WP: Alt-Right’s Nazi-Like "Strategy Is to Control Discourse" (Project Much?)

Steve Sailer

04/11/2017

From the Washington Post:

The coded language of the alt-right is helping to power its rise

By Steven Petrow, Columnist, Civilities April 10 at 9:00 AM

Steven Petrow, the author of “Steven Petrow’s Complete Gay & Lesbian Manners,” addresses questions about LGBT and straight etiquette in his column, Civilities. Follow @StevenPetrow

I’ve always said that I appreciate all my readers, both those who agree with me and those who don’t. But lately I’ve been puzzled by the new slurs directed at me by some of the latter. Many I didn’t even understand, so I did some digging.

… I heard from many readers about that column, which took Yiannopoulos to task for his incendiary language. But one email caught my eye: “Milo is far less bigoted, misogynist, and hateful than those of you sick sociopathic and psychotic SJW’s who smear him so desperately.” Sick, sociopathic and psychotic, I knew. But SJW? I had no clue. In a personal ad it might mean “straight Jewish woman,” but two of those don’t apply to me. So what was this snarky new gem of an insult?

I emailed back, “What is an SJW?” The reply: “An SJW is a social justice warrior. In the press, this particular public predator tends to be big on PC [political correctness] virtue signaling but happy to smear others viciously with false accusations of sexism, racism, white nationalism, hate speech, etc.”

… I started looking into other slurs readers hurled at me. There was “libtard,” and one I really liked at first — “snowflake,” because they’re magical, in moderation.

But here’s the nasty undercurrent: These new words are intrinsic to the alt-right’s rise, according to Lakoff. He connects this to the Nazis and the coded language (prime example: “the master race”) that eventually allowed them to topple governmental institutions. “The strategy is to control discourse,” Lakoff points out. “One way you do that is preemptive name calling … based on a moral hierarchy.”

… Lakoff emphasized that this is different from the Democrats’ labeling some conservatives racist, sexist or homophobic — which they do — if only because that usage is not as “canny” or strategic.

… With that in mind, here’s a short primer on some of the alt-right coded language making the rounds:

● Snowflake. This is no compliment, even if you like to think that you’re one of a kind. At best, it’s a derisive term for someone considered entitled, which to those using it includes people of color, LGBT folks, students — even Meryl Streep for her pro-kindness stance at the Golden Globes. Sarah McBride of the Human Rights Campaign told me that it’s often used against LGBT people in reference “to pronoun usage, particularly nonbinary pronoun use, and the efforts on college campuses to be more aware and affirming of people’s pronouns.” Used in a sentence, via Urban Dictionary: “Hey snowflake, Trump won, deal with it.” With one word you’re dismissed as weak, feminine, juvenile — a loser. …

● Masculinist. I’m an out and proud feminist, but I’d never heard of “masculinist.” According to Merriam-Webster, it’s “an advocate of male superiority or dominance” and is often used to promote traditional gender roles. The Oxford Dictionaries use it this way, in reference to the 1990s: “The newly unified German parliament replicated the same masculinist pattern, celebrating its debut with less than 10 percent women representatives.” That’s the same as in pre-World War II Germany — and there’s that Nazi thing again.

By the way, I wonder if it ever occurs to Jeff Bezos as he’s reading his Washington Post:

You know, I’m Jeff Bezos.

I could afford better columnists than this.

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