Lifted from the comments, via Mr Muldoon, a pretty good example of The Unreliable Narrator:

Lt. Col. Bree Fram, a trans U.S. Space Force official spoke to the U.S. Air Force about inclusion and DEMANDED everyone to respect LGBTQ people and use pronouns.

The world is laughing at us pic.twitter.com/I9gftUQWYX

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) March 1, 2024

In the above, we see Lieutenant Colonel Bree Fram – a man pretending to be a woman – invoking “dignity and respect,” while peevishly insulting his audience by insisting that they should also aspire to pretence – by which I mean habitual dishonesty – that they should abandon probity, disregard the evidence staring them in the face, and become cowed, cartoonish, and absurd. Lest they be denounced as bad people.

From here, it looks an awful lot like an attempt at psychological bullying and demoralisation, a kind of abuse. Which, given the rote intimations of victimhood, is a tad ironic. One might say perverse. As noted previously, those who play The Pronoun Game, and who insist that others play along too, may not be as benign and morally fragrant as they would have the rest of us believe:

And so, we arrive at a familiar question. If someone will lie about that, something so obviously untrue, what else would they lie about? Again, what we’re seeing has the air of a civilisational shit test. One underway on many fronts, and often with serious consequences for those who dare to retain a sense of realism.

And in entirely unrelated news, which I mention for no reason whatsoever, the US Air Force is currently facing a “critical staffing shortage,” with a “persistent shortfall” of around 2,000 pilots, and with recruitment levels so bad – the prospect of joining so unenticing – that the service is seeking out retirees to return to active duty.

Readers may, however, wish to speculate as to whether the kinds of people who would be most drawn to serving in the armed forces, and most suited to roles therein, are overly enthused by “unconscious bias diversity training,” a growing number of officers appearing publicly in drag, and scolding sessions on the importance of repeating those cross-dressing officers’ fabulist pronouns. Or by the news that a failure to do so – to lie on demand and thereby become absurd – could be considered “discrimination” and a basis for disciplinary action.

In light of which, the prospect of alienation doesn’t seem entirely far-fetched.

Those with a taste for condescension and farce will find more of Lieutenant Colonel Fram’s pronouncements here. Among them, a belief that the competence of the US military, and thus the fate of the world, may hinge on whether modern warriors stipulate their pronouns in all of their emails.

In the comments, John draws attention to this item from Personnel Today, a publication for the inhabitants of HR departments, regarding recruitment criteria for the Royal Air Force:

I’m assuming, perhaps charitably, that the word “useless” was with reference to meeting “diversity” targets. The word in question was deployed by former head of recruitment Elizabeth Nicholl, who resigned in protest at such targets being “impossible” to achieve. But still, an unhappy phrasing.

Much of the article covers ground that may be familiar to regular readers:

Because brownness and womb-having are much more important, obviously.

At which point, I’m tempted to ask how these target percentages relate to any actual expressed interest or aptitude – say, among school-leavers – or to any tactical utility, according to which an unusually high number of women and racial minorities would somehow confer a military advantage. Or are they, as seems to be the case, entirely arbitrary?

The paragraph immediately above was posted as a comment on the Personnel Today website. It was held for moderation, then disappeared.

Update, via the comments:

TomJ notes the proliferation throughout the RAF of pointedly gender-neutral terms, along with the ensuing complications, adding: “These are but annoyances, though they no doubt absorbed a lot of admin effort that could have been better directed… It now seems somewhat indicative.” Indeed. Time and resources better spent on the actual, you know, function of the organisation. Which is not, lest we forget, race-and-sex bean-counting.

Perhaps we’re to hope that such frivolous uses of time and resources will result in mere distraction, a loss of focus, and some inadvertent comedy. As if distractedness and waste, and chasing futility, might be the best available options. As opposed to the more typical effect of such endeavours, and of the mindset they reflect, which is the active and rapid corrosion of almost anything they touch, not least in terms of realism, standards, and competence.

Update 2:

In the comments, Jeff Guinn adds,

And so, the closer the RAF comes to these modish but seemingly arbitrary demographic ratios, the more reason there will be to suppose that standards have been lowered and corners cut, and to question the competence of the supposed beneficiaries. As has been the case in just about every other sphere – from academia to firefighting – where this nudging and fudging has been done.

Needless to say, this policy of supposed fairness seems somewhat unfair to those female and minority pilots who, while few in number, are very competent indeed, and whose credentials and reputation may subsequently be called into question as a result of emerging patterns. But hey, progress.

Update 3:

Depending on mood, one might find humour in the practised dishonesties of the progressive campus, where notions of demographic ‘correction’ are commonplace. But when extended to the realm of firefighting, policing, or the military, or medicine, or pretty much any vital infrastructure, then the funny side of things becomes harder to spot. And it’s perhaps worth noting that the mandatory pretence seen in academia, and all but perfected there, has given leverage to inadequates who do not welcome, and seem unlikely to tolerate, any attempt at realism or putting things right.

Given the vigour with which such demographic targets are pursued, and given the corners that are being cut in order to pursue them, on any number of fronts and at considerable expense… then checking the basic assumptions of those pursuing such goals doesn’t strike me as improper.

And yet, as seen in the pages of Personnel Today, some basic questions are not to be asked.

Also, open thread.