And Each Time, The Hoops Get Smaller
Lecturers at a leading university are being given guidance on neopronouns, which include emoji labels and catgender, where someone identifies as a feline.
The University of Bristol, since you ask, where staff are urged to perform this season’s modish contortions in “verbal introductions and email signatures.” Say, by starting each meeting and conversation, presumably every day, with an ostentatious declaration of their own pronouns, lest there be massive and widespread confusion as to which sex they actually are.
Bristol lecturers are also directed to neopronouns which include “emojiself pronouns,” where colourful digital icons – commonplace on social media – are used to represent gender in written and spoken conversation.
While not mandatory, but merely encouraged, one university employee who expressed objections has been “invited to a meeting with a senior diversity manager.” A nourishing mental experience, I’m sure.
Another section explains how noun-self pronouns are used by “xenic” individuals whose gender does not fit within “the Western human binary of gender alignments.” The webpage adds: “For example, someone who is catgender may use nya/nyan pronouns.” Catgender, it says, is someone who “strongly identifies” with cats or other felines and those who “may experience delusions relating to being a cat or other feline.” The word nyan is Japanese for “meow.”
Because if you’re bent on humiliating your employees, and unmooring them from probity and any lingering realism – and if you want to make them routinely dishonest and pander to delusions, narcissism, and competitive pretension – then hey, why not go all-in?
Bristol’s guide says that if staff make a mistake by using the wrong pronoun, “it is important not to become defensive or make a big deal out of it. Simply thank the person for correcting you, apologise swiftly, and use the correct pronouns going forward.”
Other, less dementing options are, of course, available. At the time of writing.
Also, open thread.
“colourful digital icons – commonplace on social media – are used to represent gender in written and spoken conversation.”
How, exactly, does one speak a colorful digital icon? Or even a black and white icon?
“Simply thank the person for correcting you”
So this is how the West dies. Not with a bang, but with a nyan…
“it is important not to become defensive or make a big deal out of it. Simply thank the person for correcting you, apologise swiftly, and use the correct pronouns going forward.”
As our host would say, the word ‘correct’ is doing some heavy lifting there.
You’re all farkin fookin fuckin crazy. Everyone. Every last person in western civilization is an idiot for letting things get this far out of control. I tried to tell people, throughout my many decades as it increasingly became clearer and clearer to me where we were headed. But no. I’m the dummy. “Everything will be fine”. “You take these things way too seriously.” “Have you discussed these things with your wife? What does she think?” “I can recommend a professional who can ‘help’ you”. “Just tell them what they want to hear.” “It doesn’t matter.” Blah-blah-fuckin-yadda-yadda-yadda. Enjoy the boxcar ride.
Except the pronouns are fluid based on the day and the position of Venus in relation to Taurus so they (nyan) will constantly be correcting people. Which was always the point anyway.
“You have wronged me by using accurate and customary pronouns. I am therefore a victim of violence and terribly oppressed. I am complicated and fascinating, obviously. Now just stand there and nod while I list my identitarian attributes and assorted mental health problems…”
I paraphrase, of course. But not by much.
Oh FFS. While it is sometimes true that the actually crazy (schizophrenic) do not recognize that they have lost the plot, I doubt that this lot is unaware of what they are doing. They have decided to go all in on virtue signalling, ignoring that what they are doing has other harm including encouraging the deluded to expand their delusions instead of fighting them. In normal world (oh how I wish) someone might have an urge to pick their nose in a meeting, but they refrain. Many neuroses and quirks can be fought and defeated. But now, you can berate your boss for not kow-towing to you by meowing in Japanese. It is encouragement to get more nuts. It would be funny but I feel bad for the staff there.
Oh and we were assured that “slippery slopes” were not real. hahaha yes they are.
This whole hyper-sensitivity thing is in my mind related to the precautionary principle (pp) which tries for zero harm and assumes you must prove something is safe or not do it. We see this in the covid response. Kids don’t get covid to speak of but teachers (mostly women) do not want any risk to themselves so they shut down schools or make kids wear a mask all day. In climate change they are busy shutting down pipelines, drilling, and coal mining to prevent a modest inconvenience 100 years from now. In the case of pronouns, we are all supposed to do contortions to make people who think they are cats feel more comfortable. This is all where the PP takes us. Civilization has made people unwilling to accept any discomfort or face any risk. Where this goes is sitting in the dark wearing a mask practicing our pronouns. shit
it is important not to become defensive or make a big deal out of it.
Better to become offensive than defensive. Find ways to ruin these bullies.
may experience delusions relating to being a cat or other feline
Good to see they admit these people are delusional.
“it is important not to become defensive…
Don’t talk back.
More from your sick fucking society. Beaten unconscious.
More from your sick fucking society. Beaten unconscious.
What? Do you think it is “sick” to treat vicious thugs with kid gloves? Equity demands that the worst people must be treated the best, while the best must be treated the worst. Get with the program, comrade.
After GoFundMe agreed with the Canadian government on cutting off any support for truckers and tried to steal $9 million for their own “verified charities”, GiveSendGo Freedom Convoy 2022 fund has now reached $4.5 million. This in spite of the site having problems of traffic and DDoS attacks.
I read (can’t find it right now) that some Canadian spokeshole bragging about getting GoFundMe to stop the cash and now they had to bring the same pressure all the alternate funds being gathered.
Meanwhile, it appears Ottawa has decided to make up rules as they go along and are threatening the arrest (no law cited) for anyone who brings truckers fuel or food.
Turn the table.
When called into a meeting with HR, announce your pronouns, and change them every 5 minutes to reflect your dynamic lived experience.
Insist on correct pronunciation and abject apology for getting them wrong.
Follow up with a memo rehashing the meeting, and include your emojiself pronouns.
Kids don’t get covid to speak of but teachers (mostly women) do not want any risk to themselves
Repeal the 19th amendment and this shit stops overnight.
Yes, yes, I know you’re all rolling your eyes, but go look at the arguments against the 19th amendment by women: equal rights would mean equal responsibilities, and no woman wanted to be subject to the draft or similar legal duties.
Except that didn’t happen, did it? 52% of the population learned that they could demand special legal privileges and get them. Add in the biological tendency for women to prioritize safety and security for themselves and their offspring and you have a slow ratchet towards today’s society.
Ream: you are correct. To show this note that in the US married women are much more likely to vote republican–because they already feel secure. Men who lift weights feel more competent and vote against welfare type gov help. A country that gets soft and has jobs that are not physically demanding finds smaller and smaller things to freak out about. None of these wimps has slept on the ground in the winter, fired a gun, done construction work, or run a business.
Don’t talk back
“Oh stewardess, I speak jive ”
Oh, you said “talk back”
Weird, my comment about the trucker convoy is gone. Forbidden link to the new fundraiser (now at $4.5 million).
Weird, my comment about the trucker convoy is gone.
Spam filter being tetchy. Freed.
I am looking forward the first University Challenge quiz show where the name of one (or more) of the contestants isn’t displayed in any familiar typeface or known combination of latin letters but instead is a series of strange icons, aka emojis. When that person/cat/whatever hits the buzzer to answer, the voice-off says, quick as a flash: “Bristol. Fat rainbow pregnant man with pink hair next to smiley face thumbs up nyan object and love heart lolz.”
Camera whips in (technical phrase) to show furry thing reminiscent of badly-drawn cartoon character, whose ready answer is ‘Dunno, know what I mean?’
Audience breaks into rapturous applause at the automatic awarding of twenty points for contestant being politically correct.
Meanwhile, it appears Ottawa has decided to make up rules as they go along and are threatening the arrest (no law cited) for anyone who brings truckers fuel or food.
And people are responding by carrying around jerrycans so the jackbooted thugs will have too many targets.
On Small Dead Animals, a commenter suggested that such jerrycans should be used to drain the waste from RVs …
I am reminded of a story about New York City, where there was a sanitation strike near Christmas, so people wrapped their garbage in festive paper and left it in unlocked cars.
Speaking of screwing up the language…
Out: Woman;
Out: Menstruators;
In: Vagina Haver Part I
In: Vagina Haver Part II
I suspect the University of Bristol may be in for quite a bit of this trend-chasing theatre.
And that would never get tiresome.
are threatening the arrest (no law cited)
Something most Americans don’t know about Canada is that although our policing seems superficially similar to the US, the underlying laws governing police behaviour are very, very different. For instance, a police officer can arrest you with barely any pretext, including for crimes that haven’t even happened. “Mischief” is a common catch-all offense. The police are assumed to be acting in good faith all of the time; if you allege unlawful behaviour on the part of a police officer, you are accusing them of a crime and the burden of proof is therefore on you to prove it in a court of law.
We simply don’t have anything like the Bill of Rights, and all that that implies.
The police are assumed to be acting in good faith all of the time;
Which brought to mind this.
What could possibly go wrong?
The word nyan is Japanese for “meow.”
So the correct counter is cultural appropriation?
Or should one try the decolonization card, on account of that co-prosperity sphere a while back?
The word nyan is Japanese for “meow.”
I’m all for making them play by their rules, but this game, this far down the stupid hole, where at any instant they get to change the rules is not the place. The only argument, for lack of a better word, here is “You are mentally ill. People humoring you are not helping you.” This said not so much for the benefit of the person you are speaking to but for the benefit of the broader social sanity of any observer or even yourself. It is those who tacitly go along with this crap who must be confronted with their own malfeasance and stupidity.
I’m not even very good at remembering people’s names. If I had to start rememering who uses which pronouns on top of that (not to mention emojis!), I’d be so screwed. They’d have to assign a daily meeting for my beating at HR. Fortunately I’m an engineer and don’t have to worry about it.
The police are assumed to be acting in good faith all of the time;
Uh oh. And I’ve seen judges toss out cases when cops didn’t have *sufficient probable cause* to stop the person. Not “no probable” but sufficient pc.
I really didn’t know that about Canada. Even with my own background in the judicial arena, I find that appalling.
A very broken
manindividual.And I’ve seen judges toss out cases when cops didn’t have *sufficient probable cause*
In Canada, the guiding legal principle on whether or not to allow evidence, dismiss cases, etc. is whether the decision would “tend to bring the administration of justice into disrepute”. If not dismissing a case that is clearly fraudulent would “tend to bring the administration of justice into disrepute”, then it will likely get dismissed. On the other hand, if allowing a criminal to go free “on a technicality” would “tend to bring the administration of justice into disrepute” then whatever evidence was entered will be allowed to stand, even if gathered without proper provenance, chain of custody or cause.
Rather obviously, whether something “tends to bring the administration of justice into disrepute” is ridiculously subjective, which means it’s all about which judge you draw that day.
One thing that often shocks Americans is learning that because we do not have a Fourth Amendment, anything a policeman finds or notices while present in your home or business that appears to be evidence of a crime is admissible evidence, regardless of why he is there or whether he has a warrant. Since the police do not need a crime to even exist to get a warrant to enter and search your home or business, and anything they find there is admissible, and everything they seize as a result of the subsequent arrest is forfeited should you plead guilty to any charge laid against you…
…and you lot thought you had problems with “civil asset forfeiture”.
…the word ‘correct’ is doing some heavy lifting there.
Words mean whatever they coerce us to unthink they mean.
Related, an Israeli lawyer was on npr today talking about the Pegasus phone hack scandal. He said that evidence obtained without a warrant is not necessarily excluded, but a court decides on admissibility, generally favorably for prosecution. Of course, in the US, the current doctrine to exclude “fruit of the poisonous tree” evidence only dates back to a series of cases between 1920 and 1960, roughly.
I really didn’t know that about Canada.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a case study in the emptiness of words and the posturing of lawyers. The very first clause states:
So what are “reasonable limits as prescribed by law?” What does “can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society” mean? This is the slippery slope that the Democratic Party in the US wants to take the Constitution down.
Imagine, here in Canada, before any of our “rights” and “freedoms” have been enumerated, we’ve given the courts, acting on behalf of the government, the right to do whatever the f**k they want to do based on their interpretation of “reasonable limits” and “demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”
Oh and unlike in the US, our rights and freedoms are not god-given and do not preceed the state. So it should be unsurprising that Canadians exist at the sufferance of the government and not the other way around. To add insult to injury, there is a notwithstanding clause that allows the Provinces to completely ignore the charter if they so choose. Plus, one province, Quebec (I know, what a surprise) has never signed the document. Again, to no surprise, the Supreme Court has arbitrarily decided that Quebec’s approval was not required.
Like I said, a case study in the emptiness of words. Enjoy your Bill of Rights and defend it with all your might because anything enacted in the world since the end of your Civil War has proven to be meaningless.
Here’s Brian Peckford who was Premier of Newfoundland and participated in the drafting of the Charter making a speech, in support of the Freedom Convoy, condemning the federal and provincial governments for stepping all over the document he helped to write. It would be like Jefferson being alive to comment on some of the ridiculous assaults on the first and second amendments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kjjihr_GCu8
Growing up in the South when I was in grade school and junior high we had schools like this, they just weren’t called “charter”.
Except for the “hip-hop” crap, of course.
“Schools like this except for the hip-hop crap”, that is…
It has been suggested that this sort of thing is the result of an elaborate Chinese psyop against the West. While that’s rather silly there is something sad about realizing that the only reason that it seems reasonable is the unspoken but also unchallenged assumption that we’re witnessing the death of a civilization. If some outside force made us like this then it’s (slightly) less depressing. No serious country spends this much energy on such nonsense while we ruin people’s lives just for not being excited enough about it.
It makes one long for the laments that we were unserious and amusing ourselves to death. We aren’t. Now we’re (well not WE but you know, the smart people making life easier for manics who identify as cats) deadly serious about whatever absolutely ludicrous ideas overeducated ne’re do wells come up with.
Everyone can have their own?
That’s not a pronoun; that’s a name. You can legally change your name to Nyan, if you want, Ma’am. People will say, “Nyan? Oh that’s her name” and point at you.
And according to my son, just now, Justin Trudeau’s pronouns are he/hid.
What could possibly go wrong?
Living in clown world isn’t funny any more.
I’m not entirely sure how one might go about interacting with someone…
Just start calling him Loretta. It’s his right as a man.
Living in clown world isn’t funny any more.
Well, it’s remarkable that those involved in the appointment seem unconcerned by the likely consequences for the credibility of the officer in question, or for the credibility of the police more generally. Nor do they appear to have registered the implications of the precedent being set. Presumably, they were too busy congratulating themselves.
As noted in the original thread, “bigender” individuals often attach markedly different and contradictory characteristics to their male and female manifestations, such that one persona may be more outgoing or behave in ways that their other ‘identity’ finds uncomfortable, even repellent. Which presumably creates further problems if those ‘identities’ are alternating rapidly and involuntarily – say, as by some accounts, daily or even several times a day. And in general terms, unstable personalities tend towards behaviour that is erratic, impulsive, and often manipulative. Traits that aren’t exactly ideal in, for instance, police officers, who occupy positions of authority and trust, and to whom one is expected to defer.
A couple of years ago, the local university issued a lengthy memo to staff, listing various “identities” that employees were expected to indulge and affirm. “Bigender” was on the list, though only presented in a rather coy and sanitised light. No mention was made of the behaviours that may, and often do, accompany the disorder. The words serious mental health problem did not appear. It was simply another “identity” to which one should defer.
“bigender” individuals have markedly huge arses. FIFY
Though on 2nd thoughts, delete “have” insert “are”.
[I]t is lowering beyond words to see a serious publisher describe this ill-edited, ill-considered drivel as a manifesto for the cause
It’s only taken The Guardian the best part of fifteen years to recognise what was abundantly clear to everyone else from day one.
I guess that’s what happens when you take the witterings of lounging sophisticates in an Oxford or Cambridge common room as a model for your newsroom culture and editorial policies.
Vagina Haver
Speaking as someone who discharges from the rear I prefer the term Front Hole Bleeder.
At some point in her 70s. my mother announced to me that she was now capable of not being nice and if called out on it, would simply explain that she had had a stroke which left her incapable of polite interactions. Now, Ma had not had a stroke but, as she cheerfully pointed out, at her age it was a reasonable explanation.
I will be 61 in the next couple of months. I think I will move Ma’s timeline and adopt her strategy. Sure, I might get called a Boomer or a Karen, but . . . why would I care? I don’t need anything like a “Team TERF” t-shirt, just to live in my own reality.
And that’s what we all should do. I have a trans daughter. She knows better than to correct me. I call her by the name I gave her at birth when she was born a female – not assigned – and I refuse to engage in any whimsical fuckery. I sometimes think the reason she has not turned against me is that I offer a lifeline to sanity and reality that she knows exists in her subconscious.
“bigender” individuals have markedly huge arses
I thought bigenders were computer nerds who do not like little-endian memory representation.
Fortunately I’m an engineer and don’t have to worry about it.
Whistling past the graveyard. This is how we got here and why it persists. And gets even worse.
Heh. PiperPaul beat me to it. For some reason, perhaps it being in quotes, I initially read that as “big-ender” as well and thought David was making some sort of Gulliver’s Travels analogy. Come to think of it, I only read the first half dozen or so of those stories as I felt I had the gist of it. Did Swift cover this kind of insanity in the later chapters? Or maybe we’re living some sort of mashup of GT and The Kugelmass Episode.