Normally, if you design a guide for your entity, and it’s based on your supposed values, and it’s meant to improve people’s lives, you would make sure the world knows about it and be proud to share it with everyone. Stanford University had another idea. When everyone found out that their little Orwellian “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative” had developed a ‘guide’ of forbidden words Stanford panicked and locked the censorious project behind a firewall and began to gaslight everyone about what its intentions were.
Fortunately, the Stanford Review, the university’s independent newspaper, is filling us all in with the latest shenanigans of what used to be a premiere university having slouched toward woke in the most predictable of ways. In a story titled, “Big Brother is Watching You: Stanford’s New ‘Harmful Language’ Guide,” we are given a peek at the insanity driving the woke.
With an agenda of supposedly eliminating “racist, violent, and biased” words from its IT system and websites, instead they provide the rank absurdity driving today’s woke mob. A sampling of the words and phrases considered too toxic and damaging to be used include “Walk in” as it’s insensitive to the disabled, so “drop in” is to used instead. “White paper” is racist and will be replaced with “position paper.” “Karen” will be swapped with “Demanding or entitled White person.” “Brave” is out as it perpetuates the “noble savage” stereotype. There is to be no replacement.
The Daily Mail tells us, “It also says it will swap the term ‘blind review’ for ‘anonymous review’, while ‘tone deaf’ should be swapped for ‘unenlightened’ and ‘handicap parking’ changed to ‘accessible parking’. It also states in its gender-based section that ‘pronouns’ should be used instead of ‘preferred pronouns’, as the latter implies that ‘gender identity is a choice’. The section on institutionalized racism states that ‘black mark’ and ‘black sheep’ are not used because of ‘negative connotations to the color black’.” And now even the woke term “trigger warning” is now too… triggering and will be replaced with “content warning.”
Making the most news is the elimination of the word “American” to be replaced with “US citizen.” Why? American “often refers to people from the United States only, thereby insinuating that the U.S. is the most important country in the Americas (which is actually made up of 42 countries).”
You just can’t make up this sort of madness. Degrading language is cultic and meant to control and impede the freedom of thought of those targeted. Universities are supposed to be environments where the minds of students are to be expanded, not contracted. There is no excuse for this at Stanford or any other institution in this country under any guise.
The mocking and outrage was so swift and merciless Stanford’s Chief Information Officer issued a classic back-peddling statement saying they “missed the mark” and that the guide does not represent university policy. And yet how does something this outrageous get past any sort of review prior to even an internal implementation unless it reflects the desired and brutalized academic culture?
This of course is not new. Stanford is not alone. Censorship and banned word projects are pushed by marginal extremists in school systems, in media, and certainly in politics and in entertainment. This latest iteration of the vandalism of language started decades ago with the idiocy of political correctness. It is now part of the bureaucratic agenda throughout our establishment.
One of the first things totalitarian societies have relied on is censorship and the changing of language. George Orwell used his fiction masterpieces in an effort to warn Western civilization about the cancer of socialism and fascism. From Animal Farm to 1984 Orwell made clear how language and the meaning of words is at the foundation of civilization.
Understanding each other is at the foundation of our ability to govern ourselves and at the heart of our comprehending the world itself. The Tiny Tyrants among us also know that if it is too dangerous and forbidden to use certain words and phrases we will eventually stop thinking about things which require those words to convey your own assessment of society and culture and politics. We will retreat as only silence is ‘safe.’ And that is exactly the point.
If the next generation is going to have any hope of living decent and free lives and being able to function in society, this circus of the absurd must be condemned and stopped. Stanford can issue mea culpas all they want, but nothing will change. Americans everywhere mocking and denouncing the fools who implemented this is an important step, but Stanford alumni must get involved, speak up and say enough is enough.