Leaving this here so I can find it later

Two months without an update, and this is my big comeback?

On John C. Wright's blog, a reader leaves the comment:

When you said “Those of you who are Christian men and soldiers in this culture war” 

Is there a particular reason for the choice of “Christian men” rather than “Christians”? 

(I had shown this post to a lefter-leaning friend, one who does not hold with what NK Jemisin has said, and that friend found that choice of words…off putting, and confusing. My attempts to explain have not proven completely satisfactory – and are likely less accurate than yours would be.)

 Mr. Wright responds:

In grammar, as in life, the male embraces the female. 

Your friend has been deceived. Have your friend look in any dictionary. Depending on the context, the word ‘man’ either means a male human or means any human. Likewise ‘dog’ either means male dog or any dog, or fox means any fox or male fox. (I believe only cats, oxen and horses have separate names for the male sex). 

That has always been its meaning. Unlike women, we males do not get a separate word for ourselves in English as we enjoy in Greek. 

Your friend was told that no one says ‘men’ unless he means to exclude and offend women. In this fashion, perfectly innocent men can be accused without a shred of proof or likelihood. It is a lie and a damned lie; an attempt to stir up enmity where none exists. 

I use the correct grammar because I am deeply, deeply offended that the politically correct liars successfully deceive poor unwary victims like your friend. So I go out of my way to use the correct use, first because I hate lies, and second because if no one uses the correct usage, people like your unwary friend would never encounter it. 

Every document written before 1984 uses the word in this way. Your unwary friend will read the Declaration of Independence, where it says all men are created equal, or read the Bible, where it says all men are created by God, and assume the authors in both cases mean that only males are equal, but that princesses outrank peasant girls; or think that God created males but not females. The liars, in effect make it so that you unwary friend cannot read any documents before 1984 correctly. It is the same as burning the library of Alexandria. 

Your friend is now the third person this week who has been put off by ordinary English used in an ordinary fashion. The offense is absurd and contrived as if a mutual enemy told your friend that saying ‘Gesundheit’ was a German swear word, and then your friend sneezed and heard me say ‘Gesundheit.’

In Honor of International Women's Day

(When's International Men's Day?)

Oh, Girls Are No Good At Genocide

East Timor's First Female Dictator Hailed As Step Forward For Women

*Twitch Twitch*

*shudder*

Ok, so if someone is talking about multiple people, and accidentally uses a plural pronoun where a singular one should be used, such as in the sentence "everyone went to the store and bought themselves a ham," I can forgive him. I would politely correct the usage, so long as it is approriate to do so, but the offense can be forgiven.

(If, however, the misusage is intentional, because he believes that the English language is sexist, and is trying to affect a grammatical revolution, then he can be cast in the Pit of Despair for all I care. We won't go into that, as my thoughts on this topic have been made abundantly clear.)

But, verily, when you use a plural pronoun when you are talking about one singular person, there is no word in elvish, entish, or the tongues of men for your stupidity.

To wit:

"This is Shirley Lin, who seems like they [sic] might be a girlfriend of Zedadias’"

There is only one rational reaction to this grammatical mangling: scream like Wilhelm.

(Irony of ironies, the first sentence of this post originally ended "I can forgive them". You guys never would have let me live that one down if that made it to press.)

Pop Quiz.

Q. In a modern movie/TV show, how do you tell if a character is evil?

A. Count the number of crucifixes on their wall. To wit:

In this screenshot from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Where the Wild Things Are", the gang visits an old lady. In the introductory shot of her home, we can see five crucifixes, a statue and picture of Our Lady, a picture of St. Michael the Archangel, and numerous other religious pictures and items that I could not identify. As soon as we are shown her home, I thought to myself "she's evil." A couple minutes later, we find out that she is, in fact, evil. She ran an orphanage and would abuse the children in some manner if they sinned against chastity.

But then I thought it interesting that my first reflex was to think her a villain (and also interesting that I was right). Now why would I think that? Why would I, when shown a character with lots of religious artifacts, reflexively assume the character is evil? Is this perhaps a conditioned response?

Let's play a game. You've got ten seconds. Name, off the top of your head, three positive portrayals of priests from film or TV.

Bah, that is trivial. I can name four in that time: Gregory Peck in both The Keys of the Kingdom and The Scarlet and the Black, Bing Crosby in The Bells of St. Mary's, and Spencer Tracy in The Devil at 4 O'Clock.

Now let's add a twist. Name three made after 1970. That were also mainstream films.

Hmm.... The Scarlet and the Black was made in 1983, but was a TV movie. The Keys of the Kingdom was made in 1944, The Bell's of St. Mary's was 1945, and The Devil at 4 O'Clock was 1961.

Ok, well just name three mainstream portrayals of priests from movies made after 1970.

I come up with Edward Norton in Keeping the Faith, Linus Roache in Priest, and, um... wasn't there a priest in Chocolat? Ok, that took me more than 10 seconds. And none of those are exactly what I'd call stellar examples.

Let's open this up a little wider. Name three portrayals of devout Christians from movies made after 1970.

Well, I heard (though I have not seen the movie) that there was an Evangelical Christian family in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. There's also the documentary Jesus Camp. And didn't Matt Damon play a Catholic in The Good Shepherd? (Which, if memory serves, is the movie that prompted a leading Jewish periodical to write something like "apparently, Catholicism is the last religion which it is acceptable to insult." Of course I've gone and lost the blasted quote.)

It seems that in recent years Hollywood has forgotten how to make movies that show priests, Catholics, or even Christians in general in a positive light. 

Now, one villain who happens to be Christian would be no concern. But when there is a general, overwhelming trend, I call shenanigans. Suppose there was a general, overwhelming trend for portraying blacks, or women, or homosexuals as villains? Do we suspect that there wouldn't be cries of foul, and claims that Hollywood was bigoted?

And this touches back on some of my points about PC: why should I worry about offending the hyper-sensitive feelings of those who do not give a rat's ass if they offend me? Is it because, as a Christian, I should avoid offending my neighbor? But that's my philosophy, not theirs, and they specifically reject it. If they are to convince me to play the PC game, they need to take a principle from their rule book, not mine. "You should abandon your philosophy and come to mine because your philosophy says you should" is not a valid argument, for once I've abandoned my philosophy, why should I follow what it says?

* * *

The poison of PC can certainly be insidiously evil, turning people to hate those whom PC disapproves of, when used to create shows. I think my story of being conditioned to think a character with many religious artifacts is evil is evidence of that. But when it enters into the story as a motivation for the characters, it can turn from something twisted and wrong into something comically stupid.

Take, for example, the old TV show Seaquest: DSV, that show which was so dripping with PC that Justin Long once confused it for his co-star. In one episode, I think the only one I watched in its entirety, the captain of Seaquest is ordered to put an end to some environmental terrorists. The captain refuses, because the terrorists have been sinking whaling vessels. It doesn't seem to bother him that the terrorists are, y'know, murdering people. But because the people that are being murdered are not PC, the captain does not seem to care about them. He prepares to resign his commission, refusing to follow the order. In the end, he finally does go after the terrorists when they accidentally miss their intended target and sink a cruise ship. No one seems to question if the lives aboard the cruise ship could have been saved if the captain did his duty in the first place.

Another example comes from Star Trek: Enterprise. In one episode, the Enterprise encounters an alien civilization that is dying from some genetic disease. The crew of the Enterprise, with their advanced technology, are able to create a cure to the disease, but Captain Archer decides not to give it to the aliens, because there is another race on that planet which are mistreated as slaves by the civilization. Apparently, Archer thinks that genocide is an appropriate response. It's interesting that Archer chooses to let the entire civilization be wiped out, without considering if one of the aliens might be that planet's William Wilberforce. In his eyes, none of the aliens are worth saving because some mistreat their slaves. There is a term for this. It is called "bigotry". In the end, Dr. Phlox pats Archer on the back and expresses his pleasure that the captain did the right thing. This was about the time I stopped watching Enterprise. (An interesting note: one of the arguments Phlox gave for why the civilization should not be saved, is that the aliens are dying from a genetic disease, and their slaves appear to be more intelligent than the aliens let on. Phlox posits that this is just evolution's natural progression, that the old race is dying out to make room for the new, and they have no business standing in the way. Well, there is a term for this view of evolution as a guided and benevolent force. It is called "Intelligent Design" and it is the very definition of irony that so many Evolutionists see evolution in this way, and insist that we should not interfere with Her will.)

In a recent episode of Buffy (well, recent for me; it aired nine or ten years ago), the spirit of an American Indian tribe goes on a rampage through Sunnydale, slitting the throats of its citizens (in the show, Buffy berates one character for using the term "Indian" and insists the proper term is "Native American"; also ironic, in that most Indians do not object to the term "Indian"). Buffy finally corners the spirit, but hesitates, unable to deliver the killing blow. Willow explains her indecision, stating that the Indians were peaceful—"fluffy, indigenous kittens", in her own words—until the Evil Christian Europeans came along and tortured, enslaved, and civilized them (*gasp*), and that the spirit of the tribe is only out seeking justice. No one seems to care that he is seeking justice on those born hundreds of years after the alleged atrocities. This was the first episode that I couldn't finish watching, because the bullshit-o-meter—that most useful device which measures the BS of PC things in sucky TV shows—not only hit the pin at ten, it pushed past the pin, wrote in the number eleven, pointed at that, quivered, uttered the rite of extreme unction, and burst into flame.

If PC is the philosophy that guides the creation of your show, such that the only Christians that show up are evil, I can accept that. No one has ever perfectly lived up to Our Lord's example, and many Christians have missed the point entirely. I'm willing to accept that—through some statistical fluke—the only ones who make it into movies and TV shows are evil (probably not that much of a fluke; Hollywood is a hard place to survive without turning to the Dark Side). But when PC is the philosophy that guides your characters, then you have lost me. When your characters do not do what is right, and in fact sometimes do just the opposite (that is, what is evil, for those of you keeping score at home), I lose sympathy for them and cease to care if they win. They are no longer "the good guys" but instead become "the morally confused guys who sometimes happen to defeat other morally confused guys, if it suits them."

In essence, when you base the meta-philosophy of your story around PC, you create something potentially insidieous and evil. When you base the internal philosophy of your characters on PC, you create something much worse: a bad story.

* * *

(I have here a long screed on Buffy season 4. Since it assumes a detailed knowledge of the Whedon-verse, that most of my readers don't have, it is optional. Nothing to see here, move along.)

Watching season 4 of Buffy has been very enlightening. Up until Joss' latest show, Dollhouse, the only works of his I'd seen were the first three seasons of Buffy, Firefly, Serenity, and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog, all of which I found delightful, and like most other nerds, I was willing to declare Joss to be my new master. In fact, Serenity is—and I say this with no hyperbole—probably the greatest SF film ever made. Those of you following me on Twitter know that it is now difficult for me to watch that film, because every time I do, I weep, knowing that Space Pirates is not, and never can be, that damned good. But when I started watching Dollhouse, something felt off. Firstly, Joss' signature clever dialogue is missing. Secondly, well, none of the characters are really that likable. In fact, the only one I can really get behind is Boyd Langton (played by Harry Lenix, from Matrix: Revolutions). There are also—and this is surprising for Joss—absolutely no strong or likable female characters in Dollhouse. And while Joss is normally hit-and-miss with his women (for every Kaylee, there is an Inara), it's odd that he should go 0-for-5.

(Before you think that I dislike the show, I should mention that even though the pilot fell flat and the first 4 or 5 episodes weren't particularly memorable, the plot did pick up later in the season, and ended strong. And Alan Tudyk is awesome.)

But Buffy, season 4, has been sort of an eye-opener. As it turns out, Joss is not infallible, and that sometimes his characters just aren't that great. Season 4 has been doing a wonderful job of destroying the characters that have been built up so far. Xander, the comic relief, hasn't developed at all in four seasons, and remains as one-dimensional as he was to begin with, only now the joke is less funny, as it's four years old. But now he's also impotent and is routinely dominated by his girlfriend, who he is powerless to stand up to and seems incapable of really loving her (his relationship is actually an interesting metaphor on fornication; the more sex he has with his girlfriend, the more impotent he becomes with her in everything non-sexual). Giles—the wise mentor and perhaps my favorite character—has been trashed; as it turns out, he has a "friend with benefits" who periodically flies out from England to be with him. Willow is turning lesbian (which in itself is interesting: I thought the argument of the homosexual activists was that homosexuality wasn't something that just turned on or off, and that's why those therapists that seek to help gay men become straight were stupid and evil), and in one recent episode has to decide between her old boyfriend, now come back, and her new love, a girl who also practices Wicca with her. And here, I'm thinking why does she have to choose between them? I mean, if you're abandoning sexual ethics in favor of homosexuality, why not go all the way and embrace polyamory as well? Why hold back? (Every time Willow mentions her Wicca, I am reminded of G.K. Chesterton in Heretics: "All that genuinely remains of the ancient hymns or the ancient dances of Europe, all that has honestly come to us from the festivals of Phoebus or Pan, is to be found in the festivals of the Christian Church. If any one wants to hold the end of a chain which really goes back to the heathen mysteries, he had better take hold of a festoon of flowers at Easter or a string of sausages at Christmas. Everything else in the modern world is of Christian origin, even everything that seems most anti-Christian. The French Revolution is of Christian origin. The newspaper is of Christian origin. The anarchists are of Christian origin. Physical science is of Christian origin. The attack on Christianity is of Christian origin. There is one thing, and one thing only, in existence at the present day which can in any sense accurately be said to be of pagan origin, and that is Christianity." QFT) And Buffy, who was previously the poster-girl for chastity (her first love, quite literally, lost his soul, and her second abused and discarded her; you'd think she'd learn) is now in a relationship with so much sex involved that in one episode, they are too busy having sex to help their friends fight off ghosts. Her boyfriend, while I'd like to like him (he's a Marine and also, it's implied, Catholic) thinks with his genitals just a bit too much. When a female character sleeps around, I usually feel pity for her. When I male character does it, I feel contempt.

Lest you think that I don't like the show, I remind you that I still enjoy it. The plots are still interesting, the dialogue still witty. It's just merely a reminder that Joss sometimes writes unlikeable and unmemorable characters. And sometimes they all end up in one show. When I saw Firefly, I thought Inara was the exception, and that his characters tended to be better than that. After Dollhouse and Buffy season 4, I see that Firefly is the exception (although so far I like the characters in Angel, though I'm only in the first season).

Joss frequently loses me with the sex in his shows. Very few characters have healthy sexual relationships (Zoey and Wash from Firefly are the only two that come to mind) and many are destroyed by their promiscuity. One of the biggest disappointments in Firefly was in the episode "Out of Gas", when we discovered that the only difference between Kaylee and Inara is that Inara gets paid. I have high hopes for Angel, though. It's been established that the title character must remain chaste, or he will turn evil.

* * *

Buffy isn't the only show that has lost me with characters. The new Battlestar Galactica was very intense, and had very colorful and interesting characters to begin with, but by the end of the show, each and everyone had ceased to be likable, ending with the formerly-noble Admiral William Adama, who is shown visiting a strip club in one of the last episodes.

Stargate SG-1 did better. The characters never betrayed me, but the writers seemed to think that the last two seasons would be a wonderful way to make the point: "Religion = bad".

It was my general frustration with the state of SF TV shows that lead me to draw the following comic, in the style of XKCD:

Several fellow students (all of them women) in my writing class have left perfectly polite comments on my last two homework assignments. I have decided that I am going to go get the town crier all over them.

The comments:

At the beginning of chapter 3, Jack gives Regina the order to depart Arcas spaceport with the command "Miss Burke, take us up." Three women in the class seemed to take exception to this. One circled "Miss" and wrote "Pilot"; one wrote "Ms."; and a third circled "Miss" and left the note "Wouldn't she have a title with more dignity?"

In the next week's homework assignment, Regina referred to herself as "the new gal" aboard the ship. One of the women circled it and wrote "Women don't like this word" and gave several alternatives, such as "girl", "pilot", "crew member", "mate".

Really? Women don't like that word? You are speaking for all women? Then why do I hear my grandmother use it so often? Are you contending that she is not a woman?

Concerning the implication that "miss" is a title without dignity, this one single sentence demonstrates and proves with one single breath the heinous thing, and my biggest gripe, with political correctness: political correctness seeks not to avoid offending, but rather to find offense where none is intended or, even more likely, even present.

Does anyone argue that when Jack refers to Regina as "miss", he is doing it specifically to degrade her, or demean her? (He is quite capable of  doing this in other ways.) Would you argue that if I held a door for a young lady and said "let me get that for you, miss," that I am purposely and actively, with malice aforethought, trying to show my superiority over her, lower her dignity, take away her right to vote, and chain her to the kitchen?

Please. Be surd. (absurd : surd :: incest : cest)

The "best" argument I have heard against the titles of miss and mrs. is that these titles "chain a woman's identity to her marital status, and thus make her a slave of her husband" which is logic on par with "if a woman weighs the same as a duck, she's made of wood and thus a witch." This betrays what John Wright so expertly points out about those who follow the Religion of PC: "They think (or rather, they feel) that when they are calling one thing by another name, that the actual nature of reality changes. They put themselves in a position where they can no longer talk about real things. Words are severed from referents."

He is, of course and as always, right. Those who worship at the altar of PC, and also those in the left wing (usually the same crowd) believe in the magic of language relativity: that is, by changing the way we refer to something we can change the nature of the thing itself. This seems to me to be closely associated with moral relativism: the belief that we can change morality by wishing it away. What is wrong for you or for another is not wrong for me because I don't want it to be. We see this in other aspects of life, too: if we call a "baby" a "fetus", it is no longer human, and can be killed; if we refer to people as having "gender" instead of "sex", then by changing their gender, they can change the fundamental nature of themselves. News flash: if I name my cat "rover", refer to her as "the dog", and feed her dog biscuits, she still won't bark. Sex is a biological and supernatural reality. Changing how we refer to it won't change its nature.

The reality of miss and mrs. seems to me to be far more innocuous. In a society where men purse and women allure, one would expect simple and obvious social cues that would indicate to the pursuer if the allurer is available to be pursued. Titles are one aspect of this, as are rings (hence, a woman wearing an engagement ring; I think of a man's wedding ring more as a reminder to himself than as a signal to other women). Were we to live in a society that operated in the opposite fashion, where women sought out a mate, bought him dinner, escorted him to the opera, and took him home and kissed him goodnight on his porch, I would expect the titles to be reversed.

But the PCists, of course, are chained to their idea of language driving nature; thus if we call an unmarried woman "miss" and a married woman "mrs.", we are saying that her nature changes when she gets married. Since they feel this is offensive (and I have never heard a good explanation for how it is offensive, probably in no small part because they feel rather than think it is offensive) they think (or rather, feel) that by changing a woman's title to the generic "ms.", we have somehow altered her nature and the nature of marriage.

As mentioned before, one of the primary aspects of political correctness is how it assumes offense where none exists. To refer to a married woman by a different title as an unmarried woman seems reasonable to the normal, rational person. In fact, these are the terms that were used for decades, if not centuries, and no offense was meant or taken. But then one day (and that is probably quite literal) some follower of the dogma of PC decided that words that had no offense attached to them before suddenly were offensive and that they had to be changed. Granted, language changes, but suddenly deciding that words have new meaning never before intended is not the sort of gradual change as "chuse" changing to "choose". Other examples of this include suddenly deciding that using the pronoun "he" to refer to groups of mixed sex is offensive, where it never was before, and that the term "secretary" to refer to those with a secretarial job, is offensive. (I once asked a PCist why it was that "secretary" was demeaning to women. She explained that it was because it harkened to a time when women were only allowed three careers: secretary, teacher, and nurse. She did not explain why "teacher" and "nurse" were still allowable. (This is one reason I'm Catholic and not PC; the rules are far more intuitive and easier to understand.))

Another aspect of Political Correctness is that it only seeks to find offense directed a certain groups that are mascots of the left. Surely, the PCists object to "offenses" against blacks, American Indians, women, homosexuals, and other "protected" groups. I have never heard one so much as flinch at offenses directed at Irishmen, men, Catholics, or evangelical Christians. Somehow, Muslims have weasled themselves onto the "protected" list, which means those outside the Church of PC get to watch, with wonderful bemusement, how those in the PC Church "protect" from offense those who are probably the least PC, and indeed viciously hate some of the other protected groups. (For instance, my writing instructor mentioned, perhaps in a doubt of the faith, that she was having a hard time accepting the PC dogma that fundamentalist Islamic societies had a "right" to horribly abuse their women. I remain blissfully outside of PCism, so I can answer as any sane man should: no such right exists and we can kill the bastards for doing such.)

If you want evidence of how imbalanced the double-standard for offensive speech is, look no further than the NCAA. Remember a few years ago when, out of sensitivity to "Native Americans" they tried to outlaw all schools with American Indian mascots? (They apparantly had a very selective use of "Native American"; I am a native to America too, but they didn't outlaw any team called "the Josephs". However, since no team with that name exists, perhaps they thought it a non-issue. I will give them the benifit of the doubt, and assume that they would have.) This, of course, was a monumental search for offense, such that they must have been using NASA's Spitzer space telescope to find it, as they clearly ignored the fact that many colleges with American Indian mascots do so with the approval and blessing of the tribe! One thing I found particularly interesting was that the University of Illinois Fighting Illini were to be banned, because "Fighting Illini" is offensive. However, there never was any mention of banning the University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish. How, exactly, is "Fighting Illini" racially insensitive and "Fighting Irish" is not? Are you going to argue that the Irish have not been oppressed? Are you going to argue that it is politically correct to portray Irishmen as drunken, brawling, leprechauns, but incorrect to portray American Indians as tomahawk-wielding warriors with feathered headdresses? Now we must play a game of measuring relativism, and explain why one offense is more offensive than the other.

So it is because of political correctness that society jumps at imagined shadows of offense, but only those shadows cast from a certain angle and from certain objects, that you have to turn your head sideways and squint to see, but then it just looks like a bunny. It is because of political correctness that I can't say "miss", but no politically correct person would bat an eyelash over the term "hocus pocus", with all its associated anti-Catholic bigotry. (For those not in the know, "hocus pocus", originally, was a mockery of the Latin words of consecration: "Hoc est enim corpus meum" or "This is my body", the climax of the Mass, and that sacred moment when a host of unleavened bread is turned into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ. I, personally, do not take offense to "hocus pocus", because I know that no one today uses it to offend Catholics, and probably no one who is not Catholic even knows where the term comes from. I would not stoop to correct someone who uses such a term in ignorance.)  It is because of political correctness that I can't refer to a secretary as a secretary, but the followers of PC can—and do—take Our Lord's name in vain, without so much as a worry or care to whether or not they offend me (and I do take great offense to that). I am not in a protected group; I am not worthy of avoiding offense towards. (In fact, someone once argued on this very blog that it is allowable to insult and offend white Christians because they have it coming.) But if those followers of PC don't care if they offend me, on what grounds do they argue that I should not offend them?

Since I can't think of a witty or snappy end to this article, I will let the inestimable John Wright do it for me, even though I think I am over my allocated "John Wright quote or link" quota by quite a lot this month:

Quoted for Truth:

The rudest society imaginable is one where everyone is hyper-sensitive, thin-skinned, and willing to see insults where none are intended, and, most of all, a society were everyone demands, as a matter of right, as a matter of entitlement, that no one cross or offend his ultra-fine nerves, which have been sandpapered to the most exquisite pitch of sensitivity. The professional crybabies have been given a trump card that wins every hand and always collects the kitty. So, we get more crybabies. Dignity, adieu: rudeness, hail! Hail, horrors!

When PC Language Goes Too Far.

From the BBC:

"More than 90% of weapons used by the cartels originate in the US and there is evidence US citizens are joining the gangs to act as hitmen and women."

I like how they take special care to avoid discrimination against the female hit-persons. Score one for the feminist revolution! They have removed the glass ceiling from the previously man-dominated career path of professional assassin. You go girls!