25: Answers To Readers Questions

1: Fascist

Kind of the whole point of this sequence of articles was that words mean different things depending on who you are, where you are, and when you last had lunch with Zaphod Beeblebrox. We are now debating the definition of fascist. I wonder if everyone missed the point; or if in fact they exactly got it.

I agreed with Orwell that "fascist" is frequently nothing more than a term of abuse; but that we generally have a pretty good idea what kind of things the cuss-word could be applied to. I do slightly think that Gavin is more inclined than I would be to use it as a synonym for "bigotry" or "hatefulness". I would prefer definitions around populism, nostalgia, and the back-stab myth.

Some time ago a clip was circulating on the interwebs, possibly from the West Wing, in which three nice American politicians were asked why America was the greatest country in the world, and a liberal sounding chap said, more in sorrow than in anger, that America used to be the greatest country in the world, but due to things which unspecified people had done, it no longer was. The people who were forwarding it to me were largely liberals types, but it felt fascist-adjacent to me.

In practice, it means "Right wing person, and by the way, I think right wing things are generally bad."

Which brings us back to: 

2: Woke

Woke (1) A set of beliefs about how white, male, heterosexual 'Christians' structured language and social structures to make sure that white, male 'Christians" were always in charge.

Woke (2) The theory that wokeness (sense 1) is propagated by a malign entity with a malicious intent -- the Frankfurt Group, the Alien Space Lizards, the SJWs, the Jews etc.

Woke (3) i: Any text or action which shows black, female, gay, non-Christians in a good light 

ii: Any text or action which doesn't treat black, female, gay, non-Christians as a deviation from the norm 

iii: Any text or action which depicts or acknowledges the existence of black, female, gay, non-Christians unnecessarily 

iv: Any movie or comic book with black, gay, non-Christian people in it.

Some people sincerely believe that all instances of woke (sense 3) are caused by woke (sense 1): "The reason Disney made The Marvels is that they wanted to dismantle the white, straight, male, Christian hegemony".

Some people sincerely believe that all instances of woke (sense 3) are caused by woke (sense 2): "Russell T Davies cast Ncuti Gawa as Doctor Who because the BBC is communist and therefore wants to bring down western civilisation."

But very many people use the word in sense 3 without any clear ideas about senses 1 or 2: "woke" is simply the word they use to describe a TV show with a black actor in it or a book written by a gay author. "Apparently there was a gay character in the new Doctor Who. Sounds woke to me."

Andrew's "translation" exercise largely assumed that "woke" was being used in sense (3) ("anything which has a trans person in it or suggests that being trans is okay"). G's translation effectively stone-manned Musk by showing how a sophisticated reading of woke in sense (1) could plausibly lead to some of his conclusions (you could conceivably think that a belief in structural inequality will result in the extermination of the human species.)

Andrew acknowledges that he focussed entirely on the anti-trans element. It would have been better if he had focussed on the racial definition ("If we do not prevent people from thinking that white people have advantages over black people, we will never travel to Mars") or on inequality in general ("Unless people stop looking at the various ways in which society is set up to give certain groups advantages over others, humans will become extinct.") or even economically ("The only important thing is to prevent people believing that resources should be shared out fairly.") He may in fact re-write the passage to reflect this. But G's extensive mini-essays went rather beyond what Andrew's "translations" were intended to be doing.

3: Translation

G correctly spots that Andrew was riffing on the end of Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet in which the Christian philologist has to translate Wellsian philosophy into the language of the angels, so "Life is greater than any system of morality; her claims are absolute" comes out as "Living creatures are stronger than the question of whether an act is bent or good...it is better to be alive and bent than dead..." Translation was a thing Lewis was interested in, of course. He saw his job as a Christian writer as translating difficult theological ideas into the language of ordinary people, and has some interesting things to say about how ordinary language differs from that of the academic. ("I do not say that this woman is immoral but I do say that she is a thief" means "She is chaste but dishonest.")

Let's consider a couple of examples.

"He had a strict Calvinist upbringing."

Literal gloss: "His parents were disciples of the sixteenth century Swiss theologian, John Calvin."

Idiomatic gloss: "His parents were devout Christians who believed that God rewards hard work and punishes laziness (and by the way, they were probably Scottish.)"

Explanatory gloss: "Until the 1500s, most Christians believed that you went to heaven by regularly saying sorry for your bad deeds and paying for them with charitable giving or self-imposed punishments, but a Swiss priest started to teach that God knew in advance who was going to heaven. When these ideas spread to Scotland, they gave rise to a culture which was often perceived as joyless, austere and unkind to children..."

"Jeremy Corbyn supports free wi-fi because he is a Trot."

Literal Gloss: "Jeremy Corbyn believes the state should supply free internet access because he is a supporter of the Russian revolutionary, Leon Trotsky."

Idiomatic Gloss: "Jeremy Corbyn believes that the world should consist of single state in which the government owns all the wealth and shares it among the people: this explains why he thinks internet access should be free." 

This would lead to absurd conclusions: "Support for free wi-fi is evidence of support for world-wide communist revolution", "Worldwide communist revolution is undesirable; therefore there must always be a charge for internet use." But in fact, it is clear that "Trot" is being used, not to refer to Trotsky or Trotskyitism, but as a swearword meaning "left-wing", so the accurate translation would be: 

"Jeremy Corbyn's belief in free wi fi is left wing, and therefore bad."

or, if we have to gloss "left wing"

"Excessive sharing of resources is bad; providing citizens with free wi fi would involve the excessive sharing of resources; therefore providing citizens with free wi-fi would be bad."

An explanatory gloss would go on for pages, and go far beyond what I was aiming at in the translation exercise. I'll have a go if you like:

"Trotsky believed in world communist revolution; Lenin and his successors that it could be achieved in the Soviet Union alone. The British Labour Party was an alliance between Trades Unionists, Marxists and Social Democrats. British Marxists who supported Russian and Marxist-Leninism tended to join the British Communist Party; the ones who resigned from Party in 1956 and joined Labour were largely Trotskyites. They were far to the left politically of the Trades Unions and the Social Democrats, so members of the Labour party who were not Marxists tended to use Trotskyite descriptively, and then as a term of abuse. By 2020, "Trot" was simply a word used to denote a left wing party member who the speaker disapproved of. Moderates in the Labour Party felt that Jeremy Corbyn was too left wing, and therefore denoted him as a Trot: the free internet access plan was one example of his supposedly excessive left-wing thinking." 

4: Virus

If someone says that "The drugs trade is Satanic" they might mean different things --

A: "Drugs are very, very, very, very bad"

B: "Drugs are very bad and I believe that bad things are ultimately caused by a malign spiritual power"

C: "Drugs are very bad, and I believe that the perpetrators of this particular bad thing are under the direct control of a malign spiritual force, and that prayer and exorcism could form part of their rehabilitation"

D: "I believe that the big boss of the cartel selling weed in Brixton literally has cloven hooves, a tail and smells of sulphur."

(I understand that when members of the Republican Party say that Hillary Clinton is Satanic, some of them at least are using the term in sense D!)

If your local vicar says the drug trade is Satanic, there is very little point in pretending that you think he is talking in sense D ("No, I've met one of the local dealers and he is definitely a normal human, albeit not a very nice one") when he was obviously using the word in sense A (that he disapproves of drugs very strongly indeed.) 

We have accepted, I think, that Political Correctness sometimes means "A Jewish (cultural Marxist) conspiracy to destroy the West" but very frequently only means "the prevailing orthodoxy". Woke sometimes means "A Jewish (cultural Marxist) conspiracy to destroy the West" but very frequently only means "liberal beliefs" or "beliefs the speaker thinks are too left wing."

Another Christian writer once told C.S Lewis that it was the job of Christian literary critics to reveal the false values underlying much contemporary literature. Lewis asked if that meant "to reveal what the values underlying contemporary literature in fact are (and, by the way, as a Christian, I personally believe those values are false)" or if it meant "to reveal the falsity of the values." Lewis approved the first and disapproved the second, because he felt that critics were experts in showing underlying assumptions in literature, but only amateurs in talking about which values were good and which values were bad.

I have said that Political Correctness may mean nothing more than "prevailing orthodoxy". Similarly, Mind Virus might mean no more than "widespread and prevalent idea". And Woke may mean no more than "liberal ideas {which incidentally I think are bad}". But this creates a problem for the translator. Does "the woke mind virus will destroy civilisation" mean "liberal ideas {which, by the way, are very prevalent} will destroy civilisation". Or does it mean "the widespreadness and prevalence of liberal ideas will destroy civilisation". Or even "any widespread and prevalent idea will destroy civilisation, and at present, liberal ideas happen to be the widespread ones."

Hence:

“The woke mind virus has thoroughly penetrated entertainment and is pushing civilization towards suicide.”

Many people who make movies have liberal ideas -- which are very widespread and prevalent at present -- and because of this, everyone in the world is likely to kill themselves."

or

Many people who make movies follow the most widespread and prevalent ideas (which, at the moment, are liberal ones) and as a result, everyone in the world is likely to kill themselves.

“That the mind virus is pushing humanity towards extinction is not hyperbole.”

It would be no exaggeration to say that liberal ideas (which are, at the moment, widespread and prevalent) are likely to result in everyone in the whole world dying.

OR

It would be no exaggeration to say that the widespread prevalence of a particular idea (in this case, liberal ones) are likely to result in everyone in the whole world dying.

“The woke mind virus is either defeated or nothing else matters”

The only thing of importance is that liberal ideas are shown to be wrong, even though they are prevalent and widespread at present.

OR

The only thing of importance is that liberal ideas cease to be prevalent and widespread.

“Unless the woke mind virus, which is fundamentally anti-science, anti-merit, and anti-human in general, is stopped, civilization will never become multi-planetary.”

If you have liberal ideas, then you probably believe that humans can't learn about the world through objective and systematic study, or that even if they can, they shouldn't. If you have liberal ideas, you probably don't think that the cleverest and most talented people should have the most money; you may even think that it's bad to be talented and clever. If you have liberal ideas, you probably don't like people at all and would rather they become extinct. As long as liberal ideas are widespread and prevalent, no-one will ever send a spaceship to Mars.

OR

When a particular idea becomes widespread and prevalent, it becomes impossible to learn about the world through systematic and objective study. When a particular idea becomes widespread and prevalent, the cleverest and most talented people are not given the most money, and perhaps there will be no clever or talented people at all. When a particular idea becomes widespread and prevalent, ??human beings start dying ??there is a risk of human extinction ??it is bad for people in general. If this happens we will never send spaceships to Mars. At the moment, the idea which is widespread and prevalent is liberalism, so we need to talk about conservative ideas instead.

5: Other Things I Learned From This Exercise

Abstract terms like "the human race"; "humanity" and "civilisation" are almost impossible to turn into meaningful concrete ones: once you replace them with "everybody" or "people" you turn out to to be talking nonsense.

"Society" has a meaning in terms of "what sociologists study": the way-that-people-behave-in-groups. You might, of course, think that human beings don't behave in any particular way in groups, and sociology is therefore snake-oil. 

C.S Lewis said he didn't like the term "society", but noted that it mostly just meant "all of us". But when Mrs Thatcher famously said "there is no such thing as society" she didn't, presumably, mean that groups of people didn't exist or that groups of people didn't behave in particular ways and she certainly didn't think that "there is no such thing as all of us." What she was reacting against was the idea of Society as a thing with agency.

"Society is to blame for crime" can easily be translated into statements which are not actually nonsensical although Mrs Thatcher presumably disagreed with them. ("Everyone is to blame for crime, not just the people who actually commit it." "If everyone behaved differently, there would be less crime".) I can't come up with sensible glosses for words like "humanity" and "civilisation" which don't lead to absurd conclusions. 

I think it was Simon Hoggart who said that you should test an advertising or political slogan by asking what the opposite would be. ("It's a pedestrians car: so push it" was a memorable example.)

Woke and Virus equivocate around concepts of agency and intention. Does "the woke mind virus is anti-science" mean "one of the beliefs of people who identify as woke is that science is a bad thing" or "as a matter of fact the belief in woke ideas will have negative consequences for scientific research" or even "people who identify as woke believe in things which cannot be scientifically proven." Does "eradicating the woke mind virus" mean "eradicating all liberal ideas"; or "making liberal ideas less widespread"; or, indeed "killing all the liberals."

I think that when an evangelical clergyman says that the drug trade is satanic, he does in fact have a picture in his head of a fiery, fallen angel directly manipulating criminals to do bad things; but that if challenged, he would readily admit that that picture is a metaphor or a myth, and he really means that crime is sinful and sin is in the long run the result of Satan's power. But the fact that he thinks in terms of that metaphor probably influences the ways in which he thinks the problem might be solved (e.g that exploitation is an inevitable result of fallen human nature and therefore insoluble, as opposed to the result of temporary and alterable social conditions.) Unless, of course, "Satanic" turns out merely to be his word for poor housing, inadequate mental health provision, under-resource education etc etc etc in which case the metaphor is completely empty and the clergyman can probably get a column in the Guardian.

Similarly, it may be that some people who talk about the Woke Mind Virus are perfectly aware that they are using a figure of speech. But the fact that they have chosen that figure of speech is significant; and it will affect how they act. 

There is also the question of how "my daughter believes that some people's gender identity is different from their physical sex at birth, and that she is one of those people" and "my daughter believes that we should share out money and resources more equally and not concentrate them in the hands of a super-rich minority" or even "my daughter believes that all rich people are evil" are in any way iterations of the same thing. You might as well say "Andrew is infected with the liking-folk-music-and-anchovies virus" or "Since he took up jogging, Trevor believes we should defund the police."

This post forms part of an extended essay. 
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