Just before end of year, I attended a function where I chatted briefly with a gentleman of about my age - he told me he was a senior director of an engineering firm. With glass of wine in hand, he said to me "I just don't know where it will all end". When I asked him to clarify his remark, which seemed totally out of the blue on a festive occasion, he said "all this permissive culture stuff – I fear we're going to end with people just doing anything in the office – like shooting up drugs at their desks". I was so dumbfounded that it took a while to work out he was being serious. He was a significant employer and had an industry leadership role and he was genuinely worried that, as he saw it, the current emphasis on greater cultural and gender inclusivity was inexorably leading to a culture where anything goes. Where there was no self-control, no self-constraint and where norms of society would not be upheld. As he spoke further, I recognised that phrases he used were a derivation from previous news articles in the 1960's that had railed in similar tones against the "permissive" culture.
Afterwards, when I considered the conversation, I had the thought that he had been conflating "inclusive" with "permissive" and that the articles and news memes he digested were perhaps deliberately confusing these terms.
Let me explain my thinking: when libertarians promote an inclusive environment, his preferred news channels respond negatively to this "inclusivity" as an example of dangerous "permissiveness" – leading to a world where anything goes. In the dystopian fictional world of 1984, George Orwell foreshadowed Newspeak – a highly controlled language where reduction of terms to a specific intent helped to control thought and dissent in the population, for example by defining "freedom" as meaning only freedom from physical discomfort and not having any more subtle meaning about rights. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak
In the world of Newspeak, simplified language is in large measure created by conflating terms, leading to more polarisation and fostering an "either / or", with me / not with me, perspective that forces a binary choice which reduces the ability to hold a nuance of thoughts and choices. Conflating the terms "permissive" with "inclusive" is just one example where inclusive language has been belittled. The use of mocking and taunting language, on social media (often behind anonymity) shows that attempts at inclusive language has become "triggering" for some.
Loose (or deliberate) media conflation of the term "permissive" when we are actually talking about respectful "inclusive" attitudes to our work environments, societal relations, with broad scope for all viewpoints, ethnicities and gender, perpetrates a false narrative that inclusivity initiatives are encouraging a permissive culture where "anything goes".
Our choice of words matter . In his book "Politics and the English Language", George Orwell said: "…But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought." Orwell, George (17 June 1946). "Politics and the English Language". New Republic. Vol. 114, no. 24. pp. 872–874.
I hope you will join me in celebrating inclusivity for the positive attempt it means to be to avoid stigma, to embrace differences, and not allow it to be corrupted into a distracting niche of consignment of a world where "anything goes". Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences, and if this resonates for you then please share it with someone you care about.
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