In my house live my pregnant wife and my son. Not my partner and my offspring. And no, we aren’t pregnant; my wife is.
According to the social engineers of the current year(s), we’re pregnant is cute and an expression of togetherness. That would be hilarious if it weren’t weird and dehumanizing. If I get a prostate cancer, everyone can rest assured that my wife won’t be fighting it. She can’t. And that’s okay. Just like it’s okay that I’m not pregnant because I can’t.
A few days ago, another group of social engineers published a new “study” on how to re-educate Latin Americans into accepting being called Latinx. I showed this to my Venezuelan colleague. And, before you ask, yes he is one of the Venezuelans who immigrated to Hungary allegedly in secrecy. So secretly that the media wrote about it. Anyway, suffice to say that my very well-educated Venezuelan colleague didn’t react quite well to being told by a gringo that he’s uneducated because he doesn’t accept the mutilation of his native tongue or that he’s a bad person because he doesn’t accept the inherent dehumanization that comes with so-called inclusive language.
This may not seem like an important issue, even though it’s in top 3 issues that may lose the Democrats the election in a week. But it’s important enough for those of us who, because of our work, have to stumble upon and sometimes work with these pendejos – the people who put their pronouns in their signatures (even though nobody asked), the people who write Bauarbeiter:innen unironically in German, todxs in Spanish and, of course, weird pronouns and the already known crap present in English.
Now, the good news is that those “culture warriors” (for lack of a better term) have managed to meaningfully push back at least in some corners, but it’s simply not enough. And one way to improve this is to emphasize to the normies how they’re being dehumanized by this.
One thing I’ve learned from the Sofa is that arguing logically with these extremists is pointless. What works is convincing the audience that what these loons propose is evil and deranged. And on this issue, the shortest way to do exactly that is to re-frame the whole discussion in these terms: The whole idea is dehumanizing.
Yes, it requires a bit of an appeal to emotion (like done in the first paragraph) but is it really appeal to emotion if it’s also true? That’s rhetorical, because ultimately it doesn’t matter. The real world is not the Oxford Debate Society as the boss is fond of saying.
The argument
Every time you use “inclusive language” you are purposefully minimizing and arguably dehumanizing the normal and normative Majority (capital M necessary here) without actually being inclusive at all.
My wife is certainly not more “included” when referred to as part of Lehrer*innen (teachers in “inclusive” German). And certainly the minority of male teachers aren’t more included either by being referred to as part of an awfully written concept that uses the feminine termination. And there is zero evidence that the 3 to 5 “transgender” teachers in the German-speaking world are suddenly more “included” because the way you say/write “teachers” has now been mutilated.
Peak-dehumanization happens when this ideology seeps into very concrete conversations – like those about sex. Including with confused teenagers.
A few months ago me and my wife were at a party with a truly diverse crowd – the diversity that matters, that is. And sometime late at night as a few of us were chatting and, as it always happens when it’s after 2AM and everyone has had a bit to drink, the conversation eventually drifted to politics and then to sex and sexuality. Nothing wrong with that, we’re all adults and since me and my missus are known to be sex positive, it’s no surprise (to us) that eventually such topics would be inserted into the conversation because even those who disagree with us yearn to talk with a truly sex positive couple.
But it wasn’t the disagreement that triggered my ire and the bigger ire from my wife – but the language.
At some point we were chatting about sex ed in the family as most attendees were parents of teenagers or tweens. It was already bad enough that the more lefty-inclined were using therapy language and ideologically charged terms as we were discussing whether the recent fads among the youth are really new or we’ve just become more open about discussing these things. But all hell broke loose with my missus when a British woman interjected:
Of course, it will be different for those who raise a person doing the penetration.
I was still thinking of a witty way to reply in such a way that mocks the very thought process that led to someone uttering such a string of words but, by the time my thought process could come up with something in a language I’m not that good at, my wife had already taken the initiative, showing once again that it’s men and women not bonus holes and persons doing the penetration. I mean… nobody insults a woman better than another woman!
Again, we were all adults, so the whole interaction eventually led to a very profound discussion about ideological poisoning and possession but, even so, the fact that someone seemingly intelligent can refer to our sons as the person doing the penetration got me thinking: How many such people are there? And how many of them are in position to educate our children?
Maybe there aren’t that many (I still cling to optimism) but if someone like me, effectively apolitical until three years ago, can encounter straight-up Reddit type of ideological language out there “in the wild”, then there must be more than a few of such people.
Why it matters
A Moldovan was saying 5 years ago, referring to russian-derived calques that are mutilating the Romanian language: The person who speaks badly definitely thinks badly – and will inevitably act badly.
There are of course many more quotes (some of them mis-attributed, some outright false) that convey the same meaning: Whoever controls the language, eventually controls thought. At least in part.
And this is why it matters. Adults fooling around at a private party at 2AM in Budapest, especially adults who could afford to fly in for the event and also afford families or other arrangements so they can leave their kid(s) safely behind – that is not an issue.
However, adults fooling around perverting descriptive language around children, is an issue. And it’s quite hard to argue that it isn’t. Because children learn through imitation.
My son is never late because he sees his father always striving to never be late. My nephew is always a bit late because, just like his father, my dear brother, he is more approximate with time management.
My son speaks politely because he saw his parents always speak politely first. My son will also unleash a torrent of highly creative insults if you piss him off needlessly because that’s what he saw his parents do. My son will also effortlessly stand up for himself in most situations because that’s what his parents and most of his peers do (and we made an active effort to handpick those peers, once again contrary to the “wisdom” shared online incessantly).
Children’s minds are easily impressionable. That’s why how we act around children matters. It’s not the be all and end all in every situation, like helicopter parents would have you believe, but it’s also not inconsequential as modernity tries to convince us all, parents and childless alike.
Oh, by the way, the word childless is now bad too. Apparently, the “inclusive” way is to say childfree. Am I the only one who notices the inherent dehumanization of the word childfree? It has the same undertone as cancer-free. Maybe I’m overthinking this, but it simply is dehumanizing to describe lack of life (because that’s what childlessness is) as inherently positive.
Advocates of “inclusivity” tell us that childless carries a negative connotation. But it doesn’t. Unfruitfulness, infecundity, barenness – all these have (arguably) a negative or at least judgmental connotation. But childless does not. It’s the neutral term. But under the dehumanizing ideology of inclusivity, neutral terms are bad.
That’s why we should use the dehumanizing angle more when pushing back against inclusive language. If not for ourselves, at least for our children.
I don’t want my son to dehumanize his future wife by calling her partner. In the language of Internet kids: that’s gay af. No, seriously, it is. And not just because the pendej@s say so, but because anyone who was alive in pre-history, let’s say 2010, can remember that the word partner to refer to one’s romantic partner was nearly exclusive to homosexuals. If you ask me, even that was dehumanizing. But extending that to everyone, is even more dehumanizing.
I don’t want my son to be dehumanized in the future by having his reality erased and replaced with “people of any gender”.
And, if my wife ends up giving birth to a baby girl, I’d very much like for her to be called a woman, not a bonus hole. And preferably to become a wife not a partner. She can become a business partner if she’s smart enough, but she’ll be someone’s girlfriend and someone’s wife.
Inclusive language, at best, sows confusion. It’s dehumanizing in the rest of the time.
And hopefully more people notice that and act accordingly. It’s not even hard. Oftentimes it takes under a minute. Like this:
Someone else: My partner doesn’t feel good about the vacation.
You: Oh, there’s more to work and you can’t go on vacation?
SE: No, we both secured the free days, but there are other concerns.
You: What do you mean secured freed days? You’re both leaving the company? Who’s going to take care of business?
SE:…
You: Aren’t you talking about your business partner?
And, just like that, you made someone else re-think about using partner in the wrong context.
You don’t always have to be an edgy culture warrior. You just always have to be normal. And, if you are a man, especially a father, you also have the duty to enforce normality around you as well. If not for yourself, at least for your child(ren). They deserve not to grow up among confused people and risk ending up confused themselves.
