“Give-It-a-Name,” but Don’t Name Us

In considering how this delusion has become so widespread, Feser goes on to look at the rhetorical tactics used by its advocates.  Here he explains the  “rhetorical tactic of subverting elements of normal human life precisely by labeling them in ways that make them seem open to challenge”:

In his book The Rediscovery of the Mind, philosopher John Searle characterized this latter tactic as “the give-it-a-name maneuver.”  Here is an example from philosophy to illustrate how it works.  Take some piece of common sense, such as the idea that we all have thoughts, desires, sensations, and other mental states.  This might seem too obviously true to call any special attention to, much less to doubt.  But contemporary materialist philosophers have given this piece of common sense the label “folk psychology” and characterized it as one possible “theory” alongside others (the idea being that it reflects the understanding of human psychology taken for granted by the common “folk,” but not necessarily the only possible understanding).  These materialists then go about the business of asking whether there is any reason to suppose that “folk psychology” is actually correct, whether there might be some other and better “theory” of human nature, and so on.  What they are really suggesting is that it might turn out that there are no such things as thoughts or minds.  But this sounds preposterous, so the discussion is usually conducted instead in terms of whether or not to accept the “theory” of “folk psychology.”  By way of this “give-it-a-name maneuver,” what would otherwise seem too obvious to question is thereby made to appear challengeable and even doubtful.

Wokeness often deploys the same tactic.  Take, for example, the commonsense supposition that there are two sexes, male and female, and that they exist so that men and women will mate and have children. By way of novel labels like “heteronormativity” and “cisgender,” what human beings have always known to be basic biological reality is made to appear challengeable and doubtful.  The tactic gives no logical reason whatsoever to doubt common sense, but rhetorically it can be very effective.

To say that sexual and family relationships between males and females is the normal state of affairs in nature and in society is to be guilty of “heteronormativity.”  That becomes an indictment, like a charge of racism or sexism, an accusation used to discredit those who think heterosexual is normal and to silence their arguments. (See how that plays out in the Wikipedia entry for Heteronormativity.)

Woke society requires people to state not just their pronouns but their gender.  “Cisgender,” or “Cis,” means identifying with the sex that you were born with.  That becomes simply one option among the alleged 72 genders, and probably the least interesting of them all.  (And if you think being “cis” is “normal,” you are guilty of cisnormativity.)

There are many others.  If your religion influences your political beliefs, you are a Christian Nationalist.  (Christian historian Philip Jenkins shows how ordinary Christian beliefs that are practically universal, even among liberal theologians–such as God’s being in control of events on earth–are packaged by pollsters who interpret them as evidence of Christian nationalism.)

If you believe that it’s good to have children, you are a natalist.  If you are conservative, you are a fascist.  (What are some other examples of the “give-it-a-name maneuver”?)

Conversely, though, as Feser says, “the woke have tried to prevent any labels being put on them, even as they attach novel labels to the various aspects of normal human life that they aim to subvert.”

People who are “woke” are now resisting the term–even though earlier it was embraced by the leftwing social justice movement–denying that there is such a thing and calling it nothing more than a right wing slur.   Similarly, when “critical race theory” became pervasive in our nation’s schools and parents started pushing back, some educational leaders denied that it was being taught, insisting that the term refers to a theoretical approach taught in law schools.  Said one, “It is taught, if at all, in law school — not high school.”  Now the woke are  objecting to terms like “transgenderism” and “gender theory.”

By not giving “woke” or its different applications a name, the implication is that this is just the way things are, not a particular ideology like heteronormativity.  By defining the term “critical race theory” narrowly and pedantically enough, its practitioners in high schools can say, as they do, that they are just teaching the truth about race in America.  We might call this strategy woke normativity.

 

Illustration by Oscar Peart, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons