I try not to be overly fatalistic... but I kinda think the country is collapsing bc Ivy League educated columnists for NYT and the Atlantic found pronoun circles mildly annoying.
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Most writers/editors belong to the well-educated liberal class.
They act like their status within the class requires them to challenge their class's mainstream views to prove how uniquely unbiased they are. For them, being contrarian = high status.
The same thing happened with trigger warnings. NYT and Atlantic were at the forefront of liberal pearl clutching over something that had barely made it into mainstream education or academia. Suddenly it was some great assault on sensibility.
No, basically we elected a black man and then a giant chunk of the country just went nuts with racism, which made them feel better about being sexest and queerphobic, and then the media's baked in bothsiderism just broke and they blamed Democrats, because they believe Republicans don't have agency.
I think they found them, for some unhinged reason, brain chemistry alteringly annoying. Like having to occasionally read "she/her" in an email signature had the effect on them of being kicked in the skull by a horse.
Or maybe they were always assholes just waiting for an excuse.
I think a lot of liberals thought they had won the war and when people said no there’s more fight for justice they saw it as a challenge to their identity.
Intellectualism AS A CAREER destroys people. If your entire job, all day every day, is to be considered smarter than other people, ESPECIALLY in a "professional culture" that fetishizes the facade of rationality over actual engagement with the subject matter and holistic understanding, this happens.
I don’t think this is true of people who are doing research as long as they don’t think that the fact they are doing research on one thing makes them an expert on all things. Because research is actually not about being smarter than other people but about finding out stuff about something specific.
I don't think that researchers are the same class of people. Research requires a certain amount of humility; the premise is to suggest a cause for an observed phenomenon and then prove yourself wrong. The folks I'm referring to are pundits, lecturers, "philosophers", and other navel-gazers.
Maybe there’s no specific discipline that’s harmful by its nature but a problem when people get outside their wheelhouse, and don’t have anything beneficial to offer but their arrogance prevents them from seeing it. But we can’t stop this by damning intellectuals because business dudes do it too.
I think I've been pretty clear and specific about who I've been talking about. I'm not interested in expanding my categorization beyond the narrow range I have previously outlined, particularly in an effort to undermine the message I presented or otherwise insist on nonexistent generalization.
Ivy leaguers often times get radicalized cause they believe they’re the smartest in the room. However, if the room tells them they said something stupid, they automatically start whining about how the room is wrong.
Actually, I think Ivy League+Stanford elitism is a major factor in our country’s collapse into fascism. Their students are prime and easy targets for fascist propaganda who end up trying to push the country into democratic collapse—e.g., Cruz, Vance, Gorsuch, Thiel, Musk.
Well, I wasn’t understanding this whole discussion… I thought we were just talking about linguistic choices that the New York Times and Atlantic writers were utilizing… I guess I need to fully understand what was meant by pronoun circles, before opening my mouth. Lesson learned…
No, it's not, because everything going on is built on a bedrock of not giving a shit about human dignity or welfare. The people whose concerns you call "the least of our issues" are the same ones I saw correctly call where all of this was going years ago, because it was going to hit them first.
Nobody here but you is trying to rank issues. The post you are replying to is about a contributing cause to the current political landscape. Hope this helps.
I'm not super fond of pronouns because my geezer brain doesn't want to remember extra things, but that's for me to deal with. Of course, I have not been encouraged to believe that every thought that wanders through my mind must provide enlightenment to the world.
Not that you need to read it, just an example of how it's not only the NYT. (The thesis is that trans lib is fine, actually, but dammit that makes language complicated and that's hard for feminists' slogans! Won't someone please think of the rhetoric?)
Pollitt is full TERF now. Last year she was on Jon Wiener's podcast mocking and misgendering Judith Butler, at one point launching into a gratuitous transphobic rant against Dylan Mulvaney.
I have long found myself baffled as to how Terfs could read Simon and end up terfs and it’s so… obvious but also just willfully a dumb literalism on the terf’s part?
Thank you for answering a mystery I’ve had in my head for years.
Oh, they were annoying to most folks. They were in your face enraging to the right. It was an engineered part of the culture war intended to divide; to keep the people from focusing on the class warfare being waged by the wealthy.
I said this to someone else: I found it annoying too! I just wasn't champing at the bit to burn down our democratic system over it, which they super were (and 'regulars' were misled into thinking it wouldn't happen).
NGL: I found them annoying. At first. Then I thought about it, and I realized I was intimidated. Because I had been unwittingly offending people I had no desire to offend.
I had always found gender in language to be kind of odd. But I had just never thought about English pronouns before.
Honoring another human being's wishes re: pronouns is like the least I can do. Even if I make mistakes or fall into old habits established over decades.
All human beings are deserving of respect and dignity. When it comes down to it.
Doesn't take much thinking to work it out, really.
It's been a succession of radicalizing events for the last few decades. First, Obama; then, same-sex marriage; then, BLM; then, #MeToo and pronoun diversity. I'm probably leaving things out too.
I'd say it's more a mix of capitalism and the "unpaid intern". We'll never get to see the potential of really great journalists since they can't go to school without loans or afford to work without pay
Basically cis young allies started introducing themselves with pronouns in college and workplaces and social pressure came from them. A lot of workplaces complied but old people went why should I have to do that. And here we are. Reactionary dickheads.
None of us ever asked for it. I appreciate what they were doing and such but I already feel awkward asking people who already knew me to adjust to my new name, let alone worry about what pronouns I want.
I am brutal when someone in my presence goes off about not wanting to use someone's name or pronouns. Brutal in that way where you thought you were ready to read your bar/bat mitzvah parsha and then your rabbi makes you feel like you don't even know the alphabet?
I understand the personal focus, but Hitler didn’t seize power to conduct the Holocaust. Power was the goal. Awful people simple use power in awful ways. And look to Fox and NewsMax and Joe Rogan and X and TikTok. This wasn’t the Atlantic’s doing
Comments
Most writers/editors belong to the well-educated liberal class.
They act like their status within the class requires them to challenge their class's mainstream views to prove how uniquely unbiased they are. For them, being contrarian = high status.
Or maybe they were always assholes just waiting for an excuse.
The ones who couldn't play football good enough to get that gold-plated University 'edoocayshun' ?
🤣🤣🤣
See how you sound?
It's been a while so you probably don't 2015, maybe?
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/who-has-abortions/#
Not that you need to read it, just an example of how it's not only the NYT. (The thesis is that trans lib is fine, actually, but dammit that makes language complicated and that's hard for feminists' slogans! Won't someone please think of the rhetoric?)
https://bsky.app/profile/cripdyke.bsky.social/post/3lj56q5uiok2v
I have long found myself baffled as to how Terfs could read Simon and end up terfs and it’s so… obvious but also just willfully a dumb literalism on the terf’s part?
Thank you for answering a mystery I’ve had in my head for years.
Is fucking meaningless, Rob
I had always found gender in language to be kind of odd. But I had just never thought about English pronouns before.
All human beings are deserving of respect and dignity. When it comes down to it.
Doesn't take much thinking to work it out, really.
Also stop carrying water for a newspaper that's been laundering fascism for over a century
You're highly unlikely to even catch the slightest of flak for saying "you guys", let alone actual ire, let alone be "cancelled"
If you think that has *ever* happened anywhere, you are deeply gullible
Male reporters saw the ability to sexually harass/assault younger employees as a perk of the job and remain furious it was taken away.
And those that didn’t just looked away and didn’t like the implications that they were guilty too.
This causes other cis people to become unreasonably angry. Especially if they are made to participate.
It rarely has anything to do with trans or non-binary people because we're not invited to begin with.
Yeah, like that.