Genderless Language And The Left
By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
We received a letter on the question (discussed in the November 24, 2016 edition of First Teachers) of whether the time has come to go along with the American Dialectic Society’s recommendation that we accept the use of “their” as a single pronoun, such as in the sentence: “Everyone in the school brought their lunch to the field day.” The correct usage, of course, would be to write, “Everyone in the school brought his lunch to the field day,” since “everyone,” the antecedent, is a single pronoun. One of the objections to the use of the single pronoun “his” in this manner comes from feminist groups who see it as a vestige from the days of male cultural hegemony.
I expressed my opinion in the column that I would be willing to go along with the American Dialectic Society’s recommendation because many women who are not feminists also have expressed a dislike for the presumptive use of “his” in sentences such as this; and also because using “his or her” repeatedly in the same essay to solve the problem can look clumsy.
R.E. Hurley, a physician from Alton, Ill., takes issue with the idea of compromising in this manner. He writes, “I am convinced that accommodating organically developed language to ideological preferences is unwise, the American Dialectic Society and The Washington Post to the contrary notwithstanding. This is especially so with changes that diminish precision and clarity as in the ‘Newspeak’ George Orwell warned us about in his novel 1984.
“To adopt the recommendation of the American Dialect Society for using ‘their’ as a single pronoun is especially problematic for a variety of cultural, linguistic, and political reasons. For starters, it is very unwise to try to alleviate ideological feminist (women and men) discomfiture by changing as we have over only a few decades language long-established and organically developed over many centuries.
“The English language’s beauty and precision have been compromised for more than fifty years by this politically correct approach to achieve genderless language, hatched primarily in academe.
“Genderless language is definitely not harmless. Language shapes attitudes and society, a fact well-known to numerous observers, past and present, including modern thinkers such as Josef Pieper, the German Catholic philosopher and author of Abuse of Language — Abuse of Power, and Antonio Gramsci, the Marxist Italian revolutionary.
“Interestingly, totalitarian revolutionary regimes in France (1789) and Russia (1917) mandated genderless terms ‘citizen’ and ‘comrade.’ A recent parallel is the way ‘person’ is used in our own culture, such as in ‘chairperson’ or ‘spokesperson.’ This certainly leads to loss of precision and clarity, and may even be associated with serious unintended consequences for Church and state. Attacks on language are an important part of ‘the long march through the institutions’ envisioned by Gramsci and Frankfurt School operatives in their assault on Western civilization in general and the Church in particular.”
Hurley offers specific examples in our own era: “What about the bizarre ‘new insights,’ found not only in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell decision declaring same-sex marriage a constitutional right, but also in the views of a significant percentage of Americans, especially the young and college ‘educated,’ regarding homosexuality, lesbianism, and same-sex ‘marriage’? Genderless terms such as ‘parent’ or ‘parents’ instead of ‘father’ or ‘mother’ contribute to the logic, albeit mistaken, that same-sex or genderless ‘marriage’ should be afforded equal legal and regulatory benefits as marriage between a man and a woman.”
Hurley underscores the implications: “Many women (and men, including clerics) attracted to the feminist agenda seem to be unaware of its basic ideology and origin from Marx, Engels, Gramsci, Marcuse, and others, including the Lenin-inspired Frankfurt School. I think the time is long past to call a halt to ideological attacks on the English language for the supposed benefit of favored groups, but usually resulting in totalitarian power over everyone.”
J.M. of St. Louis writes to make an analogous point. He writes of the changes to family life that have occurred in the last fifty years, and of how difficult it makes it for parents to raise faithful Catholic children. He recalls being on a PT boat in the Navy during World War II and hearing his fellow sailors, whose childhoods were shaped by the Great Depression, say things such as, “When this war is over and I get married, I’m going to make sure my kids don’t have to go through what I did. I’m going to give my kids everything I couldn’t get.”
J.M. concedes these aspirations were “good to a point,” but argues that “they became counterproductive. When the 1950s arrived, too many young couples weren’t satisfied with the homes and neighborhoods they were brought up in and sought the ‘good life’ in the suburbs. This is where consumerism took off. And in order to maintain the good life, wives started (slowly at first) leaving the home to get a job. Having a large family was considered an infringement on the good life, so contraception began its deadly assault on the moral order.
“Family unity began to weaken. Kids were spoiled with ‘goodies’ and materialism and secularism began to take over, to be joined in the 1960s by the hedonism associated with the counterculture and its worship of drugs, sex, and rock and roll. The baby boomers were unable to cope with the sexual revolution.”
At this point, J.M. levels a charge that may raise a few hackles: “Thus the claim that my generation is the greatest generation is undeserved as we unwittingly set this disastrous course in motion.”
J.M. focuses on the impact of radical feminism in this scenario, contending it “unleashed an all-out war not only against men but also against true womanhood. It emasculated a fairly large proportion of our male population, with many males instead of growing into full-fledged manhood becoming overgrown boys who consider women as mere playthings, while some in search of a male identity have turned to homosexuality. Women became more like men and men more like women. Because of this disorientation of the male and female roles as ordained by God, many of our youth have become a lost generation.
“Too many modern mothers, instead of instilling in their daughters the glory of virginity, instead are content to advise their daughters to be properly ‘protected’ by contraceptives when engaging in illicit sex. And let it go at that.”
J.M. ends by observing, “In our neo-pagan society I can only see things getting worse. Yet we must keep in mind that God writes straight with crooked lives.” J.M. states his hope that the election of Donald Trump may be one of those crooked lines.
+ + +
Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about this and other educational issues. The e-mail address for First Teachers is fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net, and the mailing address is P.O. Box 15, Wallingford, CT 06492.
