Language manipulation

A few weeks ago we learned the news that Stanford University had published a brochure specifying a list of words that should not be used because they are harmful. The news caused a huge uproar, as one of the forbidden words is American, which should be replaced by US citizen. Also on the list, of course, is abortion, as well as many other commonly used terms. A word whose exclusion caused a lot of rejection was victim, which according to the authors of this monstrosity should be replaced by a person who has experienced or a person who has been impacted. Among those who reacted to this absurdity, some media highlighted Elon Musk’s contribution, who published the following tweet:

This has gone too far, to say the least! @Stanford, what’s your explanation for this madness?

where, by the way, one of the forbidden words appears: madness.

Behavior versus Behaviorism: Tabula Rasa and Gender Ideology

Konrad Lorenz
Nobel Foundation Archive

The theory that holds that we are a blank slate, on which someone (perhaps ourselves) should write our character and our behavior is quite old. It could go back at least to Aristotle’s theory of potentiality and actuality, according to which the human soul is born in a state of potentiality, like an unwritten tablet, and must become an actuality:

What [the intellect] thinks must be in it just as characters may be said to be on a writing tablet on which as yet nothing actually stands written: this is exactly what happens with mind. (On the Soul).

This idea was recovered by medieval philosophers such as Avicenna and Saint Thomas Aquinas, and later in the 17th century by John Locke in his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, where he replaced the term Tabula Rasa by White Paper:

For such who are careful... to principle children well... instill into the unwary, and as yet unprejudiced understanding, (for white paper receives any characters) those doctrines they would have them retain and profess.

And later he adds:

Suppose the mind to be, as we say, a white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas: How comes it to be furnished?

The origin of violence

Pitirim Sorokin

On the question of violence and evil in society there are three fundamental theories:

1. Every human being is a battlefield between good and evil and carries with him strong tendencies towards evil and violence. It is necessary to educate him in moral values, ​​to teach him to control his impulses.
2. Man is good by nature, society makes him bad. Education must try to keep us as much as possible in our original natural state, the good savage. This is the theory of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
3. Man is good by nature, everything bad is a consequence of a poorly focused education. The solution is education in the gender ideology, which is dominant today.

What does science say (in this case, Sociology)?

One of the most important sociologists of the 20th century, the Russian-American Pitirim Sorokin, wrote the following in his book Society, Culture and Personality (Chapter VI, Factors of Solidarity and Antagonism):

Ideology and contempt for science

The sentence against Socrates

In several previous articles I have warned about some of the dangers that are just now threatening the advancement of science, which has proceeded for over two centuries and a half. One of the most important is the dominance reached by certain ideologies with great political influence, that when their ideas are attacked on scientific grounds are oblivious to what science says, or just call it pseudoscience.

• It is a scientifically undisputed fact that the life of a human being begins at the fertilization of an egg by a spermatozoon. Despite what certain politicians and journalists say, there are no discussions on this issue in the scientific world. In a previous article I have summarized the scientific consensus, which has been unanimous for over a century and a half. Nevertheless, the proponents of a certain radical feminist ideology proclaim a right to abortion which in fact is the right to kill their children. If these abhorrent laws hold, it is due to the cowardice of the rulers, who do not dare to repeal it. The result is a step back in the defense of human rights. We are going back to the Middle Ages, when parents had the right of life and death over their children (this right is now granted to mothers). We are going back to slavery, when some human beings (the masters) had the right of life and death over others (the slaves). We are going back to the Roman Empire, when abortion and infanticide were legal until 24 hours after birth. Is this what they call progress? I would rather call it going backwards.