There is always plausible deniability in gradualistic attempts to change society. "Oh, we aren't going from A to B to C. A is just innocent and has nothing to do with B and C." Then they move to B. "Oh, B has nothing to do with C. We are advocating B, but you are a crazy MAGA insurrectionist if you are paranoid about C actually happening." Then C slowly gains acceptance. "Only MAGA insurrectionist bigots are against C." That is how it works. You deny the next step every step of the way until you've gone all the way to the final goal from A to B to C.
“Slippery slope” would’ve worked. 99% of the time a way to say “Things that are happening that are barely recognizable compared to things I don’t want to happen.”
I love this place, someone can just start a thread called "pronouns" to complain about language I guess
'Traditional' views are social constructs too (with some pretty nasty trojan horses embedded when people wield them politically), to each their own, I guess
People start pooping in outhouses, the next thing you know they're demanding indoor plumbing to radically change society, now you got your bidets that play music when it washes your butthole, where will it end?
While I don't have any issues with whatever pronouns people want to use for themselves, I don't think people should get bent out of shape if I fail to use them. If someone looks like a boy, I'll use he and if someone looks like a girl, I'll say she but not to be disrespectful. It's because when I am getting ready to ask a question or speak, the preferred pronoun of someone is the absolute LAST thing on my mind. I am more interested in the substance and content of the discussion or question. Particularly for someone that is a stranger or I only have to deal with for a few hours like on this tour. If this person was going to be my roommate or friend, then I would absolutely use whatever term they want. Just don't act indignant if I use the wrong pronoun for you, it's not personal, especially if I'm never going to see you again. If you are worrying about people calling you by your preferred pronoun, I would suggest you find more important things to worry about.
Exactly. And I’d follow up by asking, has anyone ever been indignant if you unknowingly used the wrong pronoun?
Not to me. I would imagine that most people that want to use a different pronoun than they conventionally look like, they just sluff it off. You might get an occasional person that gets upset I suppose. I would like to think that most people wouldn't take it personally, I know I wouldn't.
You can tell me in advance but if I'm in a tour trying to learn about where things are at UF and how to get things done, I promise you the preferred pronoun of the tour guide is the last thing on my mind. I'm more likely to remember their actual name and use that.
For serious students of history it is obviously so. The Soviet Union, China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, and all the others became communist after undue attention to pronouns. The world is watching the Big Red Pronoun Menace march ever onward.
It's not about the pronouns. It's about the implication of finding it necessary to say your pronouns. The implication is deconstructionist. "I have to say my pronouns because society has had it wrong for 100s of years and I know gender better than those bigoted traditionalists." Are all people who do it deconstructionists? No. But they're furthering that agenda through complying. Motivations for that can range from a sense of virtue to a fear of ostracism. Either way, the end result is the same. And are all deconstructionists Communists? No. But all Communists are deconstructionists. And when the same deconstructionists speak of justice in terms of equity and classes of "privileged" and "oppressed," more and more it looks like a Communist and it sounds like a Communist. At some point, you just kind of have to come to the conclusion that it's a Communist. In many cases these same people openly proclaim themselves as Marxists, disavow Capitalism, and mirror identical tactics to Communism but instead of appealing to labor grievances, they appeal to racial, ethnic, and sexual grievances. You don't need to be the second coming of Sherlock Holmes to recognize a pattern.
Well, you're not great at leading by example, then. The first word that comes to mind when I think of you as a poster is: "Marxist." The second would be "deconstructionist."
Some people expect communism at the end of this road. I don't get it, but they really are afraid that if they don't hold the line on using the words that a person has asked them to use is going to result in communism.
