Hopefully not much. They'll invent some jargon if necessary and move on. The issue with banning "woke ideology" in principle is that it isn't formally defined and doesn't mean anything. And to ban a thing first it has to exist in a detectable way.
My guess is there'll be a bit of flailing then everyone will default back to status quo. It isn't possible to implement incoherent policies and it isn't going to do anyone any favours in terms of image to pursue this. Might take 4 months, might take 4 years to blow over.
> They'll invent some jargon if necessary and move on.
The authors of this memo banning terms haven't realized this has already happened in part. Obstetrics avoids the use of gender with the term "parturient" instead of "mother." "Pregnant person" probably isn't showing up in many papers.
And maybe that's fine because it isn't a signal of ideology like "pregnant person" is. Don't forget that if scientists were using these terms, they were likely already doing so because of political pressure, so it is good to stop it in cases where it's nothing to do with their research (eg. transgender parturients). Of course it doesn't mean this order isn't ham-fisted, but research is often polluted by politics because it helps get funding as well as researchers are pretty politically biased in some fields.
What’s wrong referring to the relevant sex characteristics? Why change language for the exceptional and small population? A man who gives birth is still the mother even if they take a social role of a father later in the child’s development.
Because their sex characteristics aren't the relevant thing, the fact that they are pregnant is. The medical field prefers precise terminology. It's only when it comes to trans people that people get weird about it, because they're really using it as an excuse to argue about something else
> This is leading to what Germans call “vorauseilender Gehorsam,” or “preemptive obedience,” as one non-CDC scientist commented.
And why is this term German? Do, perhaps, the Germans have unique experience and insight in this regard?
> After the German elections of 1932, which permitted Adolf Hitler to form a government, or the Czechoslovak elections of 1946, where communists were victorious, the next crucial step was anticipatory obedience. Because enough people in both cases voluntarily extended their services to the new leaders, Nazis and communists alike realized that they could move quickly toward a full regime change. The first heedless acts of conformity could not then be reversed. [1]
It’s become fashionable to accuse people who raise the spectre of fascism and authoritarianism of crying wolf. We are being told not to believe the evidence of our own eyes, like when Elon Musk performs the Nazi salute in front of the far right dignitaries assembled for the inauguration and we’re supposed to believe this is because he’s on the spectrum or some other nonsense. If you don’t want to go down the road that anticipatory obedience leads to, then you have to resist. It is that simple.
Late Soviets had term for it too - “aggressive-obedient majority”, although this applies more to Republicans in legislature and the Air Force people who took down Tuskegee stuff
> It isn't possible to implement incoherent policies
If you assume that the goal is to implement a policy, no, it's not possible. But that's never the goal with such chaos. The goal is to make it unclear what's allowed or not, so that the real answer becomes: whatever the current ruler favors is allowed, and whatever he dislikes is disallowed. "Woke ideology", like "globalism" or "cultural Marxism" before it, means nothing, which means it can mean anything.
I remember my dad having to travel to Moscow during the Soviet times to get the censor's approval for the movie he was planning to shoot (that is on top of budget-related issues etc.) I was still very little then, but from what little I remember, it seemed like it always was a guessing game: how much do you have to add of glory to the proletariat in order to make the cut. Naturally, artists were turning their noses when they saw too much of the Soviet propaganda in a movie, so, they tried to put as little of it as possible, at the same time using all sorts of tricks to disguise the criticism of the system that required the censorship.
And while this kind of little struggle had its fun moments... overall, I don't think it was fun. Also, indeed the rules of what's allowed or disallowed would change based on current political events, and just like in 1984, everyone was supposed to acknowledge that the rules had always been the way they currently are. Which, in terms of long-term planning, would sometimes result in problems. Like, when someone was trying to placate the censorship by overemphasizing some political aspect at the time of submission, but the events developed so fast, that the official party line at the assessment time was the exact opposite of what it was at the submission time.
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Oh, and just to give some examples of when the "proto-woke" (in Soviet times it was called the "decadent capitalist influence") had some tragic consequences.
The only acceptable painting style was Soviet Realism. Anything that had signs of deliberate distortion of color / perspective / size / anatomy etc. would be labeled "decadent capitalist" and perpetrators would be prosecuted.
So, another student in my dad's class came in drunk to a model drawing session. And instead of using a graphite pencil, used what was called a "chemical pencil", which is a kind of Indian-ink based pencil (it's practically impossible to erase). And, in a study of a head of a model, that student made several strokes that extended beyond where the area of the nose would've been, and so it looked like the model had whiskers...
That student was later taken away to the dean, and in short time was expelled.
Another student was expelled for wiping his paintbrush on the canvas (which he later planned to cover with some neutral background color, but was too late...) because he forgot to bring a piece of rug that one usually uses to wipe a brush before using a different paint.
That sounds like a fun anecdote, but those two had their lives ruined.
> The only acceptable painting style was Soviet Realism
It was the "socialistic realism". Being interested in math this particular insanity did not affect me too much, but for someone interested in the arts living under this gun was a 24x7 reality. Not fun times...
Yeah, my bad. Funny how I managed to forget it. That was a big part of my life :) It was still a thing when I went to art college.
And then years later I'd go to see Kyiv Art Academy final year exhibition, and it was still socialistic realism, but now instead of workers and farmers they have saints. For some reason it became very religious... Or maybe I just fell on bad years.
The weirdest thing is to watch the American right wing implement a Russian playbook. The people who made loudest noises about "commies" are now fawning over the Eastern Bloc.
Today's Russia is not communist in any way. It's a far-right-wing autocratic kleptocracy, where all power is held by a single individual and those who have personal favor with him, all wealth is managed through a cycle of corrupt state-sponsored ventures, and all cultural identity is wrapped up in tradition and faux-masculinity. There's not even a pretention of left-wing influence; it's a fully fascist state.
The USSR was obviously similar in practice for most of its history, especially under Stalin, but it still pretended to maintain the trappings of a communist structure. And at least the USSR made it clear what the rules were: it was an unabashed command economy, with property owned by the state, and economic decisions flowing through the party leadership. The Putin/Trump version where there's a de jure market economy but de facto control by the ruling party is a different kind of corruption incentive - it's much harder to challenge what theoretically isn't happening.
Having lived close enough to it to "pick up the vibes" I'm going to say the only thing that's really changed is the flavor of the propaganda. USSR might have started as a leftist thing (I wouldn't know), but it didn't behave like one toward the end. It was all about power & corruption.
It’s the illiberal right shaking hands with the illiberal left. The problem is this time the purges aren’t just ideological, but also financial: there are winners and losers in our healthcare industry likely to be defined by their polarity to Trump.
Banning terms from general and academic use originated, in modern America, from the illiberal left’s cancel culture.
I’m not saying they caused this—it’s not novel that illiberalism leads to censorship. But the tactics both groups use when they get their hands on power are remarkably similar.
> the nonstop equivocation
You probably mean false equation. I don’t believe I am, because the illiberal left never came into power. At least not federally. Liberals on the left successfully checked our radicals in a way the right did not.
(If you want policy fusion between the illiberal left and right, it’s in RFK Jr. Marin County sees eye to eye with MAGA on e.g. vaccines.)
before cancel culture it was satanic panic from the right. This is not a new phenomenon, and I don't think it has much to do with the shift towards right wing extremism
"the buck stops here". he controls the most powerful army in history. I don't care whose arm is reaching up his colon to move his lips - he's responsible. it's his signature on the orders.
Nobody is arguing with you on that. You said cancel culture was grassroots while this is not. My point is they both started grassroots. This one just reached higher.
If we’re talking about banned words or terms, one of our Supreme Court justices wouldn’t define the term “woman.”
The Biden administration directed ICE to use the term “undocumented noncitizen” instead of “illegal alien.” They also pressured social media sites to censor certain content.
is any of this comparable to banning any acknowledgement of the existence of trans and intersex people in anything connected to the federal government?
in fact refusing to define a term doesn't sound like banning at all. to ban is to forbid somebody else from doing something. to refuse to do something personally isn't banning.
Being unable to describe a woman would be pretty similar to banning trans acknowledgement. They're basically 2 sides of the same coin; the mismatch between reality and the categories we use. There are different opinions about which part of the mental model has to give. Ie, the concept of man/woman is too imprecise for political discourse - do politicians abandon the word woman or do they abandon the parts of reality that don't fit into a man/woman model?
The obvious solution is the third option of letting a few more genders in, but that would still require being able to articulate what a woman is.
The gender one is more consequential; if we accept that they exist there are a lot of women who get involved in the legal system because of their gender. Eg, say there is a case that involves gender discrimination - a judge that can't identify what a woman is will struggle to come up with reasonable rulings.
In fairness we don't have the words the judge used in front of us so maybe there was some hedging involved. But they do have to be able to come up with a working definition.
if the ruling is unsatisfactory, you can appeal. you can bring in expert witnesses. she's a professional, and she'll make her decisions based on the facts of the case, and hopefully not based on prejudice. if it's the supreme court, she won't be alone.
A Nazi punching a Jew in the face is much worse than a Jew punching a Nazi in the face. I hope you agree with this. The latter is even, arguably, good.
That's a matter of context, and raises the question of whether they're in a civil society or a war (or both at once). In principle in a civil society nobody should be punching anybody in the face and mitigating circumstances like the other person being a nazi are only details. But see Sartre's feelings about living alongside nazis in occupied France: the were very polite and pleasant, and the whole situation was tense and awkward because you're unsure of your duty in that situation - is it war or not?
There is no such thing as a civil society when one group believes the other should be segregated, enslaved, have genocide committed against them, etc. That is just gas lighting one group so that they don't know they are the frog in the boiling pot. Trying to be civil in a tolerance paradox situation just makes sure you're eliminated, but maybe just not today.
Is this a quote from Sartre, or just an interpretation? I looked for it and couldn’t find it, beyond maybe representing his “Paris under the occupation”
No, not a quote, a very poor recollection of casually reading about this. He was keen on resisting, tried to organize a group (of writers?) and made some proposals for violent acts (assassinations?) but they couldn't get it together to do anything.
My guess is there'll be a bit of flailing then everyone will default back to status quo. It isn't possible to implement incoherent policies and it isn't going to do anyone any favours in terms of image to pursue this. Might take 4 months, might take 4 years to blow over.