If there are two politically-correct Newspeak terms that I have grown to love and loathe in equal measure, they are "normalise" and "weaponise."
These two weaponised words, which have been normalised through frequent use, never fail to bring a wry smile to my face, as they enter a sentence, coated in Leftist mind-control slime.
The fact that there are such words, which are literally designed to shut down sensible consideration and predetermine conclusions, is one of the greatest absurdities of the universe.
"Normalise" is another way for a Leftist to say that some perfectly normal thing connected to you is "evil," regardless of its merits which now no longer need to be discussed, while also implying that the fact that you ignored its normalisation is proof that you too are evil. Here's a typical weasel-worded article from the BBC showing how it is used. For some reason the President of the United States is mentioned:
“My campaign is not going to let Donald Trump try to normalise himself,” vowed Hilary Clinton, Trump's Democratic opponent in the US presidential race, during her election campaign. There were particular concerns around his comments about women, for instance – with fears that it would lead to a greater acceptance of misogyny.
But after his election victory, it was the media that was accused of making these behaviours appear normal. A writer for the New York Times said that, on the day of the election result, “all around were the unmistakable signs of normalisation in progress...”
Oh my god, run for the hills—a tsunami of normalisation is about to hit!
"Misogyny," as used above, is of course another weaselly, PC, mind-control word that damns without discussion an unspecified attitude to women, regardless of whether it has objective merit or not.
The BBC article even tries to get technical about the N-word:
Adam Bear and Joshua Knobe of Yale University, who have studied normalisation, wrote recently in the New York Times that people tend to blur what is 'desirable' and what is average into a “single undifferentiated judgment of normality”. They argued that, as Trump “continues to do things that once would have been regarded as outlandish,” these actions are not only being seen as more typical – but also more normal. Our perception of normal doesn’t separate the normal from the ideal. So, as Trump becomes more familiar, he becomes more acceptable to those who initially disapproved of his actions.
But this is not technical in the way that a machine is technical, as it is full of blob-like, furry, and nebulous terms that have not—and will not—be defined, such as 'desirable,' 'typical,' and 'ideal.' Take my word for it, what is 'desirable' 'typical,' and 'ideal' tends to vary from one person to another with all the consistency of a yoyo.
But what are they attacking Trump for here? A bit of locker room banter that almost any man of Trump's alpha-ness has engaged in. Spelling that out and placing it in context would expose the absurdity of it all, so best to just use Leftist language with its unthinking, in-built conclusions.
As we see in the example above, the implication is that Trump was making "extreme" views and attitudes "normal" by expressing them. But this is exactly what the Left does all the time—a perfect example of the truism SJWs always project. In fact only the Left is truly capable of normalisation because only the Left has a limitless supply of extreme and abnormal positions that need to be normalised. Although when they do it, it's usually called something more upbeat, like 'liberation" or "progress."
The Left has now become so proficient at this process that it is even in danger of lapping itself. Go two or three decades back in the career of any major Leftist politician of a certain age to find just what a total "racist" or "homophobic" bigot they were.
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Skillfully used it can either mean: "This is something we can push to attack and invalidate our opponents, so let's go for it;" or "It's unfair to bring that up. You are just using that fact/ situation/ issue as a weapon to attack us with."
In both uses of the word the meaning is essentially the same, that is, something is being stretched beyond its natural boundaries or legitimate use. Whether it's good or bad is purely a case of Who/Whom.
This can be seen in one of the best known examples of recent years, when then Labour Party leader David Milliband, taking about the National Health Service, used the term "weaponise" in a positive sense to a BBC journalist, but was then attacked by his political opponent, Prime Minister David Cameron, who used the term in its negative sense:
Ed Miliband has been forced on to the defensive over the NHS after he was accused by David Cameron of telling the BBC he would seek to “weaponise” the health service for political purposes during the general election campaign.
Labour, which has placed intense pressure on the government in recent days over what one Cabinet Office minister described as a crisis in the NHS, declined to deny that Miliband had likened his tactics to a military campaign.
The prime minister accused Miliband of making a “disgusting” claim to the BBC’s political editor, Nick Robinson, that he would seek to weaponise the NHS. Weaponising describes the process in which a missile is armed with an explosive warhead.
Conservative campaign headquarters tweeted a link to BBC television footage in which Robinson said: “The [phrase] the leader uses in private is that he wants to – and I quote – ‘weaponise’ the NHS for politics.”
How absolutely shocking! Using something as sacred to modern British society and identity as the NHS in this way is tantamount to smashing someone over the head with the Mona Lisa or garroting them with the Turin Shroud!
Well, at least the above example proves that the BBC and the Labour Party are part of the same in-group.
Now, returning to normalisation, the idea that the Right has normalised or can normalise anything is highly questionable, as I mentioned above. All that the Right is capable of doing on a good day is de-normalising something abnormal that has been -- or is being -- normalised.
Back in the 1970s there was clearly a big push to normalise sexual relations between children and middle class adults by the Left. In some European countries it even appeared to have some success. But in the Anglosphere we were made of sterner stuff and the paedos were sent scuttling back to their boltholes, as the moralistic urge, which the Right was afraid to deploy against the gay brigade, found an outlet against the paedos.
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| 1970s Britain, poised for "pedophilia acceptance" but something went right. |
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Viewed more dispassionately, this phenomenon of normalisation goes back much further than the Left-Right division and does not always have to have an overtly political hue. Societies that undergo drastic changes of one kind or another may have to 'normalise' the new status quo in some way merely for the greater harmony of society.
A good example of this kind of normalisation is enshrined in the children's toy known as the golliwog—now rebranded as the Golly.
In the present-day Leftist-dominated cultural discourse, this is presented as a symbol of "racism" on a par with the burning cross or swastika. Here is a typical pseudo-impartial news report, where there are only two positions, either being concerned that people are upset or being a heartless, racist bigot. Also note who gets the last word:
A prominent Australian toy wholesaler says it is likely to discontinue supply of one of its most controversial dolls – the golliwog.
Golliwogs have continued to be sold in Australian shops despite them being widely seen as offensive in other western countries.
National sales manager for soft toy wholesaler Elka, Jan Johnco, said while the black-faced, red lipped dolls are an “innocent toy”, golliwogs offend people because they “don’t want to hear the truth about them”...
The Royal Adelaide Show last year was forced to apologise after complaints were received over the golliwog entries in the handicraft competition...
One regional NSW newsagent who spoke on the condition of anonymity has a large golliwog display in his shop window, but he worries increased attention could lead to vigilante action against his store.
“I could end up with a brick through the window by an idiot,” he said.
The retailer maintains that while one person a month walks into his shop to complain about the storefront, he sells up to five golliwogs a week.
“A lot of the people that buy them are elderly people because they remember them at their time. That’s what their mothers and grandmothers used to knit them.”
He believes people who rally against their sale are trying to alter Australia’s past.
While Ms Johnco and the newsagent trace the origin of golliwogs to being a toy for...children, for Aboriginal actress Shari Sebbens they represent something less innocent.
Sebbens, the star of Redfern Now and The Sapphires notes that whilst some elderly white Australians have fond memories of the dolls, for many older Indigenous people golliwogs make them feel dehumanised.
“It’s really naive to assume that we’re not smart enough to assume the racial connotations behind those dolls,” she said, noting their association with “creepy” minstrel shows.
“It infantilises us; people of colour. It’s a mockery,” she told Yahoo News Australia.
But if the golliwog is what Sebbens says it is, what are we then to make of the teddy bear, a children's doll of a similar vintage that presents an equally unrealistic and "infantilising" image of its subject? Is that also a form of "hate speech," possibly speciesism?
As revealed by the obvious affection for the golliwog reported by the newsagent, the truth is that the doll has in fact been a potent normalisation device—one that has actually helped to push Western societies in a direction favoured by the Left and their globalist masters.
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| Illustration for the first Golliwog book. Pure 100% genocidal race hate? |
As most Blacks were former slaves or from societies that were still more of less in the Stone Age, this presented an enormous PR problem. By presenting Blacks as comical but likeable figures to impressionable children, the golliwog played a massive part in defusing naturally occurring contempt and hostility from Whites, and acclimatized their societies to accept the existence and even the intermingling of Black people.
Throughout history such rapid demographic change or drastic shifts in the relationship between racial groups has been productive of great tensions and violence. The golliwog and its associated cultural tropes of cheerful and deferential Black servants and entertainers were part of a socio-cultural process that managed that change—whether you think it was for the best or not—with less opposition, violence, and immediate unpleasantness.
The fact that the golliwog is now seen as somehow "derogatory" is merely a testament to the vast change in the status of Black people that it helped to bring about. For Blacks to call out the golliwog as an example of "racism" and "hatred" is therefore analogous to a former pauper despising a charitable benefactor because his kindly face reminds him of his former misery.
This next bit may sound a little tasteless, but stick with the point: Maybe, just maybe, if Jews in Weimar Germany or Tsarist Russia had had a cute cultural avatar on a par with the golliwog—the "golemwog" perhaps—they could have navigated the intergroup rivalry of their situations with less friction and disarmed their later persecutors.
But no, despite the fact that the golliwog played a vital role in normalising Blackness in formerly White or segregated societies, the Left is not going to cut the little fellow any slack.
The mere fact that there was a normalisation process in which Whites were encouraged to change their natural views of another group in a more charitable and tolerant direction is itself something that the Left can weaponise to resume and deepen its never-ending attack on White people.
Damn White people and their....
*shuffles deck, picks card*
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