The struggle to gain control over language
First a piece of exciting news. My new book, The War Against The Past: Why The West Must Fight For History has just been published by Polity Press. I hope that you get a chance to check it out and read it because I would love to have a conversation with you about its key arguments. Below I reflect on one important dimension of the war against the past, which is the struggle to gain control over language.
The struggle to gain control over language
Language has become an important, if not the most important site of cultural conflict. Suddenly names and words that have been used for centuries are condemned as inappropriate, problematic and even offensive. In recent years society has come under constant pressure to cease using certain words and to adopt a vocabulary that seem to have come out of nowhere.
As I write, I read in the newspapers that the word Anglo-Saxon has become source of debate and conflict. In its wisdom the University of Nottingham, which hitherto offered courses in Anglo-Saxon history and literature has decided to cancel the word Anglos-Saxon. It has rebranded a masters course in Viking and Anglo-Saxon Studies as Viking and Early Medieval English Studies[i]. It has also renamed a programme titled ‘Research Methods in Viking and Anglo-Saxon Studies. The word Anglo-Saxon has been removed and replaced by the term ‘Early Medieval English’.
The University of Nottingham’s cancellation of the word Anglo-Saxon is presented as integral to its policy of decolonizing the curriculum. This institution asserts that the decision to abolish this word from the English vocabulary is essential for fighting what it calls ‘nationalist narratives’. The call to cancel this word is justified on the ground that it apparently has become a phrase used by racists to flout their white identity. And just in case you conclude that the word Anglo-Saxon is the only term that has gained the attention of the university censors, it was announced that academics are seeking to problematize the term ‘Viking’ as well.
It worth asking the question of who gets to decide what words can and cannot be used. Most people refer to the term Anglo-Saxon without the slightest hint that they are promoting a white identity or some form of racist nationalism. This is a term that has been in for centuries and for many people its use helps them to make sense of their nation’s history.
It is important to understand that the cancelling of words that have had an important meaning for people for centuries is not an issue that merely pertains to the use of language. Those academics and cultural entrepreneurs who wish to abolish a word also seek to alter the way we see the world. Take the attitude adopted by Cambridge University’s Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic (ASNC). It has undertaken to ‘dismantle the basis of myths of nationalism’ by asserting that the Anglos-Saxons were not a distinct ethnic group[ii]. In effect it has decided that its interpretation of the past entitles them to rid the English language of a word used by previous generations of historians to describe a people. Academics at Cambridge appear to believe that eradicating Anglo-Saxons from history is a small price to pay for ensuring that nationalism – including that of Britain - is discredited.
It is evident that what drives the department’s attempt to eliminate Anglo-Saxon origins has little to do with a new historical discovery about ancient roots in the past but with political ideology. Some academics at Cambridge University believe that anything that invalidates the nation’s identity is worthy of support. The objective of Cambridge’s suppression of the term is to ‘dismantle’ what it considers to be ‘the basis of myths of nationalism’ and invalidate the identities founded on it. However, whatever Cambridge thinks of the use of the term, from the 8th century onwards Anglo-Saxon was an integral part of Britain’s past. Inevitably the early medieval era saw the rise of numerous myths about the origins of communities and many of those myths remain part of Britain’s national stories. Myths are based on tradition and offer narrative for linking human experience to the past. To be sure there are numerous Anglo-Saxon myths but the existence of this people is not a myth.
It is worth pausing with and exploring the implication of this arcane project of eliminating the term Anglo-Saxon. The purpose of this project is not simply the cancellation of a word but the elimination of references to Anglo-Saxon people from history. Through this procedure the meaning of Britain’s past will be altered and once people become habituated to an Anglo-Saxon-free historical vocabulary than society’s memory will be altered. That is why the struggle to gain control over language has an important influence in the way that people remember the past.
It is likely that the cancelling of the word Anglo-Saxon will pass most people by. There are very few people who will feel directly its loss. about Unfortunately, this example of officious academic censorship is not an isolated case. Decolonisers want to get rid of the word Anglo-Saxon – trans-activists will not be satisfied until they can abolish words that are used to refer to traditional human relationships.
For example, words like female are targeted because they don’t fit into the worldview of trans ideology. A self-appointed language inspectorate continually warns people against using the word female to refer to women. ‘Stop calling women “females”, warns the headline of the Daily Nexus, the student newspaper of the University of Californian at Santa Barbara[iii]. In case you have doubts about the necessity for ceasing to use this term, BuzzFeed offers ‘6 Reasons You Should Stop Referring To Women as “Females” Right Now’[iv]. But before providing an explanation for excising the use of this word from the vocabulary of everyday life, the readers are told; ‘Simply put, it’s rude and it’s weird’! Most normal human beings who have used female and woman interchangeably throughout their lives would be surprised to discover that they had behaved rudely and weirdly. However, for the supporters of the crusade against traditional language abolishing the usage of the word female from everyday conversation is mandatory because apparently ‘not all women are biologically female’, whereas as when ‘you use “woman”, you include all people who identify as women’[v]. Merriam Webster Dictionary echoes this trans logic and reminds readers that ‘not everyone who was born female is a woman, and not every woman was born female’ [vi].
It appears that the reason why ‘female’ must go is because it does not fit in with the logic and outlook of transactivists. This very old Middle English word has been in constant usage since 15the century has according to the OED a self-evident meaning. It defines female as ‘Simply: a woman or girl’. The problem that trans activists have with female is as another definition offered by the OED, explained is that it refers to a ‘person of the sex that can bear offspring: a woman or a girl’[vii]. Since abolishing the traditional connection between women and the bearing of a child is one of the aims of trans activism the word female must give way to a gender-neutral one. A word, whose first recorded usage was around 1350, and was presumably used and made sense to people for centuries before can now be summarily dismissed as weird and rude by supposedly enlightened commentators
Through challenging traditional language usage, the meaning attached to it in the past is called into question and de-authorised. In this way the words and the attitudes they reflect is disparaged and condemned. The linguistic assault on the language of the past has important implication for how society perceives itself since as the philosopher John Locke explained ‘speech is the great bond that hold society together’. In his ‘An Essay Concerning Human Understanding’ (1689), Locke explained that it is through language that ‘knowledge is conveyed from man to man and down the generations’[viii]. The words we use have evolved through centuries – if not thousands of years – of practice and through their usage have helped people gain meaning about their place in the world. They have bound different generations together in a common language community. Locke was aware that the manipulation of language could constitute a serious problem. For that reason, he insisted that language should not be regarded as a form of private property. He wrote that ‘for words, especially of languages already framed, being no man's private possession, but the common measure of commerce and communication, 'tis not for any one, at pleasure, to change’ [ix]. From Locke’s standpoint language use is underpinned by a semantic and moral compact between members of civil society.
The words we use signals what values and attitudes society deems to be important. Language reflects the norms and beliefs that underpin culture which is why the Culture Wars are so intertwined with conflicts over words. Of course, language is always changing and so it should. But there is a fundamental difference between the spontaneous evolution of a community’s vocabulary, one that is organic to its experience and the external imposition of new words. The latter represents a political project designed to alter people’s view of the world. Unlike the spontaneous evolution of language which is organic to the experience of a community the new, politicised vocabulary relies on the artificial re-engineering of language.
Just remember that those who attempt to gain control of our language aim to control the way we think.
[i] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/31/anglo-saxon-cancelled-to-decolonise-university-courses/
[ii] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/03/anglo-saxons-arent-real-cambridge-student-fight-nationalism/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr
[iii] https://dailynexus.com/2021-07-24/stop-calling-women-females/
[iv][iv] https://www.buzzfeed.com/tracyclayton/stop-calling-women-females
[v] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-should-you-stop-referring-women-females-sacha-de-klerk/
[vi] https://www.google.com/search?q=Not+everyone+who+was+born+female+is+a+woman%2C+and+not+every+woman+was+born+female.&oq=Not+everyone+who+was+born+female+is+a+woman%2C+and+not+every+woman+was+born+female.&aqs=chrome..69i57.895j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
[vii] https://www-oed-com.chain.kent.ac.uk/view/Entry/69157?redirectedFrom=female#eid
[viii] An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/locke1690book3.pdf
[ix] https://jacklynch.net/Texts/locke-language.html
The book I'm using to teach myself Anglo-Saxon is the Cambridge Old English Reader, first published 2004, my edition 2021. The back cover says the book is "...sure to inspire...a fresh dedication to the work of understanding Anglo Saxon England."
I think english is a neutral word for the rad progs as, unlike Anglo-Saxon, it can be used cross racially; just like woman, unlike female, can be used cross biologically.
This is a globalisation of words that seems to mirror, in language, the breaking of physical boundaries; such as national borders through immigration. and cultural boundaries, such as that between minor and adult through the sexualisation of children.
Queerer and queerer, said Alice.
Jordan Peterson is implacably opposed to compelled speech which stance, so public did it become, resulted in him being ordered to attend re-education ("continuing education or remedial program regarding professionalism in public statements") by the College of Psychologists of Ontario, an order endorsed by the courts in Ontario.
Peterson is a high profile example, of course, but there are many people who have fallen foul of language policing, usually from a 'woke' employer, and this is likely to get worse under Labour who are bringing back the recording of "legal but harmful speech" by the police. We can suspect that the review of the education syllabus, the results of which are to be extended to academies and free schools like Michaela, will include indocrination on 'correct' language.
We are not yet at the level of Chinese re-education camps, merely disparate courses for recalcitrant employees, but when Labour does introduce them I'll see you all there!