Posted on 07/14/2011 12:59:33 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A kindergarten in Sweden has prohibited teachers to use words that would indicate a childs gender. Since he and she cant be used, children must be defined by the neutral gender. Completely making a mockery of both grammar and common sense, Sweden has taken political correctness to a new level of absurdity.
Almost from infancy, young Swedes begin to be educated in tolerance toward homosexuals, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals. Schools choose books based on this worldview. For example, Snow White and Thumbelina are banned because they are full of traditional gender stereotypes.
But other types of literature are available in abundance. For example, children are offered books about homosexual giraffes that hatch abandoned crocodile eggs so they can raise a shared newborn.
The word it, when applied to a human being with a gender, gives a person genderless characteristics. This politically correct vocabulary not only assumes that there is no difference between man and woman, but it also equates a person to a chair.
Sweden tries to maintain a semblance of fairness by claiming that parents have the right to remove their child from this particular kindergarten if they find the policies objective.
But this is deceiving. Even in prosperous Sweden, there are not enough kindergartens to meet demand. When faced with the decision to send their children to a politically correct kindergarten close to home or to go to one located on the other side of the city, parents have little other choice than to send their children to the politically correct institution.
Whats more, while overall government funding for education and culture is shrinking, funding continues to be allocated for projects that promote a neo-liberal ideology.
The zealous efforts of European and U.S. liberals to preach and inculcate political correctness at all costs has shifted from being something quirky and, at times, even humorous to becoming a dangerous political phenomenon, particularly when it uses totalitarian methods to achieve its goals.
Liberal ideology loves to claim that it promotes tolerance. Of course, we do need to be tolerant of people that are different in their morals and sexual behavior.
But this tolerance must be mutual and neutral. Defending the rights of a minority should not infringe on the interests and rights of the majority.
Protecting a minority becomes dangerous when that protection means that the majority loses its rights. When special rights are allocated to a minority and when government finances are allocated specifically and exclusively to promote such a group, then these arent rights but special privileges.
The most dangerous result of radical political correctness is when any objection to it evokes charges of racism, homophobia and intolerance. In this way, the very concept and definition of racism become diluted and devaluated.
As a result, this plays right into the hands of the true extremists, neo-Nazis and racists. This is how political correctness gets turns on its head and comes back to stab the neo-liberals right in the back.
Then there’s Spanish...
A SPANISH Teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.
‘House’ for instance, is feminine: ‘la casa.’
‘Pencil,’ however, is masculine: ‘el lapiz.’
A student asked, ‘What gender is ‘computer’?’
Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two
groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether computer’ should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.
The men’s group decided that ‘computer’ should definitely be of the feminine gender (’la computadora’), because:
1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;
2 The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else;
3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.
(THIS GETS BETTER!)
The women’s group, however, concluded that computers should be Masculine (’el computador’), because:
1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on;
2. They have a lot of data but still can’t think for themselves;
3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.
The women won.
On the contrary, the example of "you" and "thou" you give is very salutary. "Thou" was the singular and "you" was plural. Now "you" is both plural and singular and "thou" is archaic. My reading of the current situation is that x years from now (and I don't know how long it will take) "they" will come to mean not only "more than one person" but also "one person whose gender is unknown". This does not destroy a grammatical principle, it merely alters the grammatical rules. It won't be the first time that has happened and I'm confident it won't be the last either.
Yes, it may happen, but at this point in time singular “they” just sounds ungrammatical, and, further, unnecessary.
Thank you.
I noticed that servers on a network are called a “he”. I don’t know the reason.
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