>Dear Betsy,
>The word 'man' is generic and not gender specific. We all know perfectly
>well that this is so. Also the convention of using 'he' or 'him' when
>speaking generally is commonly known to be non-gender specific.
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Dear Joseph,
Language is an evolving tool. Changing language changes subtly the
associative paths routed through the neural net. Confucius knew this theory
well, and gave us the science of the Rectification of Names. That science
has been used for good and ill throughout history, of course.
There are many of us, myself included, who believe that in our
modern age (by which I mean our Civilization's modern age) the power balance
has been shifted way to the side of Male, and that this imbalance is one of
the Primary ( I would say THE primary) reasons why what we call Civilization
has been so ruthless to its own members and to its support system, the
Earth. We are engaged in a battle on many fronts to change the male-thought
dominated culture and so rebalance our presence on this planet. One of these
fronts is linguistic.
The fact that, in our language, the words for man (gender specific)
and Man (the community of human beings) are identical imbues our thinking
with a male-dominated perspective. It is not the only thing which does, of
course, but those linguistic associations do most definitely exist and color
our perceptions and actions. One tool we have at our disposal is to
seperate the two ides by seperating the nomenclature. This is Rectification
of Names.
Unless we find a way to remove male domination from our
civilization's power centers, will we ever be able to break through the
institutionalization of abuse with which our planet is currently infested?
We are Out of Balance. If we don't change the way we see things to
appreciate the naturally fluid dance between the equal power of male and
female energies, no amount of posturing has a prayer of breaking through the
course we are on.
Respectfully,
Bruce Nygren
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Bruce Nygren 1515 Redwood Avenue Boulder, CO 80304
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