Stupid Language Nazis

 

As the “winter of our discontent” deepens into China Joe’s “dark winter ahead of us”, there doesn’t seem to be much to laugh about anymore.  Trying to find real humor in lockdowns, masking, social isolation, and virtue shaming is running thin and those jokes have evolved into something between self – preservation and thinly veiled rage.  The antics of the Clown in the White House and the Jesters in Congress would be hilarious, except for the incredible damage that are doing to our country, our economy, our society, and the Constitution. There’s really nothing funny at all going on in Washington.

Yet hope springs eternal in the human spirit, and in all the darkness and discontent, I am continually looking for humor as laughter, honest laughter, truly is the best medicine.  Just the other day I came across a news item that brought real laughter to my lips for the first time in weeks. According to the folks over at PETA – People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals- (not to be confused with “People Eating Tasty Animals”) – have determined that commonly used words and phrases must be “cancelled” from our language because they represent “speciesism, whatever the hell that is.

According to Merriam – Webster, Speciesism is: “1: prejudice or discrimination based on species especially : discrimination against animals 2: the assumption of human superiority on which speciesism is based”

That definition gets a paragraph all to itself simply so you, Constant Readers, have a moment to fully appreciate the vast, incredible, sweeping, panoramic lunacy of it!

According to the piece that I read PETA wants us to show more respect to our animal brethren by not using animal terms to describe negative human traits.  Instead of calling someone a “chicken” we should call them a “coward”, instead of “rat” use “snitch”, “repulsive” instead of “pig”.  Not content to just cancel marvelously descriptive words, the language Nazis want to remove long used phrases as well. It is no longer “acceptable” to say “beating a dead horse”  we should, instead say, “feeding a fed horse”, instead of “bringing home the bacon”, we should “bring home the bacon”, and instead of “taking the bull by the horns”, PETA would have us “take the flower by the thorns”.

With all due respect, “grabbing the flower by the thorns” just doesn’t conjure up the same image of courage in the face of danger that “grabbing the bull by the horns” does – I’m just saying.

The purpose of language is to effectively communicate thoughts and feelings between human beings.  Language – speaking and listening and writing and reading – are “hot” or active forms of communication.  Speaking, listening, writing, and reading require that all parties to the communication be mentally actively involved in the exchange.  How well you convey your thoughts or feelings depends upon your ability to create mental images with words and upon the listener or reader to create similar mental images.  Our cultures and society, and the long repeated use of descriptors and descriptive phrases provide commonly held points of reference.  Eliminating these, only serves to make communication between people less effective and serve to further segment and disrupt our culture and society.

We could write tomes about this, but suffice it to say that this is just simply nitwittery.  But let’s jump to the basic premise of speciesism, that there is a discrimination against animals based on the assumption of human superiority.  Philosophically, we can find the basis for human superiority in the earliest part of the Bible. Genesis, Chapter 1, verse 26 says “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”  It is, therefore, Mankind’s God given Right and authority to raise and hunt animals for food.  It’s right there in the Bible.  Pragmatically, we can look at nature and see that many animal species eat other animal species in order to survive. It is as natural as the snow coming up in the East.  It just is what it is. And, keep in mind that other species of animals consume species of plants to survive.  Where does PETA draw the line?

Keep in mind, now, whilst you are masking up, and isolating yourself that we must be kind to our animal brethren.  Yes, there truly is room for all of God’s creatures – next to the mashed potatoes!