• wheezy@lemmy.ml
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    6 hours ago

    I might be proving your point by disagreeing with you (well, not really but maybe clarifying). But, here it goes anyway.

    I think what you’re trying to describe is just reactionary ideology. What you’ve noticed in reactionary conservative thought is specifically the attempt to restrict vocabulary. There is no room for them to allow language to evolve as society evolves and progresses. It’s a tool used to attempt to restrict thought into a “common sense” appeal.

    For the case of a “women” it is appealing to a prior state of history in which nonbinary and trans people were forced to hide their outward expression and conform to society. Often times out of fear of individual or even state violence.

    As that has changed the reactionary attempts to appeal to definitions of the past. To appeal to a group of people that grew up as children learning “girls have a vulva and boys have a penis”.

    Which is a definition as simple as “a^2 + b^2 = c^2”. It’s a true definition for right angled triangles. The reactionary mathematician wants to live in a world in which there are only right angled triangles. So their “obsession with definitions” is nothing more than a restriction on what defines “a triangle”.

    It is a suppression of language and defintions more than is anything else. It appeals strongly to those that are afraid of the world that they don’t understand and are looking for a scapegoat to direct their fear and blame onto.