Does it fall under the “woke” heading? Who knows, but the correlation seems clear. The nonsensical reimagination of language to eliminate “hurtful” words and phrases and replace them with more sensitive words remains very much alive. In the desperation to find ever more signifiers of empathy, no matter how ridiculous it may be to believe that it makes any substantive difference other than to signal one’s virtue to the world that one is attuned to the language of the woke, lists continue to be pushed upon others as to what they should no longer say.
The following is a celebration of the cancellation of the Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative, an attempt by a committee of IT leaders at Stanford University to ban 161 common words and phrases. Of those 161 phrases, I have taken pains to use 45 of them here. Read at your own risk.
Is the media addicted to bad news? It’s not a dumb question, nor are you crazy to ask. After all, we follow tragedy like hounds on the chase, whether it’s stories about teenagers who commit suicide, victims of domestic violence or survivors of accidents in which someone winds up quadriplegic, crippled for life or confined to a wheelchair. We report on the hurdles former convicts face after incarceration, hostile attitudes toward immigrants and the plight of prostitutes and the homeless. Given the perilous state of the planet, you might consider this barrage of ill tidings to be tone-deaf.
Are you crying yet? No doubt someone will explain how these words are hurtful to some because they’ve been trained in believing that to be real. We’re not talking about the N-word, or even a word that serves no purpose but to slur. Just ordinary words in common use that no one cared about until those people determined to be in the vanguard of finding harm where no one ever found it before.
Pamela Paul argues that the times, they may be a’changing.
Before you get worked up, know this: A webmaster has taken the site down and the program has been aborted for re-evaluation. Last month, in a welcome display of clear leadership, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Stanford’s president, said the policy, brainchild of a select committee of IT leaders, had never been intended as a universitywide policy and reiterated the school’s commitment to free speech. “From the beginning of our time as Stanford leaders, Persis and I have vigorously affirmed the importance and centrality of academic freedom and the rights of voices from across the ideological and political spectrum to express their views at Stanford,” he wrote, referring to the school’s provost, Persis Drell. “I want to reaffirm those commitments today in the strongest terms.”
But are they as far as the proponents of righteousness on campus, and we all live on campus now, are concerned?
But we do know two things: First, college students are suffering from anxiety and other mental health issues more than ever before, and second, fewer feel comfortable expressing disagreement lest their peers go on the warpath. It would be a ballsy move to risk being denounced, expelled from their tribe, become a black sheep. No one can blame any teenager who has been under a social media pile-on for feeling like a basket case. Why take the chance.
Like Paul, I refuse to succumb to the affectations of the woke. I will not tell you my pronouns because I refuse to enable such silliness. Use whatever damn pronouns you want for me. And I will not refrain from using banal words and phrases to make sure all my friends and enemies know that I am part of their tribe. Sure, I may be a cis-het old white man living on stolen land enjoying the privilege of having been reared by two parents who loved me and sufficient intellectual prowess to get me through undergrad and law school, but that string of words just recited is utterly irrelevant.
In response to the list of harmful word of violence, like “bad idea” (you can’t make this up), Jesse Singal, perpetually courting disaster, has come up with a list of his own.
No doubt some lost their minds (am I allowed to say that?) over Jesse’s reaction, his ridicule makes the point well. Not long ago, after I twitted my refusal to be party to the silliness of manufactured personal pronouns, no less a pop star than Joyce Carol Oates took me to task.
why? what is so threatening about this? decades ago some women preferred to be “Ms.” rather than “Mrs.” or “Miss.” no doubt, many resented it, & some (men) were jeering & threatened by it. but why? no one was injured, right? why is a small courtesy considered so heinous?
The assumption on the part of the unduly passionate is that the only possible motivation for the refusal to play by their rules is fear. The talking points, whether comparing it to the invention of “Ms.,” which had a rational foundation, or calling it a “small courtesy” which is a con man’s play to emotion, are vapid. This isn’t evolving language, which happens organically, but the compelled speech of the woke being rammed down the throats of people if they don’t want the tribe to oust them for heresy.
I refused to play this game when it first started, recognizing that this was Calvinball and a game that could never be won, and a bastardization of language that proved Orwell was (again) right so many years ago when he explained that by controlling words and definitions, critical thought could be made impossible.
Could this be a seminal moment for academic freedom? Consider other bright spots: Harvard recently went ahead with its fellowship offer to Kenneth Roth, the former head of Human Rights Watch, which was earlier rejected, allegedly owing to his critical views on Israel. M.I.T.’s faculty voted to embrace a “Statement on Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom.” At Yale Law School, which has been roiled by repeated attempts to suppress speech, a conservative lawyer was allowed to appear on a panel with a former president of the A.C.L.U. after protests disrupted her visit the year before. And Hamline University, which had refused to renew an art history professor’s contract because she showed an artwork that some Muslim students may have found offensive, walked back its characterization of her as “Islamophobic.”
Perhaps Pamela Paul sees a brighter future on the horizon given a few instances of resistance on campus to the censorious efforts of the unduly passionate, but I think it’s too early to proclaim that free speech is safe. Until then, I will continue to resist, even if it means beating a dead horse.
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