Just when you thought 'diversity' couldn't be dumber

I’ve been pretty clear how I feel about “diversity” efforts like DEI. Yet DEI isn’t the totality of diversity efforts. There are other things that exist outside of that particular framework that are equally as stupid. Upgrade to paid But, on the plus side, it seems the European Union has managed to solve the problems of the continent, including the war in Ukraine. I mean, if they didn’t, why else are the worried about this nonsense. The European Union has just run crosswise with Captain James T. Kirk, and by any measure the Captain is right to blast Europe’s left-wing, nanny state, cancel culture, loons for their latest “diversity” move. This week, news broke that the EU — which apparently stands for Entirely Useless — is looking to make the world safe from evil “gendered” words, like man, male, guys, and anything testosterone related, The Telegraph reported. This impinges directly on one of Captain Kirk’s most famous lines, the one that serves as the opening monologue to the famed 1966 series, “Star Trek.” TV viewers and sci fi fans everywhere will recall that the iconic TV series starts out with views of the Starship Enterprise zooming across the screen as Captain Kirk intones “Space, the final frontier,” and ends his soliloquy with “to boldly go where no man has gone before.” But the EU is suddenly all shook up over that evil word “man” and is now sending out its royal edict that the word should henceforth be banned from use. Now, William Shatner had a wonderful takedown that’s posted at that link. I invite you to go and enjoy it for yourself. What gets me, though, is that in this context “man” is short for “mankind,” which means all of humanity, not just the male half. Let’s remember that Star Trek has women in key roles, including a black woman as a bridge officer, at a time when that would have been unthinkable elsewhere. But no, we really need to trip over ourselves to remove a classic line because some wastrel of a human being might get offended because of the word “man.” Shatner refers to this as “presentism,” basically using the current morals of today and expecting the past to be twisted to conform to them. It’s as good of a term as any. The irony, though, is that Star Trek was as progressive and diverse a television show as was really even possible at the time. It featured storylines highlighting the stupidity of racism, played host to the first interracial kiss on television, and portrayed a lot of other ideas that were anything but conservative for their time. Only, it was a creature of its time, and that’s fine. It’s good to know what was groundbreaking in its time that seems tame by comparison. We can’t change how the past was simply because our current morals are different. I’m a medieval history buff. I’ve been working my way through the biography of a French knight named Bertrand du Guesclin. It’s translated from its original language and it’s hard not to find it jarring. Why? The blatant antisemitism that’s everywhere in the biography. Yet that was the author’s thinking. That’s how a lot of people felt about Jews. To remove that from the text would distort the truth of the time. While it might be jarring to my modern sensibilities, it simply was what it was. On a similar token, “to boldly go where no man has gone before” is simply the way it was at the time. Changing it for modern sensibilities won’t change how women of the era felt or what they dealt with. It’ll simply allow modern progressives to feel like they’ve done something without having to go to the trouble of, you know, doing something. And really, claiming this is about diversity is even dumber. Yet this is what the left has been about for a while now. They want to remove the past entirely, remake it as they want it to be, and pretend that the evils of the past never existed. But again, you’re not improving anyone’s lot back then. All you’re doing is hiding how far we’ve actually come. Whether it’s removing statues of Confederates or simply stripping the word “man” out of a classic science fiction show, it all boils down to removing the past rather than addressing the future. Of course, considering how they botch it when they try to deal with the present, the future probably is beyond them. Tilting at Windmills is 100% reader-supported. If you enjoyed this article, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription for 15% off the first year or making a one-time donation here. Your support is greatly appreciated. Tilting At Windmills © 2024 Tom Knighton 548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104 Unsubscribe