Culture

Readers’ Help With Definitions Needed

Dear Readers,

Could you help me by discovering, if possible, official progressive (Cathedral) definitions of these (and similar) words?

  1. homophobia
  2. homophobe
  3. transphobia
  4. transphobe
  5. Islamaphobia
  6. Islamaphobe
  7. anti-semitism
  8. anti-semite
  9. alt-right
  10. white supremacist
  11. Nazi
  12. facist
  13. racist
  14. sexist

We want official non-satirical non-sardonic non-humorous earnest precise definitions supported by Cathedral members. We’re not after instances where these aspersions/labels were cast, for though these are plentiful they are empty. For instance, citing a source saying “So-and-so is a white supremacist” is of no use, because if one was ignorant of what a “white supremacists” was, knowing that So-and-so is one is of no interest.

Without the definitions, what are we to make of cases like this, where a black man was called a “white supremacist” for “opposing jihad terror and Islamization”?

“Oh, Briggs, you troll. Everybody knows what these words mean!”

They do?

“They do. You’re just stirring up trouble.”

If everybody knows what these words mean, can you can me precisely what, say, Islamophobia means? For as you know, once you have told what it is, I will then know what it is not. Yes?

“I’m not talking to you. The answers are obvious.”

They aren’t. And that’s the problem. In many cases they seem more like secular curses, meant only to frighten and not enlighten. Besides, if all these labels identify actual horribleness, what’s the harm in defining them?

If you know somebody who might know, please send them this request.

Thanks.

WMB

Categories: Culture

19 replies »

  1. Category error. These words, when used by Leftists, have no content. By design, there is no particular, fixed meaning to any of them. They simply serve to identify the utterers as member of the in-group, much like gang signs or military uniforms. They also serve a secondary role of identifying heretics and infidels, those not of the in-group.

    In other words, each of the words above means nothing more nor less than, “Shut up and die already, white cis-hetero male Christian scum!”, while also denoting the person saying them as members in good standing of the Left, cultural Marxism.

    This answer is not intended as snark, but factual observation.

  2. I agree with McChuck. There are no definitions in today’s world. Historical definitions are available and will be called just that “historical” and you will be forced back to “They mean whatever we say they do today at this precise time.” Then they’ll change ’em 10 minutes later.

  3. Ditto to McChuck.

    The epithets for which you seek “definitions” are simply epithets. They are used by PC-Progressives as signals to indicate group status–sort of like gang signs. There is no need for the signals to contain logical “meaning,” not as you are apparently seeking.

    All of these in-group-signals “mean” that the user is “one of us,” that is a PC-Prog believer.

    The beliefs that are signaled can be summed up as: “Normal-America sucks. Let’s change it.”

    Using the linguistic signals you list, as well as others that are related, is just the same as wearing gang colors, or speaking a certain dialect of Italian, or a secret handshake, or other in-group connotated cultural activities.

  4. Definitions? DEFINITIONS?! We don’t need no stinkin’ definitions!

    OTOH, you might consult Potter Stewart…

  5. Can’t say how many people who use these terms understand this, but once you go down the Hegelian path of asserting that we exist in a world of becoming, and not of being, there is no possibility of definition of anything. All statements of being are necessarily false or at least incomplete, subject as they are to subsumtion under a new synthesis as the Spirit, not at all subject to logic and especially and specifically unconcerned with the law of non-contradiction, unfolds new truths (however temporary) in History.

    Words are just tools to help us collectively move forward on the Right Sid of History. To obsess over what they mean identifies you as a back of the room kid, on the wrong side of History and marks you culling.

    Incoherent babbling is not a bug, it’s a feature. THE feature. Obsession with feelings over thoughts is a mark of enlightenment. It is enough that the self-identified herd of the Enlightened express feelings with words, as words cannot have meaning apart from those feelings. (This also explains the Left’s simultaneous insistence that Science has Shown this or that pet position to be true and that Science is a social construct. Science that can be construed to support their feelz: good. Contradicts feelz: bad.)

    So McChuck is right. But you already knew this.

  6. I will take “Briggs” seriously; and therefore respond seriously. All of these terms are tangible indices of social interactions that act as social agents. That is their ‘definition’.

    As such, they are both performative and pre-formative of interdisciplinary research and action on equity, diversity and inclusion, as well as the environment and the promises and challenges of new technology.

    Hence (as should be obvious), every use of these terms is a step into the Heraclitan ‘river’: “No man [person] ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he [ze] is not the same [person].”

    Perforce, these terms are fully moral, as they exist; that is, in their actual use: fluid representations of a coming-to-be towards equity, diversity and inclusion, or they are literally nothing at all, a moral void, a ‘nothing’ even more empty than the quantum vacuum.

    It goes without saying that any attempt to isolate these terms apart from the social and interpretive flux which is proper to them, and thus to (attempt to) create a fundamentalist insistence on freezing them into rigid ‘definitions’, is instantaneously to step into the Parmenidean world of total statis; a stagnant, rigid, dead world devoid of morality, which, not surprisingly, only serves the powerful and the privileged.

    How dare you, Briggs.

  7. Its either “what the enemy thinks” or “enemy”. Just like “bourgeoisie” and “bourgeois”, or “capitalism” and “capitalist”.

  8. homophobia: fear of the same thing
    homophobe: one who fears the same thing
    transphobia: fear of crossing
    transphobe: one who fears crossing
    Islamophobia: fear of Islam
    Islamophobe: one who fears Islam

    That last is not wholly irrational, although it’s more fair to say one might fear some Muslims, not Islam. I’m not afraid of Islam; Christ’s victory is sure.

    Of course, “phobe” is used to denote an irrational fear, when the truth is that we don’t fear whatever-it-is, we loathe it. But miso works better as a prefix and the left don’t have the wit to come up a proper sciency-sounding name using it.

  9. Our overlords and their minions are foolish and evil, but they aren’t stupid. Definitions would destroy the utility of these weapons, and new and improved weapons would have to be developed. Having spent decades, even centuries developing and charging these, well, see above. Evil and foolish, but not stupid.

  10. Generally these days these terms are applied if you so much as acknowledge any real-world, quantifiable differences between groups. Their “definitions” are fluid…literally whatever definition would be necessary to prove their opponent is the one with the problem. And in this respect you’re right, they effectively have no useful meaning other than slander.

    One area I find particularly interesting is “fascism”. The interesting point being that many people on the left throw around the term, while simultaneously embracing a philosophy that is nearly identical. But instead of nationalism the focus of their iteration of (what might as well be) fascism is globalism…the idea that the people of the world can be “free” under the heel of one, democratic government that suppresses pretty much all cultural elements in the ridiculous hope that if only we lived like a giant ant farm where individual liberties were nearly non-existent…we’d all be much happier. Oh and of course they wouldn’t “force” a lot of the loss of liberty. They’d want to give you the “choice” so they could pretend they weren’t forcing you, but they’d tax unfavorable things until the only choice you could afford was the “right” (state sanctioned) choice.

  11. Here seems as good a place as any…

    Old Lord Smedley had spent his life working through his church (Anglican), and his profession (the law), and his community (Cambridge) doing philanthropic work with the poor and homeless, and donating a large part of his family fortune to various causes. He was respected, but with the caveat of an irascible temper, and with the habit of blurting out things which many felt would be better kept in. He was, in a word, a carmudgeon.

    One day he announced quite out of the blue he was emigrating to Australia. It took most everyone by surprise given he was so set in his ways. Nevertheless within a fortnight he was packed and on his way. One intrepid reporter tracked him down at Heathrow and insisted on a reason;

    “Lord Smedley what is this all about”, he pushily inquired.

    “Is it any of your damn business?”

    “Well the readers…your …um…fans?”

    “Look here my lad time was when homosexuality was condemned and could result in prison, or worse. Then it was legal but frowned on, then accepted, then celebrated. Now it’s positively encouraged”.

    “…er yes well I see…um…actually no I don’t”.

    ” Well I’m going before they make it bloody mandatory”.

  12. I’ll offer up an etiology of “homophobia.” To true believers, homophobia is: “a state of hating or fearing homosexuals or homosexual behavior, as a result of unconscious homosexual feelings.”

    This warped idea is from Freudian psychology, the pseudo-science which still has too much of a hold on our culture, and which was even stronger when the term was created.

    The functional use of the term has been elucidated by others: “A homophobic person is a homophobe. Homophobes are the lowest of human beings, stooping even to being against marriage ‘equality’.”

  13. Current Leftist “definition” of homophobe: Someone who declines any sexual advance by any gay person, even if the person doing the declining is also gay.

  14. Black Prince,
    The air hostess serving him was probably gay on his way over, too! Ausie, probably.

    There goes the grey dotted line again in the comment box. It copies what you type and saves it elsewhere for perusal in case comment isn’t actually posted. Helps the snake charmer out and all that.

    Men who obsess about this topic have a problem. It’s also about time someone spoke about the lying regarding what you can and can’t say in This country of mine, England.
    You can say pretty well anything Britbert does not, I am afraid to say, tell the truth about this.
    The spokesman was on Fox, the it still aired over here, saying you would be arrested for saying XY Z and it was simply a lie. Briggs and the gang, if they want to be taken seriously need to stop with the propaganda and start telling things how they really are.
    Especially if he’s saying he has ‘fully returned to the Church’.

    In the scheme or worrying about the world it’s equivalent to dusting the piano stool and calling you did the housework.
    Nobody can make you gay if you are not gay. Prisoners seem to tell a different story though.
    An ounce of pretension is worth a tonne of manure.

    “Oh high girls! I’m really manly! Not a gay or effeminate move about me!”

    Very funny. Girls get to decide.
    If you really want to sort out the problem of homosexuality. Eradicate it from the Catholic Church, where it has indeed done some dreadful damage. Even if nobody’s allowed to mention it without incurring the wrath of the dustbin dweller.

  15. 1. Homophobia: dislike of or prejudice against homosexual people.

    Homophobe: a person with an extreme and irrational aversion to homosexuality and homosexual people

    Transphobia: intense dislike of or prejudice against transsexual or transgender people

    Transphobes (Transphobic): A person who fears or has a negative perception of trans people and/or transsexuality/transgenderism.

    1. Islamaphobia: dislike of or prejudice against Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force.

    These words (to some exception like anti-semite) can aptly be used to describe most members of this blog, and surely to its author.

    On word that cannot be used to describe the author and member of this blog is Christian. No one here is a true Christian.

    You always complain of big government and paying taxes, except you have no problem in getting into peoples head pants and bedroom to tell them what they can or cannot do.

  16. For goodness sake!
    Lytic, phytic, philic, phobic lysis, osis, otmesis, all suffixes, greek origin, I think but used commonly in physIOLOGY and medicine. Only become used as insults or taken as such when the internet is to make the accused appear irrational, dumb, insane, or any other kind of mind related problem. Psychology and physiology are not the same but some can’t read properly.

    Phobia and it’s opposite suffix, refer to repulsion or attraction. They are sued in their mechanical sense in chemotaxis, for example. They are not only politically hot words. If you toss a word about for long enough it grows legs.

    So someone with an aversion to any given thing can be referred to in such a way without it being a necessarily irrational repulsion or fear. Phobias are not even necessarily irrational unless presented as a neurosis.

    It’s perfectly normal for a normal heterosexual person to have an aversion to homosexuality. Even to express it loudly.
    Thinking otherwise is unreasonable.
    Where things go wrong is when people think they have permission from God to go out of their way to carry on about it. This also includes the push by media to make false representations of how homosexuality appears in society without the help of the media itself. Homosexuality is not as common as we have been lead to believe for years. I simply is not and I won’t bow to those who say it is becoming commoner, it is just a fad. Both sides are claiming this is a lifestyle choice.

    I have an aversion to lesbians. So I am homophobic and homophobe.
    Working with them is okay until they corner you by the fax machine! Where escape artistry comes in handy…

    Head pants? Are they French hats? with earholes?

    Batophobia is fear of tall buildings.

  17. “It’s perfectly normal for a normal heterosexual person to have an aversion to homosexuality.”

    Yes.

    “Even to express it loudly.”

    It depends how loud and what is the goal of the expression.

    This blog promotes action and policy to limit the right of individual. Women are only good to produce baby, receive punch by their husband and keep their mouth shut. Gays, transgender cannot marry or join the army, etc. Kind of weird for someone who promote freedom.

    “I have an aversion to lesbians. So I am homophobic and homophobe.”

    No, but are you trying to control how they live their life?

    “Working with them is okay until they corner you by the fax machine! Where escape artistry comes in handy…”

    The #metoo movement include homosexual harassment. If they force themselves on you it is sexual harassment.

  18. Thought the me-too thing was a tattoo when I read that first time. Seems more like a new taboo.

    Still don’t know what a hashtag does, is or how it matters. Mob rule and mindlessness?

    I always said and my Dad also warned that when the backlash comes it will be very nasty and that as always the really bad people, in the case of feminism, won’t be blamed.

    Normal advances from men towards women are not harassment. Even if it’s from colleagues. It depends. There is such a thing as professional conduct and always has been.

    Having women in the armed forces was always out as well as homosexuals because of the complications it brings and because of the risk of blackmail in cases of men in power.
    Having people with complicated sets of sexual rules and sensitivities interferes with progress at work in those kinds of settings. Work is work.

    As to speaking about punching women? It’s always been illegal in England. Canada the same?

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