"But I think a lot of people feel that the world is out of control, and one place where they can exercise some control is language. And it seems like moral discourse comes in then:
Call me this. Use this term. We agree to use this language. What I like most about what young people are doing — and it’s not just the young, but everybody’s young now, according to me — is the experimentation. I love the experimentation. Like, let’s come up with new language. Let’s play. Let’s see what language makes us feel better about our lives. But I think we need to have a little more compassion for the adjustment process."
Says Judith Butler, quoted in
"Judith Butler Thinks You’re Overreacting/How did gender become a scary word? The theorist who got us talking about the subject has answers" (NYT).
Butler — author of the very influential book "Gender Trouble" — has a new book, "Who’s Afraid of Gender?"
I liked that line: "I don’t think we should become the police. I’m afraid of the police." (And note that the word "afraid" is in the new book's title.)
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49 comments:
"Like, let’s come up with new language. Let’s play."
Let's not. Words have meanings- how about using them instead of tearing them down and making up new shit?
"Let’s see what language makes us feel better about our lives."
Or, perhaps, we could use language to communicate? Is that really such a bad thing?
Call me this. Use this term. We agree to use this language.
No
Language is about communication. Playing with language, i.e., playing with the meanings of words, hinders communication. Policing it (which she may decry, but the reality is, this “play” is nothing without the policing), silences people.
Her “let’s have fun with language” ideal is a fig leaf covering an ugly regime of censorship.
Yeah, so if you are appalled by what all this gender nonsense obsession by the left is doing to our society and our country then you get more nonsense: You are "afraid" of gender, doncha know. That is the premise of this "gender studies philosopher" (and, I'll bet, of her "queer theorist" friend).
Why do we give these kooks the time of day?
The Left always wants to control the language and history. Orwell figured that out long ago. My favorite is The Inflation Reduction Act. It is a huge cause of inflation.
"I don’t think we should become the police."
Too late. All that's missing is the rainbow colored billy clubs.
Who is afraid of the police? Sometimes, I do not like what the police are doing, but do not recall being afraid of them.
What do you mean, “we,” Kemo Sabe?
The entire article was gobbledygook. She couldn't define gender. Let's play? The only sensible thing she said was acknowledging that the Bible thumpers were struggling with the adjustment period. Whodah think Kaitlyn Jenner would be the adult in the room?
the experimentation. I love the experimentation. Like, let’s come up with new language. Let’s play. Let’s see what language makes us feel better about our lives.
AND..IF people refuse to "play", by HER rules.. Well, then; THAT is where the scary police come in :)
New Liberal 'online harms' bill to make online hate punishable up to life in prison
The Liberal government is proposing "draconian penalties" in the Criminal Code as part of its sweeping plan to target online hate
The bill proposes increasing the maximum punishment for advocating genocide* to life imprisonment, and allowing sentences of up to five years in prison for other hate propaganda offences.
Of Course.. That law is for Canada.. In order for it to take affect in the USA, resident Biden's aides would have to say that Biden had signed an executive order
genocide* defined in the new law as: "ANY THING THAT WE WANT TO CALL GENOCIDE"
how many people in the USA have ALREADY lost their jobs because of misgendering pronouns?
Get a grip!
Anywho…
"My version of feminist, queer, trans-affirmative politics is not about policing."
Yeah, right.
"I don’t think we should become the police. I’m afraid of the police."
Given time, the probability of prog politics turning into policing approaches 1. The fear is a pose and strictly temporary. When they have the power, they use it.
"Call me this. Use this term."
But there is a difference between "call me this," interpersonally, and demanding that I call you this when speaking to someone else.
"We agree to use this language."
Who dat we?
"What I like most about what young people are doing — and it’s not just the young, but everybody’s young now, according to me — is the experimentation. I love the experimentation. Like, let’s come up with new language. Let’s play. Let’s see what language makes us feel better about our lives."
Hey, can I play? Are new terms for insanity playful enough?
"But I think we need to have a little more compassion for the adjustment process."
Ah, "adjustment." Which assumes of course that the "experimentation" results in new standards, to be imposed one way or another.
"Who’s Afraid of Gender?"
Nobody. Prog coercion, on the other hand, is a problem. So is child mutiliation.
Isaiah saw the day when the Lord would step in and stop the “out of control” part of the world.
“For the terrible one is brought to nought, and the scorner is consumed, and all that watch for iniquity are cut off: That make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of nought.”
Idiots in charge of the world today.
Are there no AI Deepfakes of Judith Butler? We're all afraid of the cyberpolice.
"But I think we need to have a little more compassion for the adjustment process."
No. The "Process" does not need adjusting.
You're a single digit percentage of the population.
You can "adjust," or not, as it suits you, but the "Process" works just fine for me and for >95% of the productive American population.
I'm not playing your game.
"Given time, the probability of prog politics turning into policing approaches 1."
Everybody must do (or not do) what progs demand, and *somebody* needs to do the enforcing.
I don’t think we should become the police. I’m afraid of the police.
Well, she's the police.
You may speak whatever gobbledygook you wish. You cannot make me learn your idiot definitions, use them or pretend they're understandable or correct when you use them.
You also will never shame me for using the old standards or not using your newest and bestest ones as you unsuccessfully attempt to convince me of your virtuousness.
You are simply not that important.
Feminist, queer trans-affirmative politics will get you sent to the gulag if the Chinese take over, or tortured to death if the Islamists take over. Sometimes I find myself rooting for either or both, just so I can watch the punishment meted out to the civilzation destroyers, or at least go to my beheading knowing what will happen to the whole lot of em with feminist, queer trans-affirmative politics. Haven't the rest of you normies yet figured out we're the enemy?
I liked that line: "I don’t think we should become the police. I’m afraid of the police."
Well, in Butler's case, she's a ditz-bag lesbo Commie perfessor at Berzerkely, where I understand the parents of students have recently begun paying for private security for their children. People like Butler have made the public kind scarce of late. Here's hoping she gets the world without police she longs for, soon and hard. I don't really see why she should expect to own anything, including her arms and legs, since she is too weak to defend them herself, and "afraid" of anyone who might defend them for her. If we could build a wall around the shitholes, I'd be all for letting the Democrats and Commies fester in them.
But what's your excuse? You're a law professor, not a sex-with-other-women perfessor. Do you imagine that law has any relevance, if no one is willing to enforce it? Are you "afraid" of the police? Understandable. Remember a couple years back, when the police smashed all the storefront windows in Madison? Oh, those police! The police are always with us! You better hope, white lady.
It’s OK for you to play.
It’s not OK to declare yourself the only game in town.
Mom usta say, "Don't play with your food."
Because mom knew that, by the time we were playing with, we had no intention of eating it. People who "play" with the language do not intend to actually communicate.
Everything about that was stupid. Unscientific, childish gibberish.
Sure, "Let's play".
When I was a kid we'd play cowboys and Indians (for shame, for shame).
Today's kids apparently play powerful dictator and trembling serf.
"Let’s see what language makes us feel better about our lives."
Oh, like you mean "from the river to the sea" instead of "the final solution." Yes, now there, doesn't that make you feel better about your life?
Haven't we learned anything from the bloody history of totalitarianism?
Don't use the enemy's language. Your freedom is at stake.
Experimentation and playfulness are all well and good. But it's not playing unless everyone is free to choose without censure whether or not to participate. And it's not experimentation if the outcomes are predetermined and anything or anyone that does not conform is "cancelled."
People should play with words. There are authors and songwriters who had/have excellent wordplay skills - the ones who surprise and delight you with a novel turn of phrase. I am always interested in more of that. Telling me what I have to say is not playing, it's bullying.
Butler doesn't mention bodies in the interview. There's no sense that gender involves having a particular one of the two kinds of human body. Butler's philosophy sounds ethereal and abstract, not grounded and embodied.
Why is one "afraid of the police"? I'm afraid of them when I know that the police are enforcing a law that I'm violating: I'm driving 70 mph in a 45-mph zone. Suppose I address you as "Ms. Butler", because you look like a woman, and you say "YOU MIS-GENDERED ME! I identify as MALE!" Can you cost me my job for having mis-gendered you? Then you're the police that I'm afraid of. Or were you "just playing"? How do I know?
Butler applying cosmetics to a very dangerous aggressive pig. "play"??? This is how you seduce the idiots. Butler's life is a vast scam that she seems to have gotten away with.
I recently read John Reid's book, Ten Days That Shook the World. In that book, he took pains to note that the Bolsheviks were not bloodthirsty or cruel as they were sometimes portrayed in the western press. He was very observant and knowledgeable about those Bolsheviks....So it's good to know that this person, so observant and knowledgeable about the trans community, is aware that none of their evangelism has anything to do with grooming. Very reassuring.
"I liked that line: "I don’t think we should become the police. I’m afraid of the police." (And note that the word "afraid" is in the new book's title.)"
Retirement has not been good to our Hostess!
John Reid was perhaps the most unselfaware man in the world, he got the Kornilov rising wrong and everything that followed, McMeekin has tried to cut through much of the cobwebs he strung along
"Like, let’s come up with new language. Let’s play. Let’s see what language makes us feel better about our lives."
Like, let's NOT. The whole point of language is to have a common, accepted way of talking or writing language, that everyone understands (to mean the same thing).
Now, we have educated (?) folk who can sit on the Supreme Court without knowing how to define the word 'woman.' Which is not a minor point; that word is used throughout the law, to define rights and obligations that depend on sex. People influenced by the likes of Judith Butler have ruined our language by making it far harder to say something about sex that everyone understands the same way.
Sex is not about how masculine (butch) or feminine (sissy) you feel; it's about what sort of gametes you were equipped to produce when you were born. Except for very rare birth defects, we're all binary, sperm or egg producers. No other choices, no continuum, no fluidity, no "transitioning."
This becomes especially annoying when you read something written by a recent journalism 'student.' They write as if they believe that someone's declaration that they are a woman (or man) means that they are, and the rest of us have to go along with it. They also write as if people can adopt plural third person pronouns for themselves, and make other folks use them. "You will call me they when you talk about me with someone else." Says F'ing who? Or even worse, you will use a word which no one even heard of a few years ago, like 'xir,' and it's your job to somehow remember which words which peculiar people want used for them. Or else you are 'misgendering' them!
Well, I'm not 'gendering' or 'misgendering' anyone. Sex is determined by the random hookups of sperms and eggs at the moment of conception, and the rest of this gender stuff is just out in la-la-land. I'll call 'em as I see 'em, and if I mistake some she for a he, that's on them.
Frankly, it's the grandchild of Free Love.
Pat yourself on the back if you still can.
We agree to use this language.
What's this 'we' stuff? Does she have a mouse in her pocket?
You want playful words, write poetry and keep it under your pillow.
It's sex, not gender.
Gender is a made-up bullshit concept made popular by weirdos...
Trying to be able to say fairly what the other side is. A huge undertow in life today is the urge to restore human dignity to all those who have lost it or never had it. It began with restoring the dignity of the members of the working class and then the Jews and then the black community in the US. Then members of colonized communities and tribal communities. Then you got into women and gays. No one really disagreed up to this point. Then you got the Islamic community in the wake of 911. Hmmm. The whole community?
Then you got the drag queen community, the leather community. You got these efforts to dignify the "minor-attracted community." Really? Then newly affirmed communities brought out THEIR old hatreds and wanted them to be dignified. Many Arabs communities degraded the Jews and kicked them out of newly formed countries. The Burmese are doing something to the Rohinga. Russia kicked out the Crimean Tatars and when they let them back they loaded them with suspicion and opprobrium.
And now some members of newly acknowledged communities are trying to target the white communities. Some women are trying to target men. Some gender theorists are trying to target supporters of natural law.
Worst of all, in the name of their restored dignity, the Palestinians are trying to brutally exterminate the Jews and lying about it. "From the river to the sea" - we might wonder what it means but not after 10/7.
And the settler-colonial ideology, the chief reason for support the Palestinians among the US college kids, seeks to abolish the US nation, returning all the land to tribal entities ... and the rest of us?
And the gender ideologues wanted, I suppose, to restore human dignity to those who somehow thought they actually belonged to the opposite sex. But they quickly deteriorated into gender police who do not allow other communities with a different vision to flourish. They cancel people, they destroy lives and they won't take responsibility and admit they are degrading members of other communities.
This is causing great bitterness in the present.
This is up till now.
What a stupid bitch. Of course she doesn't have to fear the police. She's part of the .1% with the international media on her side, athough she writes and behaves like some mumbling schizophrenic outside a public transit center.
Though saying that isn't fair to mumbling schizophrenics.
Butler has won more than one award for least incoherent writing. Let's pit her against actual mumbling shizophrenics, see who wins, and the winner gets her tenured post at Davis or Santa Cruz or whoever falls for that garbage.
Call me this. Use this term. We agree to use this language.
To the wokeista (Judith Butler is an ur-member) as in the playground, there is no distinction between "I have decided" and "We have agreed."
I think it was Billy Wilder who, following his experience in making Some Like It Hot, described Marilyn Monroe as "a mean seven year old girl."
I think this a very valuable insight. Hollywood, obviously, is a world for such children since reality is not supposed to intrude. But so is academia and much of the government lower apparat. We have an epidemic of mean seven year old girls because we have become so rich as a society that we can afford to create vast artificial habitats in which these creatures can thrive, and from which they can lecture us.
It's all fun and games until "let's just play around with words" becomes "let's play a game where we slice off your tits!"
Let me guess, Judith Butler doesn't like being called Authoritarian?
Of course I meant "least coherent writing."
Butler is in a pickle. She is in trouble with the trannies who say their transgenderism is not socially constructed. So now she says that everything except transgenderism is socially constructed.
Hoisted on her own whaever the heck she calls her whoosit. I love watching them get eaten by their young.
"Call me this. Use this term. We agree to use this language."
No, you worthless pile of shit, "we" do NOT agree with that language.
Fascist "you" is trying to force that language on us, and we refuse.
You don't care about my feelings, because if you did you would abandon all "trans" claims.
So since you dont' respect my feelings, I dont' have to respect yours. And I don't.
So take all your lies, all your BS, and f*ck off. a "trans woman" is a man with a mental problem. A "trans man" is a woman with a mental problem.
And anyone "non-binary" is a sexist bigot, demanding that all sexual stereotypes be treated as entirely true.
Because otherwise you couldn't meaningfully say "I dont' feel like a man / woman". Because That claim presupposes that there's some things that all men / women agree on.
I liked this line: We agree to use this language.
BS, on stilts, that is what that sentence is. No, we don't agree. We are TOLD intermittently to stop using certain language and TOLD to use other language for one and only one reason: to impose the assumed authority and presumed moral superiority of one group over everyone else. To hell with that, and to hell with them doing the telling.
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