My previous post about language only touched tangentially on language ideologies and wasn’t specifically tailored to speak to feminism. I’d like to correct that, and offer something more concise and digestible for your reading pleasure. Do note that this piece does borrow upon the last post, however, and is probably best read afterward.
Language ideologies may be the common denominator in what defines a social group, to include a nation: “…The nationalist ideology of language structures state politics, challenges multilingual states, and underpins ethnic struggles to such an extent that the absence of a distinct language can cast doubt on the legitimacy of claims to nationhood” (Woolard, & Schieffelin, 1994). The language consensus – that is to say, agreement on what is and is not proper language and thus thinking – informs the way the state structures itself. Absence of such a consensus may cause the entire system to dissolve as people perceive the organization to lack legitimacy. These assertions are not based on pure abstraction, but rather on empirical studies of linguistic histories: “Macrosocial research on language planning and policy has traced distinctive ideological assumptions about the role of language in civic and human life and distinctive stances toward the state regulation of language, for example, between England and France” (Woolard, & Schieffelin, 1994).
Literacy and orthographies (systems of writing) have a profound impact on language ideologies. They tend to lend credability towards notions of language consensus: “Ideologies of literacy have complex relations to ideologies of speech and can play distinctive, crucial roles in social institutions. Even the conceptualization of the printed word can differ importantly from that of the written” Additionally, literacy can often be fueled by cultural factors: “Anthropological studies of literacy…recognized belatedly that it is not an autonomous, neutral technology, but rather is culturally organized, ideologically grounded, and historically contingent, shaped by political, social, and economic forces” (Woolard, & Schieffelin, 1994). It is relevant at this point to call attention to the distinction in linguistics between ideologies of speech and ideologies of printed word. Imagine how hard it would be to enforce a proper way of speaking, for instance – especially without the aid of the written word! Thus, written word has a synergistic effect with the spoken word; the two working together can create a far more powerful language ideology than perhaps either could alone (though it is rather hard to imagine a written language without a spoken component – unless you count math). Language ideologies can form around the spoken word, written word, or both. This post will focus more on the written word (as opposed to considerations of accent and so on), which is more relevant to feminism. Concepts of literacy have a profound impact on society:
The definition of what is and what is not literacy is always a profoundly political matter. Historical studies of the emergence of schooled literacy and school English show the association between symbolically valued literate traditions and mechanisms of social control. Analyses of classroom interaction further demonstrate how implicit expectations about written language shape discriminatory judgments about spoken language and student performance. The nineteenth century foundation of English as a university discipline created a distinction between reading as aristocratic and leisurely and writing as work. Composition as skill training for employment is the dirty work of English departments, with consequences for gender politics (Woolard, & Schieffelin, 1994).
Stop and chew on that for a second. Consider what feminists have done to the education systems in the West – a topic that has been covered well by many other bloggers and authors (Christina Hoff Sommers comes to mind). Women thought they were being liberated by feminism, with its heavy handed talk of male oppression and patriarchy. Such words represent revisions; marriage was not always a synonym for oppression, patriarchy not always a synonym for totalitarian control. And yet women bought into this language ideology and structured their realities around such concepts. They traded one system of thinking – that exonerated the wifely duty for the benefit of society – for another system of thinking, one that exonerated careerism for the benefit of individuals (and often at the expense of society). But it is hard to imagine that most people have been doing any “free thinking” of late, given the mechanisms by which language ideologies propagate themselves.
One may ask at this juncture how it is that language ideologies are imposed and sustained in the first place. This is an excellent question with an unfortunate answer – the entire system is imposed right under our noses. It begins in the classroom: “Standard language ideology is a basic construct of our elementary and secondary schools’ approach to language and philosophy of education. The schools provide the first exposure to SL ideology, but the indoctrination process does not stop when the students are dismissed” (Lippi-Green, 1994). I hypothesize that this may be a result of how education has come to be synonymous with college (evidence by the phrase “get an education,†which generally means, a college degree) thus eliminating the perception that education is a multifaceted process and that there are many ways to become educated. This is probably unsurprising to those familiar with MRAs and the “men’s movement,” if you buy into that phrase. Critique of the modern education system is generally a component of such philosophies, but I think they’ve missed the subtle nuance of language ideology and instead blanket-blamed feminism. “Much of what the American educational system teaches children about langauge is factually incorrect; in this it is thorough, consistent, and successful across social and economic boundaries. The phenomenon has been observed by others” (Lippi-Green, 1994). After the school system, there are several other guardians of standard language ideology: “There are four immediately identifiable proponents of SL ideology…: the educational system, the news media, the entertainment industry, and what has been generally referred to as corporate America. At the end of the article, I argue for adding the judicial system to this list” (Lippi-Green, 1994). Lippi-Green’s article provides a convincing case to consider the judicial system as a fifth enforcer:
Transcription, or the written representation of speech, within academic disciplines and law, for example, relies on and reinforces ideological conceptions of language…In the American legal system the verbatim record is an idealist construction, prepared according to the court reporter’s model of English, against which incoming speech is filtered, evaluated, and interpreted. It is considered information if a witness speaks ungrammatically, but not if lawyers do, and edited is applied accordingly (Woolard, & Schieffelin, 1994).
I don’t think I need to make the case that the education system, news media, entertainment industry, corporate culture and the legal system in the West are biased against men. Those sacred cows have been gored before – far better than I could ever hope to gore them. But I think it is interesting to note that those five sources of woe for men can also be thought of as indoctrination engines, prone to propagating any sort of language ideology – of which feminism is but one kind. We understand the ways in which women have been divisive, but do we fully appreciate the mechanism?
I propose two steps. We need to eliminate the fiction that any language provides unmediated access to “the real” or “the Truth,” because it is precisely this fiction that has motivated many women (and men) to believe in feminism’s vile lies, double standards, and illogic. Feminism purports to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth to its adherents, and they take such sentiments literally. A person who vehemently believes in feminism will be impossible to communicate with (and come to a genuine understanding with) unless you are speaking the same language (ideology). You can’t ever tell a die-hard feminist that marriage is a good idea, because that is not part of their perception of reality.
In order to do this, we may want to re-examine the way we approach language and language education. I theorize that refining languages to be more precise (as English has an awful lot of ambiguity) would help make them less susceptible to malicious abuse. Additionally, however, we should not teach children that there is only one language and only one correct way to speak that language. I believe we should encourage our young to learn many languages, if possible, so that we could learn to express ourselves in a variety of ways to a variety of people. Greater respect for diverse languages (and thus diverse ways of thinking) may engender a respect for coming to understanding as opposed to the more common approach of “winning” an argument. Communicating should not be viewed with an adversarial attitude, as that is antithetical to understanding. I do not mean to assert that we should all come to agreement, mind you – it is perfectly appropriate to understand another and disagree with them, and generally disagreements sprung from understanding are more respectful and civil than those sprung from misunderstandings.
Works Cited
Woolard, KA., & Schieffelin, BB. (1994). Language ideology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 23, 55-82.
Lippi-Green, R. (1994). Accent, standard language ideology, and discriminatory pretext in the courts. Language in Society, 23(2), 163-198.
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{ 39 comments… read them below or add one }
I used to say quite a bit that “Arguing is two minds working together to solve a problem.” I know see the error in the simplicity of this statement, because when we argue with feminists, even women in general, we can’t properly work together to solve a problem when we are speaking entirely different languages.
I am afraid that while we agree that control of language and linguistic convention is a tool used in order to influence the opinions of others, I must disagree with your claim that “[w]e need to eliminate the fiction that any language provides unmediated access to ‘the real’ or ‘the Truth,’”– mathematics in general and mathematical logic in particular should rightly be held to meet these requirements. That said, no other language does meet such a requirement; in particular, all languages of regular human communication (both natural languages and modern constructed languages) are necessarily deficient in this regard.
I think that the sort of behavior you are proposing (that of seeking understanding) is precisely why language abuse occurs to begin with–it is much easier to build consensus around statements that mean different things to different people, since it isn’t an actual consensus.
Doubleplusgood!
“it is much easier to build consensus around statements that mean different things to different people, since it isn’t an actual consensus”
Well said.
J. Durden,
These are excellent pieces you have written, and this is an extremely important subject.
Thanks for writing them!
The deliberate dumbing down of America by Charlotte Iserbyt is a must see on Youtube. Listen to her and… see the light.
She has published a HUGE book with all the details. Can be downloaded free, if you have many hours available.
This will tell you how far gone we are.
I contend now that nothing really matters anymore.
It’s just funny now..
Sestamibi beat me to the 1984 reference.
I’d have to disagree with you on one count, though; there is a great deal of precision in English, if we actually take the trouble to puzzle it out. To be obscure is not exactly the same as to be ambiguous, for instance. I had an old dictionary that would actually explain in great detail the distinctions between synonyms; those kinds of resources are priceless.
But you’ve definitely got something here: the words we are taught to use tend to shape our worldviews. That’s why political correctness is so popular among non-think ideologies; it limits one’s ability to process facts.
Have you delved much into the Modern Language Association, by the way? The feminists were shrewd (excuse the near-pun) in seizing control of it.
‘“Standard†English is an example of a language ideology – the notion that there is a correct and incorrect way to speak English, that words are pronounced certain ways and mean certain (or various) things.’
This is not exactly what Standard English is. Fundamentally, it’s a sociolect that happens to enjoy privileged status. There are certainly people who think that there’s a correct way to speak English, and that Standard English embodies this, but at heart Standard English is only one variety of English. I think what you really mean by “Standard English” is “prescriptivism.”
‘I propose two steps. We need to eliminate the fiction that any language provides unmediated access to “the real†or “the Truth,‒
This will be incredibly difficult to do. The belief is widespread.
‘In order to do this, we may want to re-examine the way we approach language and language education. I theorize that refining languages to be more precise (as English has an awful lot of ambiguity) would help make them less susceptible to malicious abuse.’
Not possible, though, without a way of enforcing your reforms.
‘Additionally, however, we should not teach children that there is only one language and only one correct way to speak that language. I believe we should encourage our young to learn many languages, if possible, so that we could learn to express ourselves in a variety of ways to a variety of people.’
Amen, but again, you’ll be going up against the education establishment. Plus, teaching languages costs money. Language education in this country has been suffering for years. Where will you get the dough?
Women are so messed up nowadays you can’t make up the shit they do…this woman has been foung guilty of stalking….wait for it….drum roll please…..da, dat ,daaaa….
HERSELF!!!
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/woman-found-guilty-of-stalking-herself/story-fn3dxity-1225819119845
I have been considering writing on this topic for some time. You have done an excellent job. Something you don’t mention, however, is that language is the logical “weapon of choice” for the feminist. As a student of psychology, I know that considerable research has demonstrated that females acquire language skills earlier and faster than males, and that this advantage can be life-long. In a world that has come to be more dependent on language than ever before this is an important advantage for women to have. It is also important for men to recognize their disadvantage in order to combat it. The public school system is also the logical battleground for the feminist to wage her war. Educating our young has always been the purview of women in our society. A public school system that was dominated by women gave the feminist unrestricted access to our children. They can indoctrinate them in any ideology they choose and of course, they chose the language ideology of the feminist.
On my blog I am currently writing a series on oppression. It began with a rehashing of information about the myth of women’s oppression that can be found on many blogs. Next, I posted the first of a series that explore’s whether or not men would be oppressed under a feminist government. I plan at least three or four more segments over the next few weeks. Your post has given me another idea or two to add to my series.
Great writing. Let me add a quote that backs up your premise:
“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought†— George Orwell.
You know what medium survives the corruption of language and even serves to mitigate it? Comic books. Especially if they’re, say, translated from Japanese, which requires knowledge of two completely different language formats and ways of looking at the world to translate properly. Whine about the rotting of the brain from manga and such all you want, but those books do get some GOOD translators. (Also footnoters.)
Or just reading a lot of old books, so you can trace where any deviations or differing types of common usage tend to come in over the years, decades, and centuries.
Of course, the people who usually do go mad over older books and first in the series and inspirations and fan translations are near-universally MEN, so if all you wanted to say was that language must be used, safeguarded, and shepherded by men, then good job:)
Betty Broderick, Symbol of Bitter Divorce, Seeks Parole – Sphere News
[...]
According to testimony, Broderick long suspected her husband was having an affair, which she confirmed when she tried to surprise him at the office on his birthday and learned he’d spent much of the day with his legal assistant. In a rage, she threw his clothes into the yard and burned them.
She said Dan Broderick abused her and then used his legal connections to crush her as their marriage broke up.
“The family hates these lies because Dan was about as honorable and wonderful a guy as you would want to meet,” said his brother Larry. “There are hundreds of people out there who feel the same way about him. All he wanted to do was get away from this woman.”
A Harvard-educated former president of the San Diego Bar Association, Dan Broderick was so well regarded in the legal community that the library of the Bar Association building was re-named the Broderick room after his death.
Betty Broderick’s diaries were read in court, and Dan’s answering machine tapes were played — including one in which their son pleaded with his mother to stop using “bad words” about his father. The couple’s oldest daughter, Kimberly, testified that her mother told her she hated the girl’s father and wished the children had never been born.
[...]
http://www.sphere.com/crime/article/betty-broderick-symbol-of-bitter-divorce-seeks-parole/19325868?icid=main|htmlws-main-n|dl1|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sphere.com%2Fcrime%2Farticle%2Fbetty-broderick-symbol-of-bitter-divorce-seeks-parole%2F19325868
*Welmer – you should do a seperate post on this.
Sorry folks, I’ve been short on time this week due to work obligations. I’ll try to get to your comments as I can – I appreciate any feedback I get, whether it be compliments or criticisms.
@ Arbitrary
Mathematics and “mathematical logic” (by which I I will assume you mean something resembling symbolic logic) are directly addressed in the other essay I wrote on language. If math has the appearance of offering “the truth,” I would posit that this is merely a symptom of math’s much higher degree of precision when compared to a language that is meant to convey many more things. This does not make it any closer to asserting “the truth;” it merely makes it more reliable and consistent. There are some concepts in math that, at least in some cases, do not seem to have any bearing on reality at all – imaginary numbers, the concept of infinity… Also, as this article demonstrates, unyielding belief in the power of mathematics can be just as foolish as unyielding belief in the power of standard language.
I would argue that many have cleverly disguised language abuses as attempts at increased understanding much in the same way that feminists have cleverly disguised the advocation of female privilege (often at male expense) on the grounds of equality. Someone advocates something that is awful on the grounds of something that sounds good – exploiting language assumptions in order to do so. When I say people should seek to build understanding, I mean more than pay lip service to the idea.
@ Rebel
While America may or may not be doomed, there is one thing that seems certain – humanity will still carry on, for a time at least. If we continue to fail to understand why civilizations fall apart, then we are damned to make the same mistakes the next time we try. I think the modern study of linguistics has revealed much about the way humans think and organize themselves, and it would be profitable to contemplate these lessons.
@ Mrs. Pilgrim
I address this in my previous essay on language. While precision is possible with English, it is generally muddled by two factors. The first factor is that, while precise resources may be available to define words in theory, they are rarely at hand in practice. How often do you refer to the dictionary while you are in the process of communicating with someone else? You may be able to hash out a clearer understanding of what you’re talking about by engaging in back and forth banter, but as I point out in this post, you may not be afforded the opportunity to have such feedback in a particular communication moment. There are some moments where there is no opportunity for the listener to offer any feedback at all, and they are left completely to their own devices to interpret a message. During most communications, people utilize their “mental dictionaries,” which are incomplete, imprecise, and sometimes even outright incorrect and other times incompatible with their communication partner’s mental dictionary.
Furthermore, to combat deliberate distortions of language, you will have to overcome the language ideology engines – education, news media, entertainment, corporate culture, and the legal system.
@ Steezer
As I mentioned above, America may or may not be worth saving. I have invested more of myself into America than I would have liked; I am not particularly interested in trying to save it (though I can certainly offer my thoughts and opinions, I am no longer interested in much direct action/involvement). I would propose instead that whoever creates a new system – or helps lead whatever becomes of America after its collapse – consider the lessons that linguists have taught regarding language ideology and incorporate them into the new “social structure.”
@ TDOM
Excellent point! I think the men’s movement has long understood that education was dominated by women (to varying degrees of maliciousness, according to whoever is making the case), but I’ve never read an analysis strictly about how women deployed their language advantage purposefully.
@ Epo
I’m not so sure. I haven’t done enough research on orthographies to either come to a conclusion or propose an alternative. Certainly, orthographies can be useful – but they are also susceptible to dangerous misuse. Like any other human invention or technology, they are not inherently evil or inherently good.
“I haven’t done enough research on orthographies to either come to a conclusion or propose an alternative. Certainly, orthographies can be useful – but they are also susceptible to dangerous misuse. Like any other human invention or technology, they are not inherently evil or inherently good.”
Well, according to a certain fairly reliable site, most writers are male. Most fanfiction writers are girls, but best not to visit that charnel house at the moment.
The study of orthography is indeed neither good nor bad in itself. However, the institutions that teach orthography, as you demonstrate, tend to get loaded down with la feministas, who thrive on making self-absorbed rule changes in boring but important fields. When that happens, a man’s duty is less directly challenging the rogue orthographs than it is being a relentless archivist. Sort of like how the men’s movement is really, really, really helped by the existence of the Internet as a collective archival memory of nearly all human knowledge in its original forms. And without Project Gutenberg, I would have never really discovered G.K. Chesterton.
Feminist domination of orthography is bad enough, but at least access to the classics is no longer dependent on old lady librarians.
@ Epo
I don’t intend this as an insult at all, but I do think you are missing my point. Describing either gender’s stewardship of orthography as bad or good belies certain assumptions it seems you hold regarding the inherent value of those genders. Also, while you assume male stewardship would solve the problem, you seem to forget that men have had sole stewardship over orthographies in the past (see: any other civilization that has collapsed) and yet time and again men continue to make similar mistakes in similar ways which lead to similar results. Perhaps the fault lies in the way we continue to organize our societies around hard and fast language ideologies and orthographies. Plato seemed suspicious of orthographies as well, refusing to write down all of his teachings and relying upon an “unwritten doctrine” for his most prized students. Something to think about, at least.
The use of the word “Gender” in this quote illustrates Durden’s point that feminists are manipulating language as a tool.
Before the feminists seized the word it referred only to language. Since gender in language (something we English speakers know little of) is a social construct, they proposed the behaviors and qualities which are masculine and feminine were simply foisted upon innocent young by society.
They couldn’t do this with “sex” because sex is so obvious to even a five year old and has a long history of meaning the binary male-female, so they take a word in an entirely different field and add an “ontology,” to convince people of things you can’t convince children of.
The use words everyone likes, “open,” “democratic,” but they use them to obscure the truth of nature.
Very good, Mr. N. Where’d you find the quote?
*They couldn’t do this with “sex†because sex is so obvious to even a five year old. Additionally “sex” has a long history of meaning the binary male-female, so they take a word in an entirely different field and add an “ontology,†to convince people of things you can’t convince children of.
http://www.the-spearhead.com/2010/01/22/it-isnt-just-the-government/
You might be interested in this wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender#Social_categories
Note the guy who coined the term, John Money, was also in the habit of chopping off the penises of little boys and falsifying medical documents.
(I don’t know if he was the one responsible for the botched the circumcision which chopping off David Reimer’s penis was supposed to fix.)
The feminists ran with this pervet’s ideas about sexuality being fluid because it fit so well with their ideologies.
I have to admit historically “gender’ has been used from time to time to in passing to refer to sex, but its use was infrequent and nothing like the meaning used today is.
That’s why I generally refuse to use the word “gender” — it concedes way too much of the argument to feminists.
What you say is quite fair, Mr. Durden. I happen to have quite a lot of memory for words myself–no, not as a result of being female, but as a result of long hours spent idling over that old dictionary of mine–and occasionally forget that others aren’t as obsessive-compulsive.
I’ll have a read of your previous essay on the subject. The subject interests me, and your approach takes nothing away from that, certainly.
Oh, by the way, just a humorous thought on the subject (a quote I didn’t invent myself): “Words have gender. People have sex.”
@ J. Durden
I do think that we are indoctrinated with the feminist language early on. I also think it is intentional. This is evident in the way issues such as sexual harassment and DV areaddressed in school settings with women portrayed as vicitims and men as perps. Social studies classes discussed howwomen are oppressed and there are other examples as well. These things are intentionally added to the curriculum to indoctrinate our children in feminist philosophy.
I recently referred to one of my blog posts on Facebook. I made a comment about “your woman.” My sister took offense to it andd stated that I had made a sexist comment because women do not belong to men like “a dog” or “a car.” My response was to indicate that I was writing from the “dog’s” point of view and the comment actually meant that the “dog” belonged to “his master.” It was intended to mean the exact opposite of the way she interpreted it. I indicated that her interpretation was indicative of the idea that women are always victims and men are always perpetrators which is precisely the problem that I was addressing.
We interpret things the way we’ve been taught to interpret them, and we’ve been taught the feminsit ideal. Therefore we always interpret what we see (or read in this case) according to that ideal. It was a terrific illustration of this particualr article.
No one owns the language so I don’t see how you can characterize what feminist and other do as abuse. Certainly they use language to advance their cause. I agree they twist words so that their meaning fits their ideas, but that is the nature of trying to spread and inculcate ideas. The connotations embodied in words was not fixed prior to feminism. Those who wish to dominate society will by necessity advance a set of slogans which will form the template of peoples understanding. That is feminist template is repugnant to us is probably only matched by the repugnance that feminist hold our template.
I know a lot of MRAs seem to implicitly argue that what they advance in some sense represents a natural order of thing. I really would not know how to measure or judge such a claim and for sure feminist are equally certain of their understanding of what is natural .
For me it is easier I am prepared to oppose feminist and women because what they propose it not to my advantage and is in fact to my great disadvantage.
Paul, it may be that no one “owns” the language, but people are trained to respect the views of “experts”.
And when the “experts” are all spouting nonsense (e.g., s/he, chairperson), people will tend to follow. That’s why feminists tend to jockey for expert status.
In this case, look here. This group’s style code is considered THE standard for scholastic writing and, often, business writing. (Their Executive Council roster is listed here. Note the number of women.)
what does everyone here think about a series of articles dedicated to the ideologies that make up feminism?. (an article on patriarchy, rape culture, nurture over nature.)
Yes Mrs Pilgrim you are correct. I suppose what was in the back of my mind is that it is usually the case that some group or other has taken over the language and inculcated their clichés . Take for example the cliché ‘King and Country’. This slogan was used heavily in WW1 to excite the population to slaughter. These words would once have produced pride in the hearer. Now they are very sour words. So feminist give us other words. Some you mention. What these words contain is an argument within themselves. Things like ‘equal opportunity’ is far mare than just a phrase just like King and Country once was.
Actually feminist are extremely skilful at co-opting the language. One of our weaknesses is that MRAs are not really able to do this at all. If we where to find a way to do this then we should do it. As I say the language belongs top nobody so there is no reason why we should not make it work for us.
Old political quote –
“Control the language, control the debate.”
Logomachy: n.Literally “word war”. A dispute about words, or the meaning of words, or a merely verbal battle in which the disputants are “talking past” each other because they are using the same word with a different meaning without knowing that they are doing so.
Good word! I’ll have to add that to my vocabulary.
“Actually feminist are extremely skilful at co-opting the language. One of our weaknesses is that MRAs are not really able to do this at all. If we where to find a way to do this then we should do it. As I say the language belongs to nobody so there is no reason why we should not make it work for us.”
Paul: This (co-opting the language as you describe) is something I’ve been blogging about (among other things) for quite a long time now. It seems to be my main project. I like to think of it as “busting feminism’s monopoly on self-definition.”
I offer the distinction because what philosophers typically study as symbolic logic is often only tangentially related to what mathematicians study as symbolic logic.
I don’t agree. Mathematics offers a greater degree of truth not just because of how it is formulated, but because of what is being formulated. Mathematical truth is no more than the assertion that you can get from a list of premises to a conclusion using finitely many manipulations of finitely many strings of finite length–disbelief of a mathematical assertion in the face of a proof wherein you have verified each individual step is contradictory, in a way that occurs in no other field.
Ignoring for a moment the fact that these concepts do indeed have bearing on reality (if we accept science as itself being accurate), we are left with the fact that mathematics limits what can be real, but does not specify what is real amongst the remaining possibilities. A world wherein 1+1=3 is impossible, but math does not enable me to predict whether you car is red or blue (or some other color, or even if your car exists, or even if you exist…or even if I exist, but that is a matter I will have to take up with Descartes).
On the contrary, it demonstrates that unyielding belief in the correctness of a mathematical model is foolish. Unyielding belief in theoretical mathematics is fundamentally warranted (recognizing that there is a possibility of human error in the verification of mathematical proof; but absent specific evidence, you cannot continue to believe a conclusion does not follow from given premises after verifying a proof).
The basic idea I was trying to get at here was that consensus is not the final goal of debate, and never has been. Truth is the final goal of debate. At the highest level, truth comes in the form of mathematics; it is contrary to disbelieve a proof after verifying its steps. Beneath that we have science, which endeavors to accurately predict future events–in an effort to improve this predictive ability, it has employed the tools of mathematics and statistics.
Consensus behind a falsehood is foolish; in particular, it is not in general preferable to unanimity less a single person behind that falsehood, and one person believing the truth on the relevant matter–but it will often be endorsed by someone who has something to gain from this result. For this reason it is common to find that the appeals for consensus and understanding come most often from those who have something to gain from continued belief in a lie. Feminists are only a topical example of this.
As a disbeliever in the existence of truth, I understand that consensus is the next-best purpose for debate that you can fall back upon. But you should understand that you have fallen into a den of theives.
I think this quote is a good example of feminist language ideology.
Notice the use of the words ‘parasite’, ‘foetus’ as well as a lot of other meaningless statements. A reasonable person can see that parasite, foetus and human are not necessary mutually exclusive.
Whats sad is that most people will fall for these arguments hook, line and sinker.
The word “fetus” is another example of a word that has been peddled primarily for political reasons. It appears that whether something is a “fetus” or a “baby” depends completely on whether the woman who is bearing such an entity inside of her wishes to bear it or not — I have, for example, never heard a pregnant woman refer to the entity in her womb as “my fetus”, as in “the fetus was kicking yesterday night” and so on. Fetus is a word that is used to permit women to emotionally distance themselves from what is already growing inside of them. This essentially means that, by use of a linguistic trick, women have the power to decide what is life and what is not life — simply by choosing what to call the entity growing inside of them!
Surely this is an absurdity from any rational perspective, and some future generation will realize it as such and shake its collective head at how our era engaged in collective hoodwinking about the underlying realities of what an abortion actually is.
So why aren’t we co-opting language for ourselves?
Why aren’t we making an effort to say “Traditional Rape” and “Lesser Rapes” when we talk about that subject?
Why aren’t we refusing to use the words, “Gender & Partner?”
And why are we still using words like “Abortion on Demand, instead of Birthcontrol Abortion.”
It realy is quite easy to do, and if we couple it with proper use of the dialectic and Critical Theory, to target the “base” of this house of cards, imagine how far ahead of the game we will be 5 years from now, just for merely writing the same articles and comments we do already, except paying attention to our usage of language?
The internet is our medium, and we are language warriors.
What we really have to do is decide on a few words that we agree to use, and then basically, just start saying them over and over and over again.
I’ve written about this in a few places here at the Spearhead:
http://www.the-spearhead.com/2009/11/01/womens-rape-fantasies-the-deepest-taboo/#comment-7614
http://www.the-spearhead.com/2009/10/16/the-menace-of-cultural-marxism/#comment-3427
And I’ve written out a relatively detailed course of action, in five separate pieces, on my blog, which can be found here:
http://no-maam.blogspot.com/2007/09/achilles-heel.html
It’s the old saw about not winning the battles, but winning the war.
Just now noticed that people were commenting again. Arbitrary, I’ll be responding to you as time permits. Fedrz, I have some posts in the works about winning the war. Expect more detailed responses to come as time permits.
I don’t believe this imposition of mathematics to be a higher level of truth than science is accurate.
Mathematics deals solely with deductive reasoning, ie from agreed axioms, all other mathematical truth is derived using deduction – there is no ‘real world’ getting in the way of a good mathematical argument. This generally means mathematical proofs are, as you say, truthful – but so are all other arguments, be they scientific, philosophical or moral if the logic employed is deductive. What upsets the apple cart is that outside of mathematics, the axioms are not self-evident but are based on current theory regarding observed reality. Science and Philosophy are very much interested in the real world, however a fundamental assumption has to be made about any observation made in this space – the assumption that whatever we see in Nature as recurring patterns will continue to recur in the future. Mathematicians don’t have to deal with this problem, so in a sense, they are dealing with a simpler beast. My own take is that Mathematics and Science address two different domains – the former deals with mental abstractions and needs to make no reference to the physical world, while the latter deals with a physical world of which we will always (thankfully) have an imperfect knowledge. Mathematics is informed by the mind, Science is informed by the senses.
I think getting to the bottom of what math, science and language are really all about are extremely important goals with huge implications for epistemology, if not many other disciplines.
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