At Indiana University Southeast, young adult intellectuals are being bathed in deep knowledge:
The university publishes and maintains a guide instructing students on how to “reduce bias in language” and offers some tactics for responding to others who use language they find offensive. One of these tactics is to “say ‘ouch!’” to others who utter “stereotypes, offensive or biased comments.” The university asserts that saying “ouch!” in these situations is an effective tool “simply to convey what was said had a negative impact on you, regardless if it was directed toward you.”
Presumably, saying “Ow, my status-seeking pretensions!” would be too on-the-nose.
The university offered examples of language that may require such a response, including phrases like “man and wife” or simply “wives,” as well as “mothering.” These phrases can supposedly “imply one group dominating over another group.” The university suggests instead that students use phrases like “husband and wife,” “spouses,” and “parenting.”
The terms mankind and man-made are also deemed outdated and upsetting, and therefore to be avoided, or at least met with sounds of feigned injury. The language guide, published by the university’s “diversity” department, is promoted as a way for students to “gain credibility.”
Le mot juste in this case is not "ouch," it's "blech."
Posted by: Hopp Singg | August 28, 2019 at 08:01
And nothing screams credibility like pretending to be injured by the words mothering and mankind.
Posted by: David | August 28, 2019 at 08:11
. . . Indiana University Southeast . . .
. . . . but certainly not to be confused with the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople . . .
Posted by: Hal | August 28, 2019 at 08:15
In earlier times, such guides would have been given the same respect as educational films on the dos and don'ts of dating, or the dangers of drugs. I can hear the gales of laughter even now.
But I suspect that many of today's brave young scholars will actually eat this crap up.
Posted by: Killer Marmot | August 28, 2019 at 08:18
I remember when parents worried that kids grew up too fast.
Posted by: Mags | August 28, 2019 at 08:29
If the word 'mankind' has a 'negative impact' on you, you've got problems university won't fix.
Posted by: Connor | August 28, 2019 at 09:00
Our university has an unconscious bias kick on at the moment. As in, we can see your sins even though you can't since they are unconscious. Evidence free hectoring is sure to ensue.
Posted by: Frank | August 28, 2019 at 09:12
If the word ‘mankind’ has a ‘negative impact’ on you, you’ve got problems university won’t fix.
Instead, the great minds at IUS would rather actively exacerbate those inclinations, and reward them, and make them a habit, until you become an insufferable, neurotic prodnose. Which is some kind of woke ideal, apparently.
Posted by: David | August 28, 2019 at 09:18
until you become an insufferable, neurotic prodnose.
"They say misery loves company
We could start a company and make misery"
- Soul Asylum got it slightly wrong. You need to a university to make large scale, life altering misery
Posted by: Atempdog | August 28, 2019 at 09:47
Further reading of the article brings up the word 'oriental'. I must have missed the memo. When did this become forbidden? Is any reason given besides ' Because I *drool* say so, H8ter'? I presume that 'asian' is the only alterntive allowed. Replacing a precise term with a more general and possibly misleading one is the way I want my language to 'evolve'.
Posted by: fnord | August 28, 2019 at 10:09
Replacing a precise term with a more general and possibly misleading one is the way I want my language to ‘evolve’.
Well, quite. Though I suppose you could say ‘North-East Asian’.
Posted by: David | August 28, 2019 at 10:18
The proper replacement for "mankind" is "peroffsrpingkind". the offensive word to be replaces is "man", but, opposed to Justin Trudeau's failed grammar attempt, "people" is not a replacement for "man"....the proper, more neutral word, is "person"...but that also has the triggering word "son" in it. Thus we must replace son with a gender neutral term. "child" implies too much about age while "offspring" is a clear neutral winner.....thus I give you....."peroffspringkind"
Posted by: grant | August 28, 2019 at 10:32
I suppose the above is what happens when universities choose to employ large numbers of mediocre, fundamentally useless people - entire departments whose presence on campus is essentially parasitic and most likely detrimental to anyone in their orbit - and who then have to scramble for excuses to justify their salaries, status and various, often ludicrous demands.
Posted by: David | August 28, 2019 at 10:51
https://davidthompson.typepad.com/davidthompson/2008/09/rebellion-revis.html
Students used to be blank slates — now they arrive with agendas
Posted by: Lime | August 28, 2019 at 11:14
You have to marvel at these intellectual titans -
OK, you got it, chief. (Later that same day...)
Ouch !
Meanwhile, confusion reigned over what to do in the mandatory Diversity 101 lecture, "Understanding Islam".
Aside from the fact no one would say "Shawnee" as a generic for Indian, there are over 500 recognized tribes, so good luck actually knowing. Maybe stick with Indian.
I think this whole mess was cooked up by some inbred dumb blond stoner crazy people.
Posted by: Farnsworth M Muldoon | August 28, 2019 at 12:00
employ large numbers of mediocre, fundamentally useless people
Wow. I want my taxpayer dollars back.
Posted by: Joe | August 28, 2019 at 12:42
Wow. I want my taxpayer dollars back.
And so, we have an Inclusive Excellence Centre that’s neither inclusive nor excellent, and whose director, an emotionally unstable foul-mouthed anti-Semite, struggles with elementary sentence structure, even in official documents. However, while Mr Scherer may have boggling difficulties with simple English, he has internalised the required ideology and is happy to regurgitate it, along with the customary vanities.
Posted by: David | August 28, 2019 at 12:54
University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople
PDQ Bach approves.
Though to be honest, the work being done at U of SND at H is less satirical than what's actually going on in actual universities these days.
Posted by: Bill de Haan | August 28, 2019 at 13:30
OT - just a quick note so you can update your scorecards, the Hong Kong* protesters are Nazis.
*Honk Kong - waving a broken umbrella at a guy with a gun=unhinged barbaric violence.
Posted by: Farnsworth M Muldoon | August 28, 2019 at 14:00
An educator’s job is no longer just about teaching, but helping students unlearn false or even harmful information they’ve picked up from the internet.
That is, of course, a lie: the left has always seen itself as "educating" students out of the stupid and evil ideas that they learned in their viciously capitalist Christian homes.
Posted by: pst314 | August 28, 2019 at 14:55
This madness will continue until the sane among us wake the hell up and realize the Left is laser-focused on corrupting our children.
The left understands this and it's a huge blindspot for the center and right. In recent decades the left has successfully made adults into children, broadening their pool of recruits. These stories from university are so ridiculous because you're only seeing the "final exam" portion of their indoctrination, with decades of poison under girding this advance-level wokeness.
Posted by: Sam | August 28, 2019 at 15:15
I express myself in language that I was taught. I see no reason to change that just because some feeble snowflakes can't handle perfectly normal words that we have used for centuries.
This "I am offended" shit can't last. We need to get back to reality.
I'll tell you what offends me ... people who pretend to be offended for no good reason simply to be "petted and consoled" as an aggrieved victim of some horrid realist who said something lethal like the word "motherhood".
I completely ignore these wimps and talk the way I want to. You should too. Give me a glass of Hemlock.
Posted by: Duke | August 28, 2019 at 15:32
I can think of only one consolation we will have when Western civilization falls, and the lights go out forever, and we're sitting around the campfire chasing the last baked bean around the bottom of the can with our spoons; hunting these people.
Posted by: Monty James | August 28, 2019 at 15:32
As happens from time to time, the spam filter is being uppity. If anyone has trouble with comments not appearing, email me and I’ll make an offering.
Posted by: David | August 28, 2019 at 15:37
Wow. I want my taxpayer dollars back.
Yeah...there was a local band I used to follow. Reminds me of their "If this is love, I want my money back." Good luck with that.
Posted by: WTP | August 28, 2019 at 15:47
I remember when parents worried that kids grew up too fast.
Heh. And I can remember when clinical projection was, wait for it, a bad thing.
Now it's a whole freaking industry, a religion, and a movement to inoculate a whole aware species against rational reality.
Posted by: Ten | August 28, 2019 at 16:34
"Now it's a whole freaking industry, a religion, and a movement to inoculate a whole aware species against rational reality.
Posted by: Ten | August 28, 2019 at 16:34"
The Zman has something about that this morning:
The Only Equal End
I would suggest RTWT.
Posted by: Monty James | August 28, 2019 at 17:40
Farnsworth, I looked at that pic, and what struck me more strongly was the equation of Nazism with using the American flag, as well as its characterisation. This Eden Han person is not capable of independent thought and is likely a CCP sock puppet.
Posted by: Another Calgary Marc | August 28, 2019 at 18:25
Wow. I want my taxpayer dollars back.
Meanwhile, in "look how woke we are here" Ireland, two tax funded universities lock legal horns over the poaching of
... wait for it …
a professor of Geographies of Sexualities and Genders.
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/universities-square-up-for-high-court-battle-over-poached-professor-38443133.html
Posted by: a different James | August 28, 2019 at 19:13
This Eden Han person is not capable of independent thought and is likely a CCP sock puppet.
Possibly, I'll have to check, could be someone running for congress these days.
Posted by: Farnsworth M Muldoon | August 28, 2019 at 19:14
...thus I give you...
You dance this dance too well, and I denounce you.
...you've got problems university won't fix.
But seven years’ hard labor will.
I’m not joking. I’m not entirely joking.
Posted by: Squires | August 28, 2019 at 21:15
...Emma Vossen, a post doctoral fellow with a PhD in gender and games.
No.
Posted by: Squires | August 28, 2019 at 21:20
I’m not joking. I’m not entirely joking.
Sooner or later, everyone comes around to the idea of helicopters.
Posted by: Daniel Ream | August 28, 2019 at 22:55
But helicopters are just not cost effective, Mr Ream.
Why not harness their fear of rapidly rising sea levels and build them a real-life Ark B?
Posted by: Sam | August 29, 2019 at 14:34
I feel that anyone who uses "ouch" in such a way should be given a very good reason to say "ouch" right after.
Posted by: Mr. Saturn | August 29, 2019 at 17:16
Why not harness their fear of rapidly rising sea levels and build them a real-life Ark B?
I'm all for it. When I journey to Earth II I want to be confident that when I arrive there will be a sufficient number of kommissars.
Posted by: pst314 | August 29, 2019 at 23:04