Came across an interesting and witty article recently. No, really.
In wokese, if you say some sort of discrimination exists, you have to say it is “systemic.” It’s just a moral demand that if you talk about one thing, you also have to gesture toward another—but it pretends to be grammar. You do not actually have to explain how the system functions as a system in a way that removes the agency of the actors within it, and indeed you would be messing up the syntax if you did. This is sort of like the previously popular wokese term “problematic,” which unlike its English equivalent does not mean that the person using it intends to expound on what the problem is.
In Britain, they know they have a class system, whether they like it or not. We have on in the US as well, but it's hidden. Which means that when the aristocracy takes steps to keep the proles in their place, no one wants to say that that's what they're doing. And language is, as always, one of the prime ways of accomplishing that.
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This was a very interesting article that makes a lot of sense about how the language is being fundamentally changed in a way that makes it all the more easy for those already in positions of power to pull the ladder up behind themselves. Of particular note was his reference to Jacques Barzum's prediction:
Establishing a standard spelling abolished the old democratic right to follow one’s fancy, and the result is that we can still read with relative ease the literature of the last 500 years. During that same time, the vocabulary has suffered losses and changes, the increase in distinctions being much to the good; while the losses and confusions, many due to ignorance in a world of illiterates, were not then cheered along by specialists. The present order of things is not likely to keep the written word readable for another five centuries.
Matt Taibbi has also written a similarly interesting account about the subject but because much of his work can only be read on Substack ($5. a month and worth the price) I'm not able to link a copy.
Nevertheless, this has become a topic that's energized a few thoughtful editorials - one of them being one called The Roots of Wokeness by Andrew Sullivan.
That's a quote that I liked as well, regarding the future readability of things being produced now. (At least in numerous sectors.) One fun fact is that Jacque Barzun was also a fan and critic of mystery stories. Do with that fact what you will.
Occasionally something by Taibbi will show up for general readers. I mostly like him. Zaid Jilani is another good voice.
Sullivan seems quite right to be suspicious of critical theory. One thing about it is that it's an ideology/theory that insists on being right. Which at some point means expecting you to ignore evidence from your own five senses in favor of what is known to be right.
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