Why do I use 'man'? To exclude women? No, to exclude leftists, both men and women. I believe in equality when it comes to the exclusion of the destructive.
In the '70s, when it first really got going, gender-inclusive language seemed to many a very good thing indeed. It showed a welcoming attitude to the distaff contingent, a salutary openness, a gracious concession to those females who felt excluded by (what in fact are) gender-neutral uses of 'man' and 'he,' not to mention a praiseworthy recognition of the excellence of many women in many hitherto male-dominated fields. Gentlemen are considerate of the feelings of others even when said feelings are unsupported by reason. And surely it is true that some women are superior to some men in almost every field. And surely people should be evaluated as individuals on their merits.
It all started out with good intentions, and many conservatives went along with it, oblivious to the unforeseen consequences. But now, a half-century later, we see where it has led.
And so if I use the sex-neutral 'man' and 'he' and cognates, it is not because I am a knuckle-dragger, one who hails from the valley of Neander, but because I am a man of intelligence, discernment, and high culture, a member of the Coalition of the Reasonable, who is doing his tiny bit to resist and if possible reverse the subversion of our glorious alma mater, our fostering mother, the English language. I am resisting politicization, tribalism, and the weaponization of language. Can I ramp up my charge to the allegation that the Left is committing matricide against our dear mother? I'll essay this later.
For I say unto you my brothers and sisters, the subversion of language is propadeutic to the subversion of thought. The latter, I fear, is what our enemies intend, the thoughtless being the easier to rule and control.
Part of an uncommonly good thread. Here is the entry to which the thread attaches.
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Anon,
My point was that many short comments are better than one long one.
One problem here is that I tossed out a word, 'tribalism,' but did not define it. What's worse is that I used it very loosely. Mea culpa. It is a stretch to think of women as a 'tribe.'
Perhaps we have a 'family' of tribalisms: racial, sexual, etc.
Now I'll take a stab at a definition:
I'm Caucasian as you may have guessed. But when I get up in the morning I don't look into the mirror and affirm: I am a white man! This is who I am most fundamentally. This is what makes me be ME. This fact is what constitutes my innermost identity and is that attribute upon which my value as a person primarily supervenes.
I am therefore not a racial tribalist by my definition. This is not to say that I am not white or that being white is not a part of WHAT I am, namely an animal, a bit of the world's fauna. Indeed, insofar as I am an animal, it is arguable that I am essentially (as opposed to accidentally) white if we grant Kripke's point about the essentiality of origin: if I could not have had parents other than the parents I in fact have, then, given that both are white, I could not have failed to be white. So I am essentially white.
But is it essential to WHO I am that I be white? (Related question: Are persons reducible to objects in the natural world?)
Now in my definition above there is the phrase "member of the race of which he happens to be a member" which suggests that it is a contingent fact about me that I am white. There is the animal that bears my name, an animal that is essentially white. But there is a sense, brought out by Thomas Nagel in various writings, in which I am contingently the animal I am. I am contingently an animal that is essentially white.
But now we are drifting towards some very deep waters.