The Spirit of Neologism

Each new accession of an “issue” leads to the demand that we demonstrate our “commitment.” Not coincidentally, the desired commitment invariably involves swelling the bureaucratic class and its power over our lives. 
The spirit of neologism is perhaps best illustrated when it fastens on a word in common use. Note the recent career of the word “diversity.” This term denotes a key conservative theme. As is pointed out by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn in writings including his classic Leftism (1974), a devotion to diversity arguably distinguishes the Right from the Left. The elements of this devotion are many; consider, for example, respect for regional traditions, the insistence that human beings are not interchangeable, the tendency to think in terms of distinct persons rather than large classes of people, support for various institutions that shield individuals from the State, as well as the related belief in decentralization. We are now expected to restrict the term to one explicit, technical meaning, one that refers to a specific demographic distribution. Not surprisingly, the new usage is explained and enforced by a phalanx of experts. Note also that, in a characteristic tour de force, the term is now compatible, not only with intellectual conformism, but also with the pursuit of economic and political integration on a global scale. 
- Rein Staal, "On Being Reactionary." Modern Age, March 1996.

Comments

  1. Mercurius Aulicus13/2/14 7:39 PM

    Good find. I never thought about this before but that is how the Left's Newspeak works. "Tolerance" at one time meant that you just had to accept that people would think or act differently to what you wanted. Now Tolerance means unquestioning adherence to a set of dubious beliefs, the slightest deviation from which incurrs hatefests and non-personhood.

    ReplyDelete
  2. american fez18/2/14 8:34 AM

    Most people I know think diversity means restaurants offering a range of ethnic cuisines and twee stores selling Peruvian knitwear, all located in the town they moved away from to qualify for a better school system: a cliche but a truism

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

More Brief Reviews of Movies I haven’t Seen

Brokeback Mountain: A love affair between a pair of homosexualist cowboys ends tragically when one is killed by a horse . The actors playing the leads are (supposedly) straight. Includes graphic sex scenes. If you are into this sort of thing stay home and rent the spaghetti western Django Kill...If You Live, Shoot! instead, it's a weird and entertaining film that includes an honest depiction of homosexualist cowboys - an entire gang of them. Memoirs of a Geisha: A trio of Chinese honeys infiltrates Japan by disguising themselves as whores. The potential of the premise squandered, as unlike the homosexualist cowboy film Memoirs of a Geisha is only PG-13. The Producers: A pair of real life homosexualists (Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane) portray heterosexual Broadway musical impresarios. Notice the pattern. Do you understand 'Hollywood logic' works now? King Kong: I’ve decided the old-style stop-motion animation is better than tedious modern CGI effects. The latter mechanical...
Read more

Misc. Hate

A Mustiphino has been spotted wandering the halls of Congress. The deranged babblings of an SPLC apparatchik inspired me to coin the word hatefact . Hatefacts are unquestionable facts about immigrants , blacks , women , homosexualists , et al., that the SPLC and those sharing its ideological inclinations deem “hate” or “hateful” to mention. UPDATE: It seems I unwittingly stole the idea for the word hatefact from Peter Brimelow, who used the term “hate facts” in a speech last November .
Read more