David Barnhizer
We are seeing the “digital equivalent of the medieval mob roaming the streets looking for someone to burn”, Rowan Atkinson, the actor known as Mr. Bean.
"It becomes a case of either you’re with us or against us. And if you’re against us, you deserve to be ‘canceled.’” Atkinson added, "It’s important that we’re exposed to a wide spectrum of opinion, but what we have now is the digital equivalent of the medieval mob roaming the streets looking for someone to burn. So it is scary for anyone who’s a victim of that mob and it fills me with fear about the future.” Jessica Napoli, 1/5/21.
We can all wish George Orwell’s classic 1984 were merely a work of fiction, but Orwell was a true prophet. He grasped all too well the inherent nature of authoritarian true believers, and the societies they will always create if given power. What is going on in the key realms of freedom of speech, thought, expression and creativity has spread throughout America’s educational and political society.
There should be no doubt the strategy is aimed directly at the shaping of the immature, impressionable, and fertile minds of our children. This is being done through widespread educational experiences and curricula imposed on very young kids as early as the beginning of their K-12 formal education. The BBC’s “Mr. Bean” captured the essence of what is taking place, likening the Woke and the Crits to a “medieval mob” complete with torches chasing down the “Frankenstein monsters” who dare to engage in serious thought, honest discourse, and tolerance rather than join their collective “mob”.
Humans Don’t Just USE Language—They ARE the Language They Possess
Language is a weapon. It may be a rapier. It may be a bludgeon. It may be a sledgehammer. Or it may be a mechanism by which a society generates an aura of shared responsibilities and rights. Whatever form it takes, one-sided control of the weapon of language provides significant advantages. The way language is being controlled at this point is in the service of the acquisition and preservation of power. If I can make you say whatever I want, or prevent you from saying—or even being able to think about alternatives—then I “own” you. When deployed effectively, the “linguistic weapon” bypasses rational thought and penetrates us directly on the levels where we experience emotion, fear, hope, “otherness” and bias.
Linguist Ruth Anshen offers a vital insight in explaining that humans do not only “use” language but “become” the language they use, even to the extent it defines their identity and sets limits on their ability to perceive and interpret reality. See R.N. Anshen, Language: An Enquiry into Its Meaning and Functions (1983) where she explains: “man is that being on earth who does not have language. Man is language.” When this occurs, particularly with activist collectives, “their” language becomes “their” personal reality, one that in their status of enlightened intellectual and moral “elites” they zealously seek to impose on the “unenlightened masses”.
The propaganda and thematic framing with which we are being inundated converts us into “golem”. We surrender our individuality, minds, and soul when we become inextricably tied to an intensive “in” group. We become opposed to anyone our identity group sees as “The Other” even to the point of considering those others to be inferior or the “enemy”. This mindset is an absolutely predictable result of creating “identity groups” because they quickly “morph” into quasi-religious sects whose members see others as heretics and blasphemers. When that occurs, we no longer have a collaborative community with the ability and willingness to negotiate compromises and mutually beneficial outcomes. Society becomes comprised of fragmented power clusters and “micro-societies” with intractable and competing agendas.
Fragmentation takes place because our own identity group’s language defines not only how we see what we consider reality, but how we are able to see the world. Our group’s “socially constructed language” no longer translates into the “socially constructed language” being used by our opponents, our enemies, or even by those who simply do not support our agenda and demands.
Those Who Control Language Control Us:
Social Engineering Through “Linguistic Cleansing”
When you achieve control of language, you are able to dictate how people are able to see the world. 1984’s “Crimestop” and “protective stupidity” offer an example of thought control. “Protective stupidity” is geared at preventing people from being able to follow “any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction.” Punishing heretics and deviants, as well as anyone who fails to shun them, is an essential part of thought control and silencing free and independent thinking.
Once we allow a system that imposes limits on our speech and minds, as we are now doing, we are walking a path that denies the very point of America's existence. That national purpose involves developing ourselves to the highest level of which we are capable, with the belief that, through that process of self-awareness and growth, we are each contributing to the evolution of an exciting and dynamic community. Becoming obedient drones in a repressive hive controlled by authoritarians totally contradicts that dynamic.
Crimestop is another key factor in allowing tyrants and dictators to have control. How it works as an intuitive blocking device is explained below. I have experienced more than once this phenomenon in action, and it has occurred in interactions on important issues with people who are significant believers on both ends of the political spectrum. It is as if the individual is operating on a subconscious “early warning system” that signals that if they make a particular concession in the logic chain of an ongoing discourse that it weakens or even could seriously undermine their position. In any event, 1984’s Crimestop is described as follows.
Crimestop is “a necessary mental discipline for good party members in 1984. Good party members have no private emotions; they are in a state of constant enthusiasm about the goals set by the state. Even children can learn to avoid thinking any thoughts deemed dangerous by the state.” The first and simplest stage in the discipline, which can be taught even to young children, is called, in Newspeak, “Crimestop”. Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to [the approved system], and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.”
Power is acquired through control of discourse. Language is made into a weapon to gain or defend power. “Hate” speech prohibitions endanger the liberty of discourse that is at the base of our democratic system. A key element in the “shaping” is the necessity of punishing linguistic deviants until everyone “gets the message”. “Canceling” and “political correctness” are important tools for achieving broad control. Central to the ability to control people is the creation of powerful propaganda systems, and for that purpose K-12 schools and universities are critical mechanisms for spreading the desired message and suppressing others. GQ Pan describes in the words of Chris Rufo how the CRT activists are hiding behind a “revolving language system that they use to confuse, that they use to avoid, and that they use to obfuscate.”
“Christopher Rufo, an author and filmmaker best known for exposing how CRT infiltrates governments, schools, and businesses [states]: “There’s this revolving language system that they use to confuse, that they use to avoid, and that they use to obfuscate,” Rufo said. “They’re deploying it because they refuse to defend critical race theory on the merits, because even they know that it’s indefensible politically.”
The presence of critical race theory (CRT) in K-12 education has become a prominent issue in some of the nation’s recent high-profile elections. … The CRT interprets society through a Marxist dichotomy between “oppressor” and “oppressed,” but replaces the class categories with racial groups. … Parents Defending Education, a parent-led non-profit organization, has documented hundreds of such cases from across the country. For example, a class of third-graders at a San Jose, California, elementary school was instructed to “deconstruct their racial identities,” then rank themselves according to “power and privilege” they supposedly possess. In an elementary school in Washington’s Bellevue School District, second-grade students were told to have “explicit conversations about race, equity, and access” in an effort to help them “recognize and identify white culture.” “Tackling Critical Race Theory: What It Is and Where It Is Being Banned”, GQ Pan, 12/2/21.
Gaining Power Through Language Control
Power is the “Holy Grail” of political activism. Granting “sensitive” and “hyper-sensitive” identity groups a quasi-governmental power that allows them to define and determine what “insults” or “offends” grants not only defensive power to ward off critical attacks but provides an offensive weapon that can be used to acquire greater power. But the unbalanced allocation and use of power creates divisiveness, tribalism, and social aggressiveness. This destroys the ability of individuals to trust and compromise. Little wonder that American society has devolved to its current state. The strategies that rely on accusations of “hate”, “insult”, “racism”, misogyny, “insensitivity” or one of the other invented “phobias” have produced a society in which hate has intensified, insult is everywhere, and insensitivity and incivility abound. This outcome is not accidental. It is part of a coherent strategy.
In the same way that a specific ethnic identity group seeks to “cleanse” a territory of competing or different identity groups in what has come to be known as “ethnic cleansing”, there are rapidly evolving language control strategies being implemented by very aggressive special interests that are engaging in “linguistic cleansing”. Nicholas Nassim Taleb “writes about the surprising ability of small but intransigent minorities — 3 percent to 4 percent is enough — to change the direction of entire societies.” He warns that as small a number as three or four percent of people who are coordinated, strategic, and fully intent on achieving their goals “by any means necessary” can succeed if they gain control of the core institutions and instrumentalities of communication and government. Unfortunately, this is far to close to what is happening in America at this moment.
A Core Strategy Is Forcing Continuous Interpretive Struggles Over Language to Confuse, Make Uncertain, and Keep “The Enemy” Off Balance
The aim of “linguistic cleansing” is to gain power over others’ speech and re-engineer culture into a form desired by the identity group implementing the strategy. This extends to the desire to eradicate traditional modes of expression that are claimed to “insult”, offend, emotionally harm, or demean. Power is obtained by being able to control the nature of the linguistic “quicksand” of what is deemed offensive at any particular moment. Daphne Patai argues that:
“In feminist circles in particular, academic freedom is under attack by those who advocate and put into effect coercive sexual-harassment policies that are so broad, vague, and all-inclusive that their application routinely violates the due-process rights of the accused. Daphne Patai, “Speak Freely, Professor -- Within the Speech Code,” Chronicle of Higher Education, June 9, 2000, pg. B7.
Feminist scholar Mary Joe Frug explains the strategy of using imagery and shifting word meanings to “appropriate” power.
“The liberal equality doctrine is often understood as an engine of liberation with respect to sex-specific rules. This imagery suggests the repressive function of law, a function that feminists have inventively sought to appropriate and exploit through critical scholarship, litigation, and legislative campaigns.” Frug went on to say that: “This is not a proposal that we try to promote a benevolent and fixed meaning for sex differences. … Rather, the argument is that continuous interpretive struggles over the meaning of sex differences can have an impact on patriarchal legal power.” Mary Joe Frug, “A Postmodern Feminist Legal Manifesto (An Unfinished Draft)”, Harv. L. Rev. 1045 (1992).
The “Never Ending” Story of Shifting Political Language
There must be people who never sleep who devote their lives to figuring out and condemning words they can decry as “offensive”. My sense is that a significant majority of the people they are supposedly “defending” against perceived insult have no idea they are supposed to be hurt or angry until they are informed of that fact by a bunch of “Woke” students, insulated academics, and activists. There could be no better example of this mindset than that provided by the recent “language guide” prepared at the University of Washington.
“University language guide says 'grandfather,' 'housekeeping,' 'spirit animal' are 'problematic' words: The language guide, created by the university's information technology department, states that 'grandfather,' 'housekeeping,' 'minority,' 'ninja,' and 'lame' are considered 'problematic words’”, Adam Sabes, 1/22/22.
“A University of Washington language guide is calling everyday words used by Americans “problematic.” The University of Washington Information Technology department released an "inclusive language guide" that lists a number of "problematic words" that are "racist," "sexist," "ageist," or “homophobic." According to the guide, words such as "grandfather," "housekeeping," "minority," "ninja," and "lame" are considered "problematic words.” For example, the language guide states that the word "lame" is considered problematic because it's “ableist." "This word is offensive, even when it’s used in slang for uncool because it’s using a disability in a negative way to imply that the opposite, which would be not lame, to be superior," the guide states.
The guide also states that the term "minority" implies a ‘less than’ attitude toward a certain community. "When ‘minority’ is used to refer to other races or abilities, used as a generalized term for ‘the other’ and implies a ‘less than’ attitude toward the community or communities being discussed," the guide states. The guide considers "grandfather" a "problematic word" because the term was "used as a way to exempt some people from a change because of conditions that existed before the change.” "'Grandfather clause' originated in the American South in the 1890s as a way to defy the 15th Amendment and prevent black Americans from voting," the guide explains. "Housekeeping," is another "problematic" word that the guide recommends should be avoided by others working in the information technology industry because it can "feel gendered.”
Phrases with "man" such as "manpower," "man hours," or "man-in-the-middle" is considered "not inclusive" and "thus sexist.” The language guide also considers "preferred pronouns" as "problematic" because the term "preferred" suggests that "a person’s pronoun is optional.” Language such as "no can do," "spirit animal," and separating groups based on certain colors is "racist" or culturally appropriative. According to the language guide, using "red," white," or "yellow" to separate different teams is based on "racist tropes.” "Using colors based as racist tropes — labelling [sic] ‘white’ as good, ‘black’ as bad, ‘red’ as attackers, or ‘yellow’ as excluded third parties — is offensive," the guide states.”
I Don’t Apologize for Including These Snippets from the Babylon Bee
“Our brave new progressive world, from A to Woke”, The Babylon Bee, 10/25/21.
“In his woke instruction manual “1984,” author George Orwell wrote about how important it is to control the dictionary. The one who controls the language controls the past, present and future. “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it,” Orwell wrote. Thanks for the great idea, Mr. Orwell!
To that end, the staff of satire site The Babylon Bee has put together a glossary of all the words you’ll need to know if you want to sound smart while hanging out with your other woke friends. You’ll find it in their new book, out next week, called “The Babylon Bee Guide to Wokeness.”
[Here I am including just a small taste of the “Bee’s” analysis of “Woke” language because it reflects in an amusing but sad way what is happening in K-12 Education throughout the US. The sad part is that the satire is much too close to the truth.]
Abolitionism — The noble movement to remove all police protection from urban communities and replace it with unarmed antiracist interpretive dancers.
Ally — A straight white male who kills himself.
Antiracism — The act of judging everyone by skin color in order to defeat racism.
Antifascism — The act of beating people senseless with bike locks to defeat fascism.
Canceling — The sacred ritual of shunning those who deny the doctrines of our righteous movement.
Capitalism — A system in which people freely exchange goods and services. The evilest system that has ever been invented.
Cisgender — An unenlightened normie who identifies with their biological sex.
Cisgendered Hetero Patriarchonormative [Huh?]
Whitemanspreading — What? No idea what this is. But it sounds terrible! [and painful]
Colorblind — Adjective describing someone who doesn’t see color or race. Just like the Nazis. This is supremely evil, since it turns a blind eye to the lived experience and daily reality of people of color, who [apparently] all have the same monolithic lived experience and daily reality.
Communism — Basically, it’s loving people and sharing with them, just like the Care Bears taught. It’s the greatest system ever invented.
Critical Theory — The classification of all human interactions as some sort of power imbalance that must be remedied by dismantling systems of oppression until all meaningless sacks of meat and chemicals are the exact same and life is uninteresting, which will make it much easier for humans to just kill themselves, which is the ultimate goal here.
Cultural Relativism — The essential belief that all cultural ideas are equally valid and must never be compared to an objective moral standard. This belief must be held until the West is destroyed. Then we can stop believing it.
Desegregation — The wicked act of invading black spaces with physical whiteness and white thinking.
Equity — When everything is fixed and everyone is happy and all the problems go away. Just give us power, and we’ll give you equity!
Fascism — Anything that is not woke. Can be addressed with beating and shooting.
Gender — How DARE you!
Hate Speech — Any speech that you disagree with, no matter how slightly.
Heteronormativity — An oppressive environment induced by most people not being gay.
Institutional Racism — Racism is so powerful that it invisibly affects our institutions. Any time there is a disparity between different groups of people, that is always automatically proof of institutional racism.
Lived Experience — The final, ultimate and infallible source of all truth — as long as you are a member of an oppressed minority.
Marxism — The greatest philosophy ever invented. Some say it has resulted in mass death and famine, but that’s only because true Marxism has never been tried.
Meritocracy — This is when people are allowed to rise and fall in a free society based on their talent and efforts. Meritocracy is racist because talent and effort are aspects of white culture and minorities shouldn’t be forced to live in such a system.
Microaggressions — Aggressions so small you need to be very alert and observant in order to see them. The proper response to them is a macroaggressive punch to the face.
Narrative — The story we tell about reality, more real than reality itself. Surrender to the narrative!
Objectivity — The act of being impartial, which is an oppressive characteristic of white thinking and a racist dog whistle.
Oppression — The act of disagreeing with wokeness while refusing to die. Example: “Your very existence as a conservative white person is oppressing me.”
Patriarchy — An evil cabal of white men who got together and decided to have stronger muscles than women while making them have babies.
People of Color — Black and brown bodies who stand in solidarity with the struggle for Communist revolution. These are special people who need the assistance of white liberals to survive.
Racism — A system of racism established by racists to protect racism, which means racism can mean whatever we want it to mean. And if you disagree, you’re a racist.
Safe Space — A warm, moist, sheltered cocoon of safety where marginalized people can feel safe.
Segregation — The noble and anti-racist practice of segregating black and brown bodies from their white oppressors to create spaces where whiteness cannot encroach.
Systemic — A magic word that makes any kind of oppression sound much worse. Racism? Meh. Systemic racism? Scary!
Truth — An ancient myth from way back in the year 2019. People used to think there were “facts” we could all agree on. But no longer.
Victim — You. Me. Everyone. Except white people.
Violence — Speech.
Whiteness — The original sin, first exhibited by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. When Eve took a bite of that fruit, that was whiteness manifesting itself.
White Fragility — If you call someone a racist and they go, “Hey, what? I’m not a racist!,” that’s a clear example of white fragility.
White Supremacy — Literally everything. Just look around yourself — everything you see is white supremacy. Pencil. Keyboard. Coffee cup. Brownies. All white supremacy.
Woke — The good guys. One who has woken up to the plight of the oppressed and done something about it by posting virtue signals on Instagram.
I Wonder What Walt Disney Would Say?
“Disney axes 'boys and girls' from all park greetings to promote inclusivity: The phrase 'Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls' was axed from Magic Kingdom's fireworks show last year”, Emma Colton, 3/30/22.
"Disney parks are axing gendered language such as "boys and girls" in their park greetings to promote gender inclusivity, according to video of a company executive. … Parkgoers will no longer hear "ladies and gentlemen" and "boys and girls" in park greetings, according to the video. "We want to create that magical moment with our cast members, with our guests," [Disney’s DEI executive] said. "And we don't want to just assume because someone might be in, our interpretation, may be “presenting” as female that they may not want to be 'princess.'"
What is happening at Disney offers an intriguing look at corporate behavior. Not all employees at Disney agree with what the leadership is doing and voiced their objections. This included description of a one-sided system in which one group was allowed to call other employees “bigots” without consequences, and employees feeling they could be fired for expressing their views and beliefs. This is reflected in the following report.
“A group of anonymous employees at The Walt Disney Company (TWDC) has spoken out in an open letter, warning the company not to take political stances that alienate some workers and parts of Disney's audience, and claiming that Disney has become "an increasingly uncomfortable place to work" for those who don't agree with "explicitly progressive" policies.
"The Walt Disney Company has come to be an increasingly uncomfortable place to work for those of us whose political and religious views are not explicitly progressive," the employees wrote. "We watch quietly as our beliefs come under attack from our own employer, and we frequently see those who share our opinions condemned as villains by our own leadership.”
The employees noted Disney's "Reimagine Tomorrow" campaign to promote "underrepresented voices" and noted that "the tomorrow being reimagined doesn’t seem to have much room for religious or political conservatives within the company. Left-leaning cast members are free to promote their agenda and organize on company time using company resources. They call their fellow employees ‘bigots’ and pressure TWDC to use corporate influence to further their left-wing legislative goals.” The employees recounted their experience with an internal poll "asking us if we felt accepted in the company.” … [T]he employees wrote. "TWDC has fostered an environment of fear that any employee who does not toe the line will be exposed and dismissed.” “Disney's left-wing activism creates 'environment of fear' that is 'damaging morale,' some workers say: Employees say Disney has become 'an increasingly uncomfortable place to work for those of us whose political and religious views are not explicitly progressive’”, Tyler O'Neil, 3/25/22.
Disney has paid a significant financial price for its actions as parents and others draw away from what they consider to be an unwise and unwarranted attack on a law that very few of the attackers appear to have actually read, and that does not contain the “Don’t Say Gay” language or the “Gay” word in its text. An example is found in a group of 2000 Orthodox Jewish rabbis who went public in condemning the company’s actions as being totally inconsistent with Disney’s lifelong principles and messages to children and families. Tyler O’Neil reports:
“A coalition that represents more than 2,000 Orthodox Jewish rabbis on American public policy issues condemned The Walt Disney Company's stance against Florida H.B. 1557, a parental rights in education bill that Democrats have branded a "Don't Say Gay" bill (despite the bill not banning the word "gay"). The rabbis said the move represents a betrayal of Disney's historic values. "Since its founding in 1923, the Disney name has been associated with wholesome family entertainment that all Americans felt comfortable sharing with their children," Rabbi Yaakov Menken, the managing director of the Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), said in a statement first released to Fox News Digital. "To this day, the majority of Disney films carry a rating no higher than PG. This means that historically Disney has been cognizant of the expectations of parents nationwide when it comes to the language and topics to which their children are exposed."
"The legislation recently signed into law in Florida is entirely consistent with the values Disney historically exemplified," Menken added. "It ensures that students in kindergarten through grade 3 are not exposed to sexually-charged material, that parents are informed regarding their children's mental, emotional, and physical health and well-being, and that parents be the ones ‘to make decisions regarding the upbringing and control of their children.’" “Disney has betrayed the very values that were responsible for its success, Orthodox rabbis warn: Disney has succumbed to a 'woke mob' and will alienate Orthodox Jewish audiences, rabbis warn”, Tyler O'Neil, 3/31/22.