The New York State Writers Institute’s annual book festival is always a great event. One program this year had Robert Boyers in talk with John McWhorter.
Boyers is a Skidmore prof, author of a book I reviewed with the heading, “Woke Gone Wild.” He’s a lefty, but was decrying campus cancel culture.
McWhorter is an academic provocateur, who grapples with linguistic issues and prevailing shibboleths on fraught matters like race. His latest book, Pronoun Trouble, was the conversation’s starting point.
Noting a Trump executive order, promoted as “restoring biological truth,” barring any federal government use of language inconsistent with there being just two sexes. Thus employees may not specify pronouns under their names in emails.
That pronoun business emerged during peak wokeness. Cringeworthy. If a “Mary” wants to be called “they,” fine. But otherwise, why write “she/her” under her name? It’s performative, turning a mere email signature into an in-your-face polemical statement. Must everything be politicized?
So Trump — who claims to champion free speech! — tells people how they can sign their names. WTF? Even if “she/her” stuff is loony, is federal prohibition the right answer?
And this is not “restoring biological truth” but denying it. Nonconforming sexuality, especially transgenderism, can make some people queasy. It took me a while to overcome that myself — but I grew to understand that while heteronormative bigenderism applies for most people, for some it does not, and biology naturally produces other variants. Everyone should be free to live as nature made them.
Trump and his cult reject this, exploiting people’s misgivings with a scorched earth culture war crusade, demonizing others for how they were born. It’s sick and evil.
And as the discussants observed, “they/them” is for Trumpers a “gateway” to other “shit.” The executive order says the “erasure of sex in language” has “a corrosive effect not just on women but on (my emphasis) the validity of the entire American system. Basing federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself.”
Wow. Truth indeed. From the biggest liars ever. This revanchist insistence on just two genders stands in for how these “patriots” actually hate the America that actually exists. Trump’s most effective campaign ad was apparently “She’s for they/them; he’s for you.” When in fact he’s only for himself.
Meantime, it was noted that gender-neutral “they” and “them” (as in many other tongues) are linguistically quite useful — when “he or she” can be clunky. McWhorter gave an example: “I’m picking up my friend at the airport.” “What time are they coming?” Seems very natural. Such use of “they” dates back to Chaucer; not until 1745 did some self-appointed grammar busybody declare it wrong. So it unfortunately fell out of general use until lately.
All this led into a discussion of “hate speech.” Weaponized by the regime in a new way, ironically taking a cue from wokeism’s equating words with violence. (As if Trumpists’ own words don’t run blatantly afoul, but never mind.)
Part of our civic culture’s degradation. Boyers said we’d thought there were countervailing societal powers to restrain the regime, but it seems they’re “supine.” Hannah Arendt was quoted about an “erosion of standards of judgement;” indeed, seeing a kind of nihilism, wanting the demise of civilization itself. MAGA people do hate where it seems headed.
There was mention of Trump’s recent assertion — in renaming the “War” Department — that since WWII we’ve never fought to win, fighting in only “wokey” ways. What an idiotic thing to say. And who in MAGA pushes back?
But McWhorter suggested that true nihilism is really a kind of “advanced thought,” whereas these people are “not so sophisticated.” With “little education” — whatever their advanced degrees, having scant true knowledge. Unreflective, ignorant of how life is complicated. Their certitude is immature thought. Unable to think through the consequences of what ‘s advocated. Don’t even understand “why tyranny is a bad thing.”
And he was talking there about the front rank of MAGA operatives. What’s in the heads of their ordinary voters?
