Policing language, controlling thought?

Earlier this month, Dictionary.com published a new entry for the acronym ‘TERF’ (trans-exclusionary radical feminist), often used as a slur against gender-critical feminists – or for that matter, anyone who believes that there are biological differences between men and women. That Dictionary.com tweeted out a link to its definition along with the phrase ‘Beware the TERF’ leaves us in no doubt as to where the company stands on this issue. Many feminists have expressed concerns that the more extreme trans activists are seeking what is tantamount to the erasure of women, denying women’s right to single-sex spaces and even attempting to force the neologism ‘womxn’ into mainstream vocabulary – in spite of the fact that no one knows how to pronounce it. These feminists’ suspicions are certainly validated by Dictionary.com’s original choice of illustration for the TERF entry: the female symbol (a circle with a cross underneath) struck through with a red line. Nor was it particularly reassuring to see that one of Dictionary.com’s original example phrases, now deleted, was ‘punch a TERF’.

As the power and influence of the social-justice ideology grows, we can expect to see more capitulation to these efforts at social engineering through the manipulation of language. Take the Encyclopedia Britannica’s transcript of Martin Luther King’s most famous speech: ‘I have a dream that… one day right there in Alabama, little Black boys and Black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.’ The attentive reader will note that the word ‘black’ has been capitalised, but the word ‘white’ left in lower case. This follows the patently ideological decision by the Associated Press to amend its style guide – again, with capital-B for black and lower-case-w for white. Apparently this is to reflect the view that ‘white people in general have much less shared history and culture, and don’t have the experience of being discriminated against because of skin colour’.

If we're the point where our enemies control even language itself the Benedict Option may be our only option left.