What's With Leftists And The Redefinition Of Terms?
The left has long loved fiddling with language. Word-mongering is central to political correctness--though not most central. The most central feature of political correctness is the subordination of truth to (leftist) political orthodoxy. Word-mongering and definition-mongering are means to that end.
But I have to say, even obsessing about the left as I do, the straight-up denial that 'racism' means what it means remains a little surprising to me. It's just so blatantly false. Anyone who knows the language--and who is honest about the matter--should realize that they're full of shit.
But it's really the only way to make sense of the transgenderism stuff, too: as an attempt to redefine 'man' and 'woman'... Those terms are much simpler and much more familiar than 'racism.' So I suppose if you can get away with blatant falsehoods about what they mean, you can get away with blatant falsehoods about the meaning of any word. Haslanger even admits--though not in so many terms--that they're just trying to get people to use the words 'man' and 'woman' differently. (It's called 'ameliorative analysis'...which is a bit of meta-PC. Tricking people into using words differently via sophistical arguments and social bullying is just another form of analysis, you see...)
You can also see their views about race as a redefinition of the term 'race,' but that case seems a bit less clear to me, and I've got work to do.
Anyway: it's amazing to me how damnably effective this completely bone-headed redefinition nonsense is! Maybe that means I'm missing something.
But I have to say, even obsessing about the left as I do, the straight-up denial that 'racism' means what it means remains a little surprising to me. It's just so blatantly false. Anyone who knows the language--and who is honest about the matter--should realize that they're full of shit.
But it's really the only way to make sense of the transgenderism stuff, too: as an attempt to redefine 'man' and 'woman'... Those terms are much simpler and much more familiar than 'racism.' So I suppose if you can get away with blatant falsehoods about what they mean, you can get away with blatant falsehoods about the meaning of any word. Haslanger even admits--though not in so many terms--that they're just trying to get people to use the words 'man' and 'woman' differently. (It's called 'ameliorative analysis'...which is a bit of meta-PC. Tricking people into using words differently via sophistical arguments and social bullying is just another form of analysis, you see...)
You can also see their views about race as a redefinition of the term 'race,' but that case seems a bit less clear to me, and I've got work to do.
Anyway: it's amazing to me how damnably effective this completely bone-headed redefinition nonsense is! Maybe that means I'm missing something.
posted by Winston Smith at
9:44 AM
2 Comments:
The point about Leftist takeover of the academy is crucial here. If the Left were the equivalent of cranks on Fox News, that gimmick would never work. But they're tenured professors, so obviously they have a non-malign point to make (if only). This is also why viewpoint diversity is the only academically necessary form of diversity on campus, because we now know what an overwhelmingly leftist academe becomes now, and it isn't pretty.
In fact, since "diversity" must be defended in terms of the effect of opinions on other students, you can make a case that no kind of "diversity" can possibly matter that doesn't show up as viewpoint "diversity"...
Though if you go that route, they'd just bend the point to their purposes yet again--it just means that we need more "voices" on campus speaking in favor of those high up in the progressive stack.
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