Operator overloading and the culture wars
How a concept from computer science can illuminate misleading claims
Computer science provides us with a useful concept for understanding the culture wars. Specifically, operator overloading is a process by which operators (symbols like “+
” and “-
”) can mean different things depending on what values they’re used to combine. For example, the “+
” symbol means adding when used to combine two integers, but in some programming languages, using a “+
” with two strings (sets of characters) means concatenation. Thus, the expression “2 + 2
” would evaluate to “4
”, but the expression “’cat’ + ‘dog’
” would evaluate to “’catdog’
”.
I’d like to propose a new term: deliberate denial of definitional overloading. The best way to explain this phrase is through an example. Consider the phrase, “Trans women are women.” Historically, the term “woman” has meant “adult human female,” which would render this statement false. However, the chattering classes have re-defined the term woman as something like, “adult human who asks people to refer to them as a woman.” Thus, we witness such absurdities as accusations that one is dehumanizing trans women by insisting they’re not women. If the new definition is being used, and trans women ask others to refer to them as women (and also are adults; we at least haven’t reached mainstream acceptance of trans-age identities), the only way they’re not women is if they’re not human. Of course, the people who say trans women aren’t women are using the definition that was standard until a few years ago and are merely pointing out that trans women aren’t female.
Overloaded definitions of common terms aren’t necessarily a bad thing. The term “mother,” for example, can refer to a woman who gestates and gives birth to a child, and it can also mean a woman who raises a child. Those two definitions generally coincide, but there’s no harm in referring to a woman who adopts a child as a mother even though she doesn’t meet the first definition. The definition used is usually clear in context: the mothers in “mothers are at risk of depression after giving birth” are biological mothers, while the mothers in “mothers often shoulder a disproportionate share of childcare duties” are the mothers raising their children. But mixing and matching multiple definitions of terms can be used for rhetorical effect; the trouble comes when people are dishonest about which of the two meanings they’re using.
Next time you see an absurd woke claim, consider whether the speaker is using the same definition for all terms throughout the entire claim. If not, you may have spotted a deliberate denial of definitional overloading.
Well said.
Other example:
"Homeless":
Deliberately conflating single mothers who can't pay their rent with the other group of people that the vast majority of the population refer to when they say "homeless".
This other group is composed of non functional drug addicts who refuse to stay at shelters because they require sobriety as a prerequisite to stay.
Whenever you try to propose solutions to deal with the second group you are immediately attacked as being insensitive to the first group.
This overloading that you describe is very often deliberately weaponized. It's a form of linguistic fashion and these fools are the fashion police.
Judging by the absurdly colorful hairstyles that are prevalent in this subculture, as well as the frequently confused looking clothing, it's fair to say that it is fashion. And like fashion it frequently is appealing to highly narcissistic people.
They really are the new Jacobins. I'm waiting for them to start renaming days of the week.