An Elephant of One's Own

  I’m writing this partly in response to Kit Wilson’s article  in Areo on The Woke Left’s Self-contradictory Ideas about Language , and partly just to air a few ideas of my own. I would welcome feedback from the author himself, if he has time and inclination, but also from anyone who has an opinion on the topics alluded to, in particular the problem of language policing. While I agree with Wilson that the “woke” views he describes are clearly self-contradictory and self-defeating, I find the alternative outlook he puts forward to be, if not self-contradictory, at least naïve, simplistic and unhelpful. I suspect I may be misreading him, and would be glad of correction if so: but even if I am, I think the simplistic view of language that I perhaps mistakenly read into his comments deserves to be opposed on the basis it is far too often held up as a banner, especially by respectable conservative commentators who ought to know better. In summary, the author attributes to “th...