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.
God bless you Stephanie. THAT is the sort of thing if we all were doing there would be less of this insanity. I am sorry that your daughter has been caught up in this.
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…
What is needed really to sort if that is true, particularly with regard to Tik-Tok, is to get an accurate picture of both the incidence and prevalence of Munchausen By Internet and things like the gender craze, and claims of mental illness such as the latest hot one, dissociative identity disorder, or DID as the kids like to call it.
“I, Hypocrite” has a long, but worth your 29 minutes, video about this bizarre trend. Best viewed with an ad blocker on.
Can we kick those who identify as cats (and demand cat pronouns) around the room while laughing?
Asking for a footballing friend.
…worth your 29 minutes …
These, I guess, are mostly the children of the Prozac Nation generation; maybe the grandchildren, too.
It’s actually disgusting to watch in parts.
Can you imagine a trend involving teenagers and young adult women pretending to be physically disabled, demanding wheelchairs and specially designed bathrooms, all the while claiming to be traumatised every time someone points out that they’re not actually paralysed and that they can actually walk?
(Please don’t tell me it already exists).
Yet pretending to have Tourette syndrome or Dissociative Identity Disorder to make people like you is utterly reprehensible.
It really is.
(Please don’t tell me it already exists).
Body Integrity Identity Disorder.
Whether it is a trend…
Fortunately I’m an engineer and don’t have to worry about it.
As WTP replied, you’re whistling past the graveyard. I’m an engineer and my employer is now exploring “privilege wheels”.
What’s more, some of the engineers I know have embraced “woke” ideology: transgender access to the wrong bathrooms and locker rooms, believe-all-women, BLM.
It’s important to remember that engineers and scientists can only be assumed to be competent in their specialities. They are not any more wise than the rest of the population.
“privilege wheels”??
Best viewed with an ad blocker on.
Dear God! This might be one of those rare videos which is improved by interrupting adverts.
It’s only taken The Guardian the best part of fifteen years to recognise what was abundantly clear to everyone else from day one.
Laurie has been this blog’s Exhibit A for pretty much its entire existence. That she’s been so praised, published, and indulged, with endless unironic media appearances, and a year at Harvard, free of charge, to be anointed “a leader in journalism” – despite the obvious fact that she’s really bad at thinking – still leaves me unsure of whether I should be laughing. It does seem rather damning of the standards in play, at least among her ideological peers.
What the Guardian’s Ms Cooke is discovering, belatedly, is that Laurie’s output is typically an overwritten slurry of sweeping claims and dark conspiracies, evidence for which has been lost in a mysterious warehouse fire. It’s routinely unclear how one avalanche of hyperbole and assertion leads to the next. Wild claims are just piled high, untroubled by particulars, supporting arguments, a sense of proportion, or any reference to reality. The joining logic is hard to find, let alone parse. It’s all rather impressionistic and yet terribly adamant.
I have lots of friends who are engineers. I would say they are as a group naive but if I use logic and facts come to their senses. Small sample.
Fad mental illness: in my youth 50 yrs ago (don’t judge) I knew one woman and one man who admitted being raped. The girl was traumatized but the guy didn’t even remember because he was drunk, and shrugged it off. We had one goth girl in our group who talked about suicide–we did not valorize her but tried to sooth her. No weird piercings and pink hair. Hippies, yes. I never saw a trans person until the last 10 years. Never saw someone acting all offended about nonsense stuff. I am sure there were people with anxiety or such but they kept it to themselves and tried to overcome it. Making the ill into heroes is not a good social trend.
It is very disturbing the hatred being thrown at the truckers. The comparisons to nazis are so bizarre because they are protesting for freedom. Facebook and Gofundme shutting them down is disgraceful. The media and gov were all in for Antifa and BLM riots in the US even though they carried communist flags and were calling for the destruction of the country and were, you know, actually killing people not just honking their horns. Shows whose side they are on (hint, not the people).
I have lots of friends who are engineers. I would say they are as a group naive…
Agreed.
…but if I use logic and facts come to their senses.
I have had only mixed results, sad to say.
… claims of mental illness such as the latest hot one, dissociative identity disorder, or DID as the kids like to call it.
I see multiple personality disorder has made a comeback. Got a new name and the kids are all hot for it. Maybe that’s why the transtrenders are getting so strident of late – they see their star fading. Well, wait a few decades and it’ll come around again.
I have a question about the cat thing though – they do know that cats come in male and female varieties, yes? And that even neutered there’s male and female cats.
Also, further to identifying as a cat (or dragon as that one guy): if you can be trans-species, and trans-gender, why can’t you be trans-race? Why do the magic words “I identify as” not work when it comes to the race you “were assigned at birth”?
I would say they are as a group naive but if I use logic and facts come to their senses.
No way for me to know but guessing, as you said as a group naive, that your personality might be a bit more overbearing (not necessarily in a pejorative sense) than theirs. I have generally not been the type (no, really) but as this general leftist idiocy has begun overwhelming our society, I have grown more and more forceful in my approach to discussion. Until my Jane Elliott-ish diversity training class 25-30 years ago now, combined with the 9/11 attacks, I was far, far more willing to give others plenty of rope to have their say and then argue that. But I came to realize that letting them have so much air time (for lack of a better term) left me with an overwhelming task and less opportunity to pursue those points as it would become rather boring. No one really cares to spend much time on uncomfortable issues of disagreement. Basic social awareness.
Lately, especially as I have taken the executive position on my HOA board, it really kinda scares me how easy it is to push people around. I obviously (because I’m a good person and not a Nazi, Nazi, Nazi…and totally all-in on the self-awareness thing) use my powers only for good.
why can’t you be trans-race?
Because the racialists have got the race grift tied up. It’s like a guild. and you’re not in it.
So you can only safely identify into a lower trump category or an un-established or poorly defended guild. You risk being twitch-shamed by the genuinely incapacitated if you pretend to be disabled. But if you claim to be a woman or a pokemon you’re golden.
It’s all quite fascinating, anthropologically speaking.
“race assigned at birth”–for many multi-racial people, they could have a choice, but the Woke go by the old brown-bag rule: if you are darker than a lunch bag you are black (ie, contaminated). So it is forced on them.
In order to be at the top of the virtue totem pole, people in the past have gladly sent witches to their death or people to be beheaded (France). This is the problem with proclaiming your virtue.
In ‘64 (that’s NINETEEN-sixty-four, wise-ass), at the age of 4, I was gendercat for a couple of weeks, clearly far ahead of my time. Finally, my genius has been recognized!
that’s NINETEEN-sixty-four, wise-ass
[ Fetches rocking chair, big cushion. ]
I have grown more and more forceful in my approach to discussion.
And I’m sure you’ve gotten the “but why do you care? It has nothing to do with you.” Something I’ve encountered time to time as it appears to a form of *shutuppery* when one decides not to give in to the toxic nonsense.
Here is another segment of a Jordan Peterson interview, with Ben Shapiro. At about the 1:43 mark Ben hits on why he cares and puts in words why I certainly do …
And that’s it for me. My kids, my grandkids. This isn’t the 1960s where it was a huge deal to have a TV show that showed a married couple had one big bed in the master bedroom. Or controversies over “edgy TV shows” in the 70s … when criticizers were told “just change the channel”. Now on things like 100s of *identities* we are forbidden to change the channel, let alone raise an objection without someone screaming “Unclean! Unclean!” and the person loses their job.
And I think that’s behind the viciousness of the groups hold the strings of Biden or Trudeau going after truckers or “Trumpsters”. They have ridden so long on the “why do you care? let people just do what they are going to do” that the usually polite among us who say “Ok. Fine.” find ourselves not being left alone to do what WE are going to do, especially when it comes to raising our own kids. And some of us have said “Enough”.
And the Left can’t stand it.
In 1960, at the age of 5, I was taken outside at night to watch the first Echo satellite pass by overhead.
[ Snatches big cushion from Princess Cutekitten, passes it to pst314. ]
You risk being twitch-shamed by the genuinely incapacitated if you pretend to be disabled.
Ah but there is a movement afoot to lop off or otherwise disable parts and features that people who believe they are trans-abled think shouldn’t be there or shouldn’t be working properly. It’s part of the larger body dysphoria thing, and while there’s some pushback from the actual disabled, the trans movement provides some covering fire for the wannabe amputee crowd.
One group of sincere-believer body dysphorics you don’t hear making a huge fuss is the anorexics. They have their own community like the furries do, but to my knowledge they aren’t pushing the rest of the world to conform to their view of themselves and demanding gastric sleeve surgeries and liposuctions as standard treatment like the transtrenders are for their fantasies.
It seems it’s only the racialists who are doing any serious pushback against the self-identify fantasy world, so I guess that puts them at the top of the victim totem pole.
In ‘64 (that’s NINETEEN-sixty-four, wise-ass), at the age of 4, I was gendercat for a couple of weeks,
Born in 1954, living in a small, post WWII housing neighborhood, I totally embraced being a tomboy for most of my pre-pubescent childhood. Mostly a gaggle of boys on the block and together we rode bikes, climbed trees, played baseball, threw dirt clods and built forts or rocketships from cardboard boxes.
Thank God it was 60+ years ago when it was considered just a part of a girl’s growing up. I loved being a tomboy but I never wanted to be a boy. Today some woke teacher would have yanked me aside in the third grade and started grooming my “authentic boy self”.
[pulls shawl around shoulders, looks around to spot another comfy chair]
[pulls shawl around shoulders, looks around to spot another comfy chair]
I see I’m going to have to rethink the furniture solutions.
[ Turns up heating. ]
pronouns: Work in the real world requires one to cooperate with people you don’t really know and may not like socially. For ages this has meant keeping your personal life, politics, and religion out of daily work interactions because these things can cause friction and degrade institutional functioning. Now, a business can become consumed by woke politics to the extent that personal relationships are very strained, work suffers, and people the company needs are forced out. I do not want to know about your kinks, your crazy politics. Two officers on a navy ship 2 yrs ago were not speaking which cause a crash with another ship. As an example. In the real world it is dangerous to take your eye off the ball.
Two FEMALE officers were not speaking…above story.
Thank you, everyone, for making my born-in-the-late-80s self feel so young, counteracting the effect of two young children plus the silver strands appearing in my hair with ever greater frequency. 🙂
Bring diapers for Gazer. Oh, and also for pst314.
If you are fortunate and have grandkids, you will still need diapers right up to the time you need diapers. When is that? Depends.
…and while there’s some pushback from the actual disabled…
All of these identity fetishists are in constant danger of being rutted by the Horned Dilemma – on the one tusk they want to be special, oppressed victims who require hefty doses of sympathy, deference and cash. On the other they demand to be recognised as perfectly valid, functional members of society entitled to all the perks and respect due to the normal citizen.
Oh what is a grifter to do?
And I’m sure you’ve gotten the “but why do you care? It has nothing to do with you.”
Exactly. Like I was the one being manipulated.
that pool is going to define … like my kid, it’s going to determine how my kid lives and I want my community to reflect some of my values because I don’t want my kid in the toxic sludge that you are creating for my kid.
Which goes a good way to explaining why I don’t have kids. They’d be miserable, I’d be miserable, my wife would most especially be miserable. Yet unlike the “why do you care” idiots I am far more concerned about the future for their kids, and now grandkids, than they are. Though the consequences of the current idiocy is beginning to dawn on a few of them. It’s a leftist cliche about “our disposable society” but I do think that attitude has permeated much of post-WWII thinking. They believe that everything and anything can be fixed or if not we can just go buy a new one. You know,
down at the storeon Amazon where they sell Western Civilizations. Comes in a can or something.In 1960, at the age of 5, I was taken outside at night to watch the first Echo satellite pass by overhead.
In c.1966, at the age of ~4, I was taken outside the restaurant and given an ass whooping for misbehaving and disturbing the peace, so to speak. See, there was this fly in the restaurant and I was having fun spotting it and saying “fly!”…with increasing enthusiasm. The other customers were amused but the staff, well I don’t think they appreciated as much as those customers. Good times, good times.
pronouns: Work in the real world requires one to cooperate with people you don’t really know and may not like socially. For ages this has meant keeping your personal life, politics, and religion out of daily work interactions because these things can cause friction and degrade institutional functioning.
This x 1000.
Same observation applies to every other aspect of “woke” politics, including BLM and Critical Race Theory, Believe All Women, and so on.
Consider the root meaning of “civilized” (Latin civitas): behaving in ways proper to living in a city. All sorts of constraints on behavior are necessary if large numbers of people in a constrained space are going to get along together. The ancient Romans and Greeks understood full well that behaviors common in the bucolic countryside could not work in the city. Today’s “progressive” minded people seem to have forgotten that. Or rather, they choose to ignore it…for motives that range from stupidity to deepest malice.
Bring diapers for Gazer. Oh, and also for pst314.
It’s amazing to think how things have changed. From prop planes, vacuum tubes and mechanical cash registers to commercial rocketry and smart phones and laptops.
I see I’m going to have to rethink the furniture solutions.
and the space between said furniture solutions…walkers and wheelchairs take up a lot of space…you might want to consider lowering the bar in places for the same reason…also lowering the bar is what has helped me to some what keep up with the others in this establishment
Body modification
This just in from Mr Worstall:
https://www.timworstall.com/2022/02/so-thats-the-tavistock-raided-then/#comments
Seven men have been arrested in north London as part of a probe into castrations broadcast live on a pay-per-view channel.
An investigation into a subculture known as “nullos” – people who endorse castration, or “genital nullification” – led to the raid in Finsbury Park, where police spent three days searching the basement flat.
…
Nullos willingly undergo removal of external genitalia as an extreme body modification procedure.
They afterwards may call themselves eunuchs or “smoothies”.
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…
Well, no, it isn’t. What TikTok boosts internally in China (mostly pro-family, pro-traditional values, pro-state) is very, very different from what it boosts in the rest of the world. Back before anyone had ever heard of TikTok, it was mostly a place for mentally ill cosplayers to show off. When TikTok was acquired by Tencent there was a huge outcry among that community because LGBTQWERTY content was suddenly blocked on the platform.
That didn’t last long, did it?
It needn’t have started as an elaborate psyop for the CCP to realize that boosting these degenerates served the old-school Soviet propaganda purpose of demoralization. Never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake. For further examples, look at the nature of the changes Western film producers have to make to get their films approved for distribution in China: de-emphasization of visible minorities, no LGBTQWERTY content (in addition to the usual no-rebellion-against-the-state edits).
They know what they’re doing.
“civilized”: one of the earliest books on manners (1600?) in Europe said it would be good to not eat with one’s hands, poop in the street, and have sex in the street. Wonder if we can get that one reprinted? The Left seems to think that being gross is somehow revolutionary and virtuous. Revolting, perhaps.
[ Starts baking cake for following day, exudes air of mystery. ]
The Left seems to think that being gross is somehow revolutionary and virtuous.
When you start viewing the left as what they are – namely chippy adolescents looking for ways to piss off Dad for attention – much becomes clear.
All sorts of constraints on behavior are necessary if large numbers of people in a constrained space are going to get along together.
~~ Robert Heinlein
The thing is, Darleen, that the meaning of “politeness” itself has been inverted. Consider the number of people who claim that political correctness, and its woke offspring, are just common courtesy. Or the fellow referred to by pst314 a thread or two back, who unburdened himself of the deep thought that “unqueer people” “don’t understand that some things aren’t by, for, or about them.” Or Laurie Penny’s effusion another couple of threads back, that to not use someone’s preferred pronouns is “rude,” “childish,” etc.
The enforcement of pronouns and such is an effort to forcefully invert the existing social pecking order. People with no normal status get to pick on (peck on) those with more status based on a made-up language.
Or the fellow referred to by pst314 a thread or two back, who unburdened himself of the deep thought that “unqueer people” “don’t understand that some things aren’t by, for, or about them.”
Did you misunderstand that comment? My intent was to mock the “queer” person who attempted to preach about “spaces that are not for unqueer people”. After all, these “queer” people never stop demanding that all our spaces must be transformed so as to be explicitly “for” them.
And then there is the neologism “unqueer” which further demonstrates the person’s mental defectiveness.
People with no normal status get to pick on (peck on) those with more status based on a made-up language.
Don’t be so Herbert, man.
More Orwell: “Ethical curation”: As best I can determine, this term originally meant citing original sources and not stealing content. (Think of Glenn Reynolds who would post short quotes, while linking to the original source as well as “link courtesy of” whatever blog led him to that source.)
But I am hearing rumors that some are now using “ethical curation” as a euphemism for not citing people they disapprove of, not allowing them to be published, and so on.
pst314: yes, of course I knew that you hadn’t quoted him to agree with him. Didn’t mean to imply otherwise.
Don’t be so Herbert, man.
What does Herbert mean?
The thing is, Darleen, that the meaning of “politeness” itself has been inverted.
Definitely. Formal politeness was structured and hierarchal. As a child I was expected to call all adults “Mr., Mrs. or Miss”. No teacher had their students call them by their first name. “Please” “Thank you” “You’re welcome” was both expected and almost automatic. I know my Southern brethren added “sir” and “ma’am” to the usual responses and requests. Men and teens gave up their bus seats to pregnant women or the elderly or opened doors to stores for them.
But now it is demanded that you enthusiastically affirm the self-chosen “identity” of anyone you happen to meet, even if such affirmation is based on delusion; and, if you get it wrong, you must immediately apologize with sufficient bowing and scraping. Children are allowed to publicly berate adults (if the adults are Unclean).
This isn’t just sand in the gears of society, it’s crowbars to tear it apart and beat the recalcitrant who won’t get in line.