A colleague showed me the artwork (which was fabulous) for the GSA at school. After complimenting the design (many different flags representing differing identities) I was curious: ‘Which is the one for me as a straight white woman?’
‘You don’t get one,’ he said, ‘that would be like having a flag for being English.’
‘But how is this then diversity and inclusion?’ I asked.
I think this is a relevant question. Is diversity now meaning something other than different things? English is a highly dynamic language, constantly morphing through the changes to capture current meaning, and nowhere do we see this more than in the public discourse around diversity.
We have a tendency towards tribalism in this cultural moment – not tribes, it isn’t a problem to find your people and have a degree of comfort in knowing you share history and/or values – this is the ideology that means anyone not ‘of’ my tribe is my enemy. Tribalism is often shown by group trolling in a car-crash of derogatory comments when someone misspeaks or speaks something unpalatable to the tribe. Our language has been increasingly tribal and we recognise values through key words and actions: the shibboleths of our society.
Of course, language has always had political overtones. Mark Anthony knew this. Even Lennox in Act 3 Sc 6 of ‘Macbeth’ uses curiously neutral language as he feels his way into finding out which side the lord is on. Working out if your audience is ‘on your side’ is a key part of communication skill. The difficulty we face now is our own shadow sides, as we see the effect of tribalism rejecting tolerance and respect of a differing point of view. We are a long way from Voltaire, Toto. Anthropologists and psychologists tell us we are more isolated than ever, with loneliness as the greatest pathology of our time. A quick (not too long, it is depressing) think back through the pandemic shows the plague of loneliness with so many having no sense that there was someone there for them. Tim Marshall (‘Divided: Why We are Living in an Age of Walls’) shows how this has accelerated from the walls of protection to the ideological walls. Robert Putnam (Harvard) talks about how the number of confidants has reduced in the last decades (now 0 – 1 for most people) as we go through the digital disruption of the last few years but add in a pandemic where we are forced to socalise online and lo, loneliness makes strange bedfellows in the wonderful world of the web.
You might wonder what the nexus is between studying language and these rather melancholy facts. The truth is that hurt people hurt people, so it is no wonder that when J K Rowling asserts something that many would see as logical/scientific, she is hounded by a different group. Their pain is real and the lack of proximity to her means they are lashing out; this is not diversity, inclusion or respect. I’m taking a risk here because even though I haven’t said where on these debates I stand, the questioning of the first principles of the debate can be enough for some. I failed in the shibboleth.
Then there is where you stand on colonialism. Try to defend this as the pattern across history (the Mongols, Romans and the Ottomans were definitely not there for the benefit of the native population) and you are either in an uncomfortable jingoistic ‘my country right or wrong’ place or shamed and guilty. Whether or not one should be called to account for something that happened hundreds of years previously seems not to be considered. Where does the line happen? When do you stop asking for payback? I’m thinking of asking for reparations from the Egyptians but I don’t know it will get me very far.
It seems hard to have a nuanced debate because the password is only to a position, not a debate, and must be the ‘right’ thinking, often defined by those who reserve the right to change their minds, the terms and benefit from the system they despise.
Our words matter. As was said, ‘Words are not things but powers.’ And as the proverb says, ‘there is life and death in the tongue’ (or post). Perhaps the time has come to caveat language more and strike a less certain tone in opinions? English is a very rich language, partly at least because of its diversity and borrowing from other cultures. It must be possible to hear someone without the shibboleth of the tribe to which we belong.
