Begone, Harmful Language!

 

Having cataloged and re-cataloged their stashes ten times over, and apparently lacking anything better to do, America’s archivists and librarians have found a new shiny bauble to be distracted by: combing through the accumulated detritus under their care in search of “offensive” or “harmful” language. The old card catalog in aisle 32B uses the term “colored person” rather than “person of color”? Say it isn’t so! Colonel Ellsworth Pratt of the 14th Battalion said something unkind about women in a letter to Lieutenant Roger Drake of the 15th Infantry Regiment? Oh, the horror! We must warn the poor dears! Amid the general wokification of 2020 and 2021, archives across the land quietly updated their websites with groveling “statements” apologizing for the sexism, racism, ableism, colonialism, trans erasure, xenophobia, queerphobia, fatphobia, islamophobia, arachnophobia, and sesquipedalophobia of their collections. “We must do better!” shriek the hostage statements in unison. It seems there isn’t an institution that hasn’t jumped on this bandwagon. Not even good-old Hoover:

Our collections deal in subjects that encompass a broad range of human experiences, including tyranny, genocide, displacement, and political conflict. To engage with our materials is to acknowledge that one may encounter content that reflects racism, antisemitism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, and other forms of hatred and discrimination. In keeping with our mission, we believe that only through the retention and study of historical sources can the world hope to learn from its past mistakes and promote peace.

“We strive to be aware of our own biases . . . and create new name authority records for people from underrepresented and marginalized communities,” promises the Hoover Institution. “Where we identify legacy descriptive content that is not fair, inclusive, accurate, or respectful, we seek to revise it with reparative description.” Reparative description! Isn’t that nice? (I wonder what Ricochet’s own Hooverites think of this.) But Hoover is just the tip of the iceberg.

What would we do without archivists?

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), after releasing a report recommending that trigger warnings and woke propaganda be added to the Constitution and Declaration of Independence displays in the building’s rotunda, slapped a “Harmful Language Alert” at the top of its catalog page. Such “harmful” language includes words like crippled, handicapped, colored, Afro-American, disabled, elderly, squaw, and transsexual. Page 96 of NARA’s report even contains a handy chart showing how many tens of thousands of times such demonic incantations appear in its catalog. (Yes, the government paid someone to make this. How I miss the days of shrimp on a treadmill!)

I could go on. University libraries (no surprise there) seem especially prone to this particular form of madness. Emory University added a paragraph apologizing for “racist, ableist, sexist, homophobic, euphemistic [LOL!], and other oppressive language” to its finding aids (like this one). Yale convened a “Reparative Archival Description task force” to “remediate existing archival description and create anti-oppressive archival description in the future.” The Michigan History Center’s “about” page devotes more attention to George Floyd and the imperative of “dismantling” the “systems” of oppression than to its own history.

See, this is why parts of the right are losing faith in American institutions. In a serious society, serious people would run and visit the National Archives. But ours is not a serious society. It’s a society run by clowns and for clowns. A society in which words cause “harm” and sex is a mere construct. And while our enfeebled elites seize helplessly in the stacks (having been triggered by a run-in with a slur), the underclass drinks and drugs itself to death.

We’re bored, exhausted, and just waiting for someone to come along and put us out of our misery.

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  1. Jimmy Carter Member
    Jimmy Carter
    @JimmyCarter

    Who is gonna re-catalog the internet?

    • #1
  2. Kephalithos Member
    Kephalithos
    @Kephalithos

    Jimmy Carter (View Comment): Who is gonna re-catalog the internet?

    I see a business opportunity.

    • #2
  3. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    There are several posts up about how we shouldn’t be afraid and shouldn’t let fear guide us, so I’m not going to care where this is leading. 

    • #3
  4. Charlotte Member
    Charlotte
    @Charlotte

    Absolutely smashing post. Maybe TPTB can get a Hoover archivist on the podcast to discuss. @blueyeti? @peterrobinson? Any chance of this?

    Who are these delicate glass-filigree researchers who need to have smelling salts handy as they enter their Boolean search terms? Are the archives preemptively taking it upon themselves to self-flagellate implement reparative language? Are they responding to actual complaints? Are they arriving at work each morning having to step over the splayed bodies of helpless, unwitting, un-trigger-warned scholars who were incapacitated by unexpectedly coming across the word Negro?

    God, I hate these people.

    • #4
  5. She Member
    She
    @She

    Charlotte (View Comment):

    Who are these delicate glass-filigree researchers who need to have smelling salts handy as they enter their Boolean search terms?

    Whoever they are, I suppose (and perhaps this is actually the desired outcome) that they are stuck in a some sort of perpetual approach-avoidance conflict loop.  They’d might LIKE to enter some Boolean search terms, but they CAN’T, because doing so would involve using exactly the hateful, triggering words they’ve proscribed.

    And so–in a time that’s fast approaching, I think–they’ll be relieved of the responsibility of doing any actual research at all, and can blather incoherently about anything they like, without fear of contradiction or correction.  Because sooner or later anyone engaged in actual academic research will find himself explaining why he’s not guilty of hate speech or domestic terrorism merely because he looked stuff up.

     

    • #5
  6. Kephalithos Member
    Kephalithos
    @Kephalithos

    Charlotte (View Comment): Are they responding to actual complaints?

    The answer, as we all know, is no. This is entirely the product of boredom and self-righteousness.

    • #6
  7. Randy Weivoda Moderator
    Randy Weivoda
    @RandyWeivoda

    Wouldn’t it be simpler to put a sign on the doors like so?

    • #7
  8. Charlotte Member
    Charlotte
    @Charlotte

    Shoot, I was really hoping this post would get some traction. It’s such a good topic.

    • #8
  9. Kephalithos Member
    Kephalithos
    @Kephalithos

    Charlotte (View Comment): Shoot, I was really hoping this post would get some traction. It’s such a good topic.

    It’s doom-and-gloom overload, I think. I posted it at a bad time — when 10,432 “everything is *$#^ed”-style pieces were vying for attention.

    • #9
  10. Jim McConnell Member
    Jim McConnell
    @JimMcConnell

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):

    Wouldn’t it be simpler to put a sign on the doors like so?

    Have you considered how many PhDs that sign would put out of work?

    • #10
  11. CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill
    @CarolJoy

    Jim McConnell (View Comment):

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):

    Wouldn’t it be simpler to put a sign on the doors like so?

    Have you considered how many PhDs that sign would put out of work?

    I doubt if it would put any out of work. These people are offered employment thru generous grants that will keep them hard at work at least until 2030.

     

    • #11
  12. Richard Easton Coolidge
    Richard Easton
    @RichardEaston

    • #12
  13. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):

    Wouldn’t it be simpler to put a sign on the doors like so?

    Isn’t it a Woke tenet to eliminate everybody and everything before today?

    • #13
  14. DaveSchmidt Coolidge
    DaveSchmidt
    @DaveSchmidt

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):

    Wouldn’t it be simpler to put a sign on the doors like so?

    Ray Bradbury suggested in 1953 that many of us might look forward to careers as firemen.  

    • #14
  15. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Whatever is the point of all the focus on race and history in K-12 if it doesn’t prepare people to deal with it in college? 

    Someone long ago should have simply written, “we expect our students to be mature adults and will expel anyone who does not meet these standards.” 

    Boom. No more sit-ins, demonstrations, drunkenness, drug use, occupations, graffiti…just people behaving themselves on the way to – presumably – bettering themselves. 

    Young people strive to meet expectations. 

    We have allowed the most ridiculous and destructive expectations to become institutionalized. 

    • #15
  16. hoowitts Coolidge
    hoowitts
    @hoowitts

    Richard Easton (View Comment):

    Babylon Bee worthy.

    What’s next, Disney prologue:  Warning: Minnie and Mickey cis-heteronormative attributes do not represent the inclusive and diverse nature of Mus Musculus.

    • #16
  17. Charlotte Member
    Charlotte
    @Charlotte

    Richard Easton (View Comment):

    Wait, is this real? I assumed it was from The Bee!

    • #17
  18. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    Charlotte (View Comment):

    Richard Easton (View Comment):

    Wait, is this real? I assumed it was from The Bee!

    Even a gajillion years ago (either 2000 or 2001) the program for the high school production of the musical play West Side Story at our daughter’s high school printed a disclaimer about the use of a (prop) gun as part of the play, and that the school does not condone the use of gun violence to settle disputes. My thought at the time was along the lines of, “Well, duh. The whole message of the play is that tragedies result when the participants in a dispute escalate their violence. The play itself carries an anti-violence message.”

    • #18
  19. Charlotte Member
    Charlotte
    @Charlotte

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):
    the school does not condone the use of gun violence to settle disputes

    Why does no one seem insulted by this sort of thing? Why does everyone just go along with being treated like a moron? (Not you, FST. I’m just ranting about people in general.)

    • #19
  20. DrewInWisconsin, Oaf Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Charlotte (View Comment):

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):
    the school does not condone the use of gun violence to settle disputes

    Why does no one seem insulted by this sort of thing? Why does everyone just go along with being treated like a moron? (Not you, FST. I’m just ranting about people in general.)

    Because we were taught to be nice.

    But niceness is not really a chief virtue. I’m not entirely sure it’s a virtue at all.

    Instead, do good, even if it means not being nice.

    • #20
  21. hoowitts Coolidge
    hoowitts
    @hoowitts

    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf (View Comment):

    Charlotte (View Comment):

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):
    the school does not condone the use of gun violence to settle disputes

    Why does no one seem insulted by this sort of thing? Why does everyone just go along with being treated like a moron? (Not you, FST. I’m just ranting about people in general.)

    Because we were taught to be nice.

    But niceness is not really a chief virtue. I’m not entirely sure it’s a virtue at all.

    Instead, do good, even if it means not being nice.

    The woke “11th” commandment: Thou shalt not offend. Absurd.

    • #21
  22. hoowitts Coolidge
    hoowitts
    @hoowitts

    Charlotte (View Comment):

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):
    the school does not condone the use of gun violence to settle disputes

    Why does no one seem insulted by this sort of thing? Why does everyone just go along with being treated like a moron? (Not you, FST. I’m just ranting about people in general.)

    Absolutely! The soft bigotry of low expectations is offensive unless victim status has a higher priority 

    • #22
  23. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    hoowitts (View Comment):

    Richard Easton (View Comment):

    Babylon Bee worthy.

    What’s next, Disney prologue: Warning: Minnie and Mickey cis-heteronormative attributes do not represent the inclusive and diverse nature of Mus Musculus.

    Absolutely. Remember that some male mice even rape other male mice to show dominance are proud members of the gay community! 

    • #23
  24. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf (View Comment):

    Charlotte (View Comment):

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):
    the school does not condone the use of gun violence to settle disputes

    Why does no one seem insulted by this sort of thing? Why does everyone just go along with being treated like a moron? (Not you, FST. I’m just ranting about people in general.)

    Because we were taught to be nice.

    But niceness is not really a chief virtue. I’m not entirely sure it’s a virtue at all.

    Instead, do good, even if it means not being nice.

    I figure it’s like courage. Combined with things like wisdom and justice, it’s a virtue. By itself, it’s just a somewhat less harmful vice.

    • #24
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