No One Cares About Your Pronoun

Gay rights activists (I can't bring myself to keep using LGBTIA+) wish everyone would stop assuming someone's preferred pronoun. If you look like a man, but you identify as female, people are supposedly erasing your identity by using male pronouns. If a person who looks female identifies as gender non-binary, ze wants you to use gender neutral pronouns. Symbols are sometimes important, but only sometimes.

This is utter bullshit for at least two reasons. Firstly, only a tiny percent of the population identifies as something other than male or female, their birth gender. How many? No one knows. 

We all know that, as adults, we are largely responsible for managing our own emotions. Even if you are deliberately insulted, by being called a 'faggot' or a 'nigger' you are still responsible for your reaction. The judge might go easy on you for beating up the troglodyte who insulted you, but there will still be legal consequences. Having to put up with the "wrong" pronoun is not even close to the same level of offense. 

Yet, this is not the issue. The issue is whether using male pronouns for Joe is truly trying to quash, suppress, negate, or de-legitimize Joe's existence as a gender non-binary person. It isn't; it is assuming that at least 99% of people who look like men are OK with male pronouns. Whether Joe prefers 'ze' to male pronouns is a trivial matter. Joe needs to be responsible for managing his own feelings about hearing conventional words that he does not feel apply to him.

Getting people to give up gendered pronouns is going to take a very long time. And for what benefit really? How does anyone know this would make society more accepting of non-heterosexual persons? Maybe it will. If this is your position, you must be able to defend it. Calling the rest of us homophobic, or saying we are OK with throwing genderqueer people "under the bus" is just a way to cut off real discussion.

So, we are all responsible for managing our own feelings. Sensible people also (mostly) agree that society should have rules to protect people from outright oppression and discrimination. Those rules do give gay people some protections. The law in some US states and many EU nations does recognize gay marriage. Is there room for progress? Yes.

Changing Pronoun Use is Hopeless:

But, how to make progress? Is pushing for gender-neutral pronouns a good idea? Is encouraging everyone to find out what pronoun someone prefers a good idea? I doubt that even most gay people and trans people (who are trying to pass as their biological gender) would care.

I can read some minds now. So, what is your evidence that this evolution in pronoun use will make anything better for non-heterosexual people? That wasn't a rhetorical question. The only way I know to change attitudes is to really talk to people and address their concerns about gay and trans people one-on-one. Being sensitive to homophobia and transphobia isn't going to encourage Joe to check his pronoun use.

Advertising might help, some. Celebrity advertising is probably completely useless. How many of us really care about what movie stars think about social issues? And what if Matt Damon disagrees with you about how being gay is OK? Will you have a conversion experience and immediately go out to try and make gay friends? 

Practical Action is the Key:

If you care about the rights of people who are not heterosexual, that's great. If you want to actually do something for them, that is even better. There is effectively no chance that gender-neutral pronouns will replace gendered pronouns.

Sticking with practical matters like getting gay marriage legalized in your state would be a better project to work on. You might be able to win a real victory against homophobic laws, regulations, or customs by using things like boycotts and petitions. Those activities are a better use of your time, really. Leave the symbolism to people who have more free time. 

Fighting Social Pollution by Teaching Mental Hygiene

What do Brietbart, Stormfront, Joe Mercola, and the Food Babe all have in common? Their sites are sources of social pollution. This is my own label for irrational, illogical, and counter factual thinking, you know, the stuff that critical thinking is supposed to help us resist. Defense against social pollution boils down to a combination of critical thinking and public education campaigns against propaganda and nonsense.

What is Social Pollution:

An opinion you don't like is not a form of social pollution. It has to go deeper than mere disagreement. It the opinion is illogical or contradicts known facts, then it probably counts. If that opinion would undermine widely-held values or human rights then it most definitely counts as social pollution. 

How Pollution Starts and Spreads:

Social pollution comes from all parts of the social environment. As faith leaders, politicians, culture critics, documentary film makers and activists provide us with good information, they also feed us illogical and irrational ideas and opinions. Add to this the natural biases we all have in thinking and evaluating evidence, and you have the potential for trouble.  

Conventional advertisers are part of the problem, but only part. Will that sports car really make you more appealing to the ladies? Will a crystal on a chain really balance your energies? Advertisers know how to play with our emotions and perceptions to make their products or services appeal to people. They are only a small part of the problem, except in a couple of cases. 

1. Advertisements for scam products and services - Can you really get rich buying foreclosed properties? No. Will a nutritional supplement sold on late night television really slow the aging process? No. 

2. Political advertising - Many advertisements dealing with politicians, social problems and laws use traditional advertising tactics and outright lies to move viewers to action. 

The abuse of fact and logic illustrates what social pollution is, and what it leads to - opinions, behaviors, a worldview divorced from reality that have real effects on peoples' lives. 

Individual and Social Causes:

Social pollution spreads because both society and the human mind help. This is a subject for a book, but in brief, several elements of modern society and of the human mind make it easy for social pollution to spread.

Our Unreliable Minds - Everyone is prone to cognitive biases, errors in thinking, that cannot be overcome by education or by intelligence either. Modern societies spawn people with an interest in selling lies and nonsense. Some of those individuals have political or religious motives, while others only care about the money. Either way, they are selling ideas that do not benefit the individual who hears them.

People Selling Fear/Division/Disorder - There is a special type of propaganda peddler, called an availability entrepreneur, who makes sure we have plenty of biased information on whatever threat or problem or crisis they want to promote. Those issues may indeed be serious ones, but the availability entrepreneur only cares about advancing their own worldview and making money. 

Fighting Back Against Social Pollution:

This fight has two fronts - each individual's mind, and the social environment - that need to be attacked in different ways. Defending one's mind begins with learning to evaluate arguments and evidence. Better education is the best defense. Lesson plans and public education campaigns need to target specific issues, to prevent the resulting programs and policies from becoming contaminated with patent nonsense.

An educated mind is the best defense for the individual. Being smart or having common sense helps, but is not enough. Having a properly trained mind means having training in: 

• Critical thinking, 
• The use and abuse of statistics, and
• The fundamentals of logic.

Social pollution is a social problem that can be fought through advocacy and public education efforts. Many such efforts exist now, to address a range of problems:

• climate change denial
• promotion of young-earth creationism and Intelligent Design
• vaccine hysteria 

​More needs to be done, of course. The world needs campaigns against other forms of social pollution, some with a more-direct impact on daily life. Myths about violent crime come to mind. 

There needs to be a Social Pollution Prevention Initiative. At the very least, we can re-brand critical thinking as Social Pollution Prevention and use exercises related to social and environmental issues. There needs to be wider awareness of sites like the National Center for Science Education and TalkOrigins, to stick with natural sciences.