If you’ve ever spent time debating an actual progressive you may have come across some unusual yet consistent narratives.
In postmodern ideology, a.k.a. progressivism or wokeism, the foundational notion is that nothing is real and everything is a “social construct” that we made up. There is not one thing, space, gravity, biology, or even math (as evidenced by the screenshot below) that cannot be made into a “social construct“.
According to progressives, we make everything up because we create the words that describe concepts.
So gravity exists because we made up the word gravity and applied the word gravity to the concept of not floating through the air. And we can change gravity at will by changing the word or definition of it. We could decide we’re not going to call gravity, “gravity” anymore. We could call it electricity. And we could expand the definition of electricity to include gravity.
Obviously, gravity will still exist. If we were to decide to stop using the word gravity that doesn't mean we can suddenly start to fly, we have just altered the language. And according to postmodernist thinking language has immense power, a power they wish to weld.
In this case, postmodernists will concede that gravity does exist, regardless of whatever we call it. But they simultaneously insist that it's a social construct because we have named it, and we can easily change it by changing the language used to describe it.
When you have this mindset, you can see how easy it is for postmodernists to feel empowered to change the definition of commonly held terms like man and woman. All humans, since the dawn of humanity have known the difference between men and women. While behaviors of the sexes may be influenced by culture, biological roles are determined by science and reproductive organs, not by our language or social customs.
But in the mind of a postmodernist, we can simply redefine the terms of men and women to allow the bizarre concept of “transgender’ to exist. We all know what men and women are. And we need terms to describe those with the male reproductive system and those with the female reproductive system.
If we are to redefine, not only man and woman but male and female, to be arbitrary and subjective and not describe male and female reproductive systems, all we have done is erase uniform and universal language to describe concepts that all human beings know. So now we need to create new words to describe these people because we must be able to accurately describe men and women.
So those under the capture of postmodern tyrants, we’ll develop new language to describe terms that everybody else in the world still knows. And because we’re no longer using normal universally understood terms all progressives have done is made it much harder to communicate. Which is of course the point.
When they control the language, they control the way we communicate. When they control the way we communicate, they control the way we think. When they control the way we think, they control the way we live. And when they control the way we live, they control us. So you see why it's so important for progressives to enforce what may seem to the masses as just childish silliness.
Changing language and redefining words and definitions of words does not create equality or inclusion as postmodernists claim. It just makes our world much harder to navigate, with those at the bottom of the societal hierarchy having the most difficulty.
But why would progressives do this? Why is there a need to manipulate language? Why do they desire to usurp so much power from the people?
The underlying theme of progressivism is that the world consists of two types of people, the oppressed and the oppressor. Postmodernists believe that all forms of normality, including the existence of men and women are “oppressive” and must be destroyed. Anything that is normal must be eradicated in order to “liberate” the oppressed.
Marriage, the nuclear family, the parent/child relationship, religion, heterosexuality, the white race, men and women, almost every norm all humanity has ever known is oppressive and must be dismantled to save the oppressed.
The oppressed consists of anyone who is not in the majority or outside the norms, Black and Brown people, the non-religious, Muslims, LGBT people, mentally ill, disabled, the list is endless. And oddly can include and exclude almost all humans based on their excessive list of every possible category imaginable.
When progressives say heterosexuality, or being a man/woman is oppressive and should be “dismantled” they are saying 90%+ of humanity must be dismantled, because most humans are heterosexual men and women. So getting all of humanity to change who they are and their way of life because rich liberal radical Americans said so is extremely unlikely.
This is where the use of manipulative language comes into play.
If we expand or change the definition of oppressed categories to include heterosexuals (queer), men and women (non-binary), or white people (neurodivergent, etc) we can artificially increase the oppressed and mitigate the oppressors.
This serves several purposes. It allows the evil oppressors to select a progressive label to become a protected group which also stands as a pledge of allegiance to the postmodern cult.
It allows progressives to feel as if they can actually control the masses and overturn our biological and evolutionary instincts, even if only linguistically.
And If progressives can successfully force millions to adopt their language and labels, they can alienate those who refuse them marking them as the enemy which will naturally increase their power. And if that happens postmodernists can likely achieve their goal of domination in a tyrannical state forcing all to accept their rule.
All this can be achieved by controlling the language.
George Orwell knew this well and spoke about it at great length. He said in 1984:
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.”
This is exactly what progressives are doing.
They believe they have the power to control our language, once they harness this they will then have the power to control us. And so far they are succeeding.
So when you are asked to use their language, say their pronouns, or recite their catechisms we must refrain. Our very way of life depends on it!
Rebecca Velo is a mom, wife, and political writer. She is the Opinion Editor for Wrong Speak Publishing and also writes for Substack. You can follow her on X.
Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
“Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
Voltaire
It's why I refuse to use pronouns for people. I won't give in and I will not lie.