerves. It is open to every category of person except people of European descent. We couldn’t join this club if we tried. If you’re in the club, you get the deluxe civil rights package. If not, only the basic one. In that sense it is the inverse of “white” as understood for the first 200 years of our history and in every way as racist.
Lately, people of all kinds have been falling all over themselves to join that club. The latest is MENA which includes Arab-Americans (who have never been discriminated against in this country) but not Italian-Americans (who have) and certainly not Jews even if Mizrahi.
I have known some Italians and other people of Mediterranean ancestry who are darker than some of the "black" people I know.
This is interesting, but I think there's another dimension: I think a lot of people abhor euphemisms (at least, I do). They tend to get more and more complex and obscure, and end up no better than the words they are replacing (McWhorter has addressed this as well). Yet the intolerant Puritans of the left keep inventing them, and insisting on their use. I'm pretty old (74) but I hate euphemisms for age: why not just admit we're old folks, and being old has some consequences? Etc.
Are you familiar with Steven Pinker's concept of the "euphemism treadmill"? It pretty much describes the problem you're outlining. https://www.nytimes.com/1994/04/05/opinion/the-game-of-the-name.html
It’s not really about ‘progressives’ being hall monitors, but about them being the Thought Police. While Latinx comes across as a joke, most of their language policing is illiberal and Orwellian, and inspires dread. They’re not annoying - they’re offensively and dangerously totalitarian.
Fix everything by federal legislation that bans all hate crime statutes because they are unconstitutional.
You cannot have free speech if allowed to prosecute people based on a guess at the emotional basis for their speech. In fact, there should be zero prosecution of speech of any kind. And there should be complete allowance of zero tolerance of speech found offensive. And instead of criminal laws for claimed harm from speech, we need to support a civil process for claims of harm from speech.
Re: "...most people likely want to be respectful of others and have no desire to actively offend them."
Perhaps, but the last 25 years of speech codes and language police have inadvertently highlighted a more pertinent notion, and that is that we shouldn't concern ourselves as to whether plain language, in any setting, offends others or not.
Re: Disagreement over terms like “pregnant people” in lieu of “pregnant women” have seemed to pit the modern-day concept of “gender identity” against the female experience."
No. This anti-reality phrase of the transactivist fringe has not "seemed" to move against the female experience. It actually does precisely that.
Re: :Americans continue to embrace conventional terms like “pregnant women” (over “pregnant people” or “birthing people”) and “breastfeeding” (over “chestfeeding”)."
No. Those are not "conventional terms." They are based on objective, empirical, undeniable scientific facts, unlike the fantasy-based terms "Birthing people" and "chestfeeding."
Re: "...aversion to “political correctness,” which has made some people feel anxious about using the wrong word and risking backlash for doing so."
Yes, for the cowardly, and for the political class. But rational people are not anxious about language police and political correctness. Our opposition is rooted solely in a repugnance for disingenuous and/or false terminology and the hall monitors who enforce their use.
We have no desire to "keep up." We cannot possible locate a legitimate concern for what is acceptable.
Re: "...there is some perception that these changes are often being declared almost by fiat by people who work in institutions that have outsized influence over shaping the culture."
JFC. Perception?! This is precisely where the foolishness of language policing derives.
Re: "Activists who are sincerely committed to social change might exhibit some grace in these conversations if they hope to convince people to consider their beliefs and ideas."
They have no wish to convince anyone of anything, any more than a security guard would attempt to "convince" you not to rob the bank where he works.
Enforcement is the order of the day for activists. There's no "grace" involved. No persuasion.
The 'top-down dictates' part is about to get very interesting, because the next leg of the 'Language Wars', such as they are, is probably going to be much more existential, and will take the form of whether the fourth estate is going to be allowed to use properly critical language to criticize the actions of a strongman.
It's already started with ABC's decision to settle the lawsuit Trump filed against them: https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/14/politics/trump-abc-news-defamation-lawsuit-settle/index.html
It's going to be tested again now that Trump has filed a lawsuit against the Des Moines Register (and Anne Selzer, a pollster who works for them) because--wait for it--she released a poll he didn't like, and they wrote about it: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/17/trump-ann-selzer-lawsuit-iowa-poll-00194807
This is the way you clamp down on the press in the 'soft fascist' model. You file an endless number of frivolous lawsuits that press outlets have to spend tons of money and time fighting; eventually, this weighs down on their bottom line enough that they tell their writers and reporters to stop criticizing your bad behavior.
You're going to see a push on the right to equate Trump's smothering of the press with people being mean to you on Twitter or Facebook, when the two are not remotely equal. The big coming question in the 'Language Wars' is whether anyone will push back--including the right's remaining civil libertarians--or whether every critic will just do what ABC did, and bend the knee.
So, none of the charges brought against President Trump seemed 'frivolous' to you, none of them? With all due respect Minsky, I have to say I disagree with most of what you've said in this thread, but let me focus on this post. You are concerned that the press will be cowed by 'the strongman'. So to you, what we've seen since 2016 has been a fair, objective approach from the legacy media towards DT? Or maybe you saw it as 'yes, it was a little biased, but that's to be expected when dealing with such an existential threat to democracy'?
If there is a character limit on posts, I believe I could easily reach it while recounting all the unfair, unfounded accusations of President Trump (to me though, nothing was worse than the 'very fine people' hoax, or did you not approve of Pres Biden when he promoted it along with the help of the legacy media to kick off his 2020 campaign, in order to cement Trump and racist together?). I'm sure you are aware of at least some of these, yet, to you, that doesn't justify his current actions? It kind of sounds to me, like you are saying just let the press do what the press is going to do? Don't you think that ABC settled because they knew they were liable for saying ten times that he raped her? Surely, you know how hard it is to win a defamation lawsuit against a public figure? And does nothing seem fishy to you in that case, at all? Set aside the timing, the venue where it was tried, and just ask yourself, do you think this case would have been brought if it wasn't DT trying to be President again? Did you think Blassey Ford's intentions were pure too, that it had nothing to do with a faction of the progressives who are obsessed with the taking of innocent life? To me, they were both politically motivated.
And you didn't see any nefarious intentions with a last minute poll from a respected pollster (formerly) saying that DT was behind by 3 points in a place just a month prior he was up by 4, when he wound up winning by 13 points (off by 16 points!)? That there was no chance that this was purely to try to sway an election?
IMO, President Trump has not received a fair shake from the legacy media since he first became President. This does not mean he shouldn't be criticized, he should, but with integrity. Nor do I want him to receive the same treatment that President Biden received (of course they knew he was suffering from dementia, that his son was influence peddling, that he wanted an open border, etc, etc). The real menace is a forth estate hopelessly biased against someone who represents a real threat to secular arrogance (not all things secular are arrogant, but how many 'experts' do you still trust . . ), a real threat to the powers whom the 4th estate have aligned themselves with, but most of all, a real threat to the disciples of intellectualism over the disciples of God/faith/wisdom. Often God uses imperfect tools (every man is imperfect) to bring about good as we know from the entire Old Testament.
I know my post is in your face, I hope it doesn't sound too disrespectful, because though I disagree with you, I honestly tried to be respectful, and of course you deserve respect for your opinions. As once we stop championing the respectful exchange of ideas, we risk the Republic. God bless Minsky, and I look forward to your thoughtful reply.
No worries, appreciate the detailed response.
---"It kind of sounds to me, like you are saying just let the press do what the press is going to do?"---
When you are the *president*, in essence, yes--this is part of the gig.
These cases wouldn't be nearly as concerning, frivolous as they seem to be, if Trump were just an ordinary private citizen, or if he were filing them *after* his time in office; but he is the president-elect, soon to be the president, and as such is vested with the vast powers of the US Commander in Chief. A key aspect of the 'liberal' part of a liberal democratic republic is that the powers of the executive are checked by institutional constraints, and an autonomous press is one of the most crucial of these; when a private citizen legally goes after members of the press, they are not wielding state power, so this autonomy isn't really threatened.
Whereas when the *president* (or soon-to-be-president) goes after them, he is going after them with immense state power, and it *is* a threat.
I think you could definitely find instances of Trump being treated unfairly by many press outlets, I don't disagree with you there; but nearly all presidents are treated thusly at some point, ever more so since the 1980s. I could similarly cite plenty of examples of Biden or Obama being treated unfairly by, say, Fox News. But I wouldn't want President Biden or President Obama filing lawsuits against Fox News.
---Don't you think that ABC settled because they knew they were liable for saying ten times that he raped her?---
My guess is they settled because they do not want a long, protracted legal battle against someone who has all the levers of presidential power at their disposal. My guess is that a lot of other press outlets (many of whom are already struggling financially) would be pressured to do the same, because of the financial toll such a battle would take. And, like I said, when press outlets start to do this, they become, bit by bit, more reluctant to criticize that person. That is a key aspect of how Erdogan, Putin, Orban and--in an earlier time--Mussolini effectively silenced their critics in the press.
---"And you didn't see any nefarious intentions with a last minute poll from a respected pollster (formerly) saying that DT was behind by 3 points in a place just a month prior he was up by 4, when he wound up winning by 13 points (off by 16 points!)? That there was no chance that this was purely to try to sway an election?"---
Even if I did, biased polling is nothing new, and by this logic Biden should have sued Trafalgar or Rasmussen, who undercounted his support in 2020 (and Obama's support in 2008 and 2012) in key states, and have a well-documented 'house bias' against Democrats. In fact, it would be grounds to sue anyone who publishes a poll that is favorable to your opponent. This is why the suit is pretty self-evidently frivolous, and won't go anywhere--but it *will* be a financial burden on Selzer and the Des Moines Register.
FWIW, in the particular case of Selzer, she is actually very open about her methodology and has a reputation as a pollster who publishes their results regardless of whether they resemble the results of other pollsters. (as opposed to fudging her findings if they don't comport with trends in the polls) She was one of the few pollsters to actually predict Trump's surge in Iowa in 2016. Clearly she got something wrong this election, but that's not grounds to sue her.
And lastly, I would argue it's a bad idea to place the 'disciples of intellectualism' and the 'disciples of God/faith/wisdom' in different camps. This is what the 'New Atheists' do, too, and I think it's too simplistic. Intellectuals can be religious, and religion is not inherently opposed to intellectual inquiry--how could it be, when the vast majority of history's intellectuals were religious? In some cases, the two do come into conflict. But that is not a given.
I appreciate your comments, you make some good points, and yes, I should have been more precise regarding my last comment, there is no question that there has been, are and will be intelligent 'scientific method', so to speak, religious people. What I see over represented, coming from academia (thus filling many roles of influence in all our institutions), are people who do what is right in their own eyes, with a great lack of wisdom.
Thoughts on using the term “enslaved person” vs. “slave?”
I noticed it when I visited Mt. Vernon and have been seeing it used in various articles as well.
I actually don’t have a strong opinion on that one. I get the reasoning behind changing it to “enslaved person” — it reframes slavery as something that happened to a person rather than a defining feature of who they were. I suppose in some settings like museums or even newspapers I don’t see an issue with it. But “slave” is also a common term in everyday parlance and also outside the context of the US, so I don’t necessarily see a problem with using it in conversation either.
Thank you for your opinion Michael and for a great article. I’m fairly conservative and somewhat reluctant to buy into a lot of these “top-down dictates” as you correctly put it. That being said, I find myself gravitating towards using the phrase “enslaved person” as it highlights the humanity of our brothers and sisters who were treated with such a lack of human dignity at the time.