Viva La Revolution

The revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. George Orwell.

If you cannot keep up with what is acceptable language, know that you are not alone. The latest document out of Victoria (where else?) indicates that the most acceptable term for the race of people who were living in Australia before it was colonised by the British is Aboriginal. Are you surprised? I am, but shouldn’t be because the important thing to remember (which isn’t that “words have actions” – what does that even mean?) is that the purpose is the revolution. Aboriginal which had become a racial slur is now the preferred term. The circle is complete.

I have a knee jerk reaction to the language police because any time we begin to censor the use of descriptive words because of feelings we have abdicated our responsibility to think. Not just to think logically, but to think at all. Feelings are temporary and fleeting emotions. Feelings vary on the day, the person, the social situation. Feelings are not real or tangible. My feelings will differ from your feelings, and neither of those feelings has any empirical truth behind it. Most often the language police are deliberately trying to obfuscate reality because reality at this particular juncture does not suit the agenda. Control language and you control thought, or at least you think you do.

The key tell that people have fallen under the spell of the totalitarian regime (see Orwell’s prescient novel 1984) is when they begin to use “isms” to explain things. Ableism, racism, sexism, ageism, these are the most common isms, but the more we need to control thought the more isms will arise. The isms have spread out from the universities, where the Marxist concept of “intersectional oppression” is postulated to define all human interactions through government to society as a whole. Unfortunately, most regular folk who accuse friends and acquaintances of isms do not understand the full ramifications of acceptance and promulgation of intersectional theory for society as a whole. Isms exist to convince virtually everyone in the system that they are powerless victims of an oppressor, and to become a victim is the ultimate loss of personal autonomy. In a world where virtually everything is illegal, our only freedom is our personal autonomy.

If you need more proof of the absurdity of characterising people by isms, scan the Victorian Government page on intersectionality. There you will find 20 characteristics – only a partial list! - which reflect oppression. This list covers every single human who has ever existed! We are all both oppressor and oppressed, a concept which defies logic but supports the continuous revolution.

If you think I’m a bit tightly wound about something that does not really reflect everyday life consider this conversation which I would not have believed possible if it had not actually happened to me:

Interlocutor: “You cannot use the term “X” to describe this person.

Me: “In this group is this person “X”?

Interlocutor: “Yes but you cannot use that term.”

Me: “Is “X” an accurate description of our current reality?”

Interlocutor: “Yes, but you must describe reality in a different way using “Y.”

Me: “Is “Y” simply a euphemism for “X”?

Interlocutor: “Yes”

Me: “Then why don’t I just use “X”?”

Interlocutor: “Because using “X” is an Xism and only bad people use “X”. Worthy people use “Y”.”

 

If you feel confused by this shape-shifting conversation that is exactly the point. This kind of dialogue does not exist to bring clarity or even consensus to an issue. The point of the conversation is to show the respondent that the interlocutor occupies the unquestionable sanctity of the unimpeachable moral high ground.