Pronoun Usage

While the US is bombing 7 countries and destabilizing many more, Americans are distracted and entertained by arguing over next year's election or proper pronoun usage for each other.

We are now being told that we must ask everyone what pronouns they prefer. What? Why should people be allowed to regulate our language, even when they are not physically present?

Obviously, the pronouns "I" and "you" are gender neutral, so the demand that we must self-police our language while there is no chance of "literally" hurting someone with "violent" language, when they are not there to hear it, is bizarre.

If a tree falls in a forest....? and so on. (The answer is "No". If you use the "wrong" pronoun when speaking of someone who is not there to hear it, it is not "literal violence".)

And we are now being told that we are to introduce ourselves including the phrase..."Hi. My name is _____. I use the pronouns she/her"
Who uses third person pronouns to refer to themselves? I have never heard anyone do that, although I have heard people refer to themselves by their own name, which is uniformly weird. This is taking it a step further, forcing weird and disturbing language use upon everyone, under threat of legal action, or social media banning. Yes, people have been fired, removed from Twitter and had the police visit them, for using the "incorrect" pronoun.


What difference does it make? This blog post explains it well...Update: the blog post has been censored. Logic is not allowed these days, and Medium censors posts frequently.

"Forcing our brains to ignore the evidence of our eyes, to ignore a conflict between what we see and know to be true, and what we are expected to say, affects us.
USING preferred pronouns does the same. It alters your attention, your speed of processing, your automaticity. You may find it makes you anxious. You pay less heed to what you want to say, and more to what is expected of you. It slows you down, confuses you, makes you less reactive. That’s not a good thing."

George Orwell, in the book 1984, had Winston Smith break down under torture and say what Big Brother told him to say, denying what he saw with his eyes, and conforming to the "proper" use of words.
"
'Just now I held up the fingers of my hand to you. You saw five fingers. Do you remember that?'

'Yes.'

O'Brien held up the fingers of his left hand, with the thumb concealed.

'There are five fingers there. Do you see five fingers?'

'Yes.'

Language is important to humans. Our brains develop with language and our language helps shape our world view. If our owners can force us to say that we see a woman, when we know that we are seeing a man, they have forced us to submit in a new and more powerful way. They already have most people convinced that War is Peace, and Ignorance is Power, but Man Is Woman? That is a power grab unprecedented in our history.