Policies- and lexicons- are frequently created and altered by people who have authority but little knowledge of reality on the ground, and this was often the situation with the administrators at our facility. Thankfully, Important People With Nothing Better To Do than change the names of what we called our residents were mostly innocuous, if not ludicrous. However, sometimes there were actual consequences. On one occasion it was announced from On High that interactions had to be “age appropriate.” Hence, a person with a mental age of two (an imprecise but somewhat useful equivalent), but a chronological age of 45, had to be treated as if they were indeed 45. In one case, the consequence was a profoundly retarded (non-verbal, non-ambulatory, incontinent, etc) middle-aged resident , who was generally delightful but could have periods of anger, had his beloved stuffed animal taken away, with anger and depression the predictable result. Did the Great Minds think he should have invested in mutual funds, or perhaps buy a sports car?

The mystery we increasingly face is is how mindless slogans, such as “age appropriate,” become the basis of law and policy, and why people divorced from reality are given authority over policy and society? The answer is multifaceted, but certainly it involves a dichotomy between people who have something to do and want to accomplish, and people who don’t desire to do but relish having power, and the latter thrive on bureaucracies. Thinking of the nameless and faceless person who decreed the policy of “age appropriate” for mentally retarded conjures the image of a person with, at best, theoretical knowledge, but someone who enjoys exerting control over others- awareness of negative consequences of their decrees simply isn’t a consideration. This type of person acts not to benefit others, but to enhance their own status and self-esteem; always there is a hint of arrogance.

Initially a bureaucracy may be created as a necessary if not always efficient means to conduct and facilitate the business at hand but the frequently evolve into self-sustaining organisms, always seeking to gain in size, money, and influence. As bureaucracies expand- government, academia, and the corporate world being three of the major major players in the US- their power grows immensely and their accountability likewise shrinks. As an example, the esteemed Stanford University (tuition, fees, room and board $84,000 per academic year) has over 18,000 paid staff (15,750 in administration and support, 2,288 faculty) compared to under 17,000 students. Curiously, Stanford is tax-exempt (a “charity”), with its president making a (paltry) $1.5 million, though thank goodness the football director has an annual salary of $7.5 million. Also curiously, just a few weeks ago the president resigned over academic fraud. How can I donate! More on Stanford below.

Putting a name and face to the type of person who decrees and expects acceptance without regard of any negative impacts, we can introduce Diane Ehrensaft, a “gender revolutionist” who is the director of mental health and chief psychologist at the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital gender development center. She has declared that children can be “gender minotaurs,” and as proof she cited a conversation with a 7-year-old child who proclaimed he or she to be a “boy in the front and a girl in the back.” Variations on this theme include being a girl on the bottom and a boy on the top and vice versa, or a girl at school and a boy at home. Not only does her conversation with a 7-year-old provide unassailable scientific proof of her theory, she also wrote a book. She concluded that minotaur children really like mermaids, and advised they should be given lots of books with mermaids.

Quite sometime ago it was decreed that “Diversity is our strength.” It’s a great slogan because it’s never actually defined but can be stated with great solemnity. There certainly is some truth in this: a contractor, for example, hires a diverse crew- the HVAC guy, the plumber, the electrician, the framers, etc; were there only dry-wallers not much would get done. But I suspect the people who embrace this mindless slogan aren’t thinking about building houses. Several years ago I was in my little rented house in a small village in Honduras and had guests consisting of a black American female with excellent Spanish, a “brown” Honduran who spoke only Spanish, and a black islander Honduran (i.e. from an Anglo-centric culture) who was fully bilingual. All were friends and it was fun talking about a variety of topics, switching from Spanish to English, and I thought to myself the average lily white progressive American would be green with envy to have this”multicultural” experience. The thing is, their multiculturalism is pretty much limited to eating at ethnic restaurants, that nice Uber driver with the dark complexion and an accent, and slinging slogans about “diversity.” In reality, strength is achieved through unity; diversity is fine, but it just is.

The offspring of “Diversity is our strength” is the current fad (or perhaps fetish) for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, an industry in which a lot of money can be made and power can be found. It is comprised especially of wealthy and privileged people who have the luxury of being outraged, or at least feigning outrage, over pretty much anything. And no matter how much the DEI beast is fed it can never be sated.

Which brings us back to Stanford University. To protect and defend the easily offended their information technology department established the Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative in 2022, a project that created a list of prohibited words and phrases and provided alternatives. I will try to attach the full .pdf file below, but here are some examples: addicted (to drugs)> devoted; committed suicide> died by suicide; paraplegic/quadriplegic> person who is paralyzed; guru> subject matter expert; gentleman> everyone; seminal> groundbreaking; webmaster> web product owner; kill two birds with one stone> accomplish two things at once (the "kill" expression normalizes violence against animals); hip hip hooray> hooray. The list is long, but no matter how many words or expressions are prohibited, there can, and always will be, more: the DEI beast is insatiable.