An Orwelexicon for Bias and Dysfunction in Psychology and Academia
By Lee Jussim, professor of social psychology at Rutgers University
Samples from the Orwelexicon Dictionary include:
Athletic gynocide: The elimination from sports competitions of people identified at birth by doctors or other adults as female because they cannot successfully compete with people identified at birth by doctors or other adults as males but who identify as females.
Bias bias: A bias for seeing biases, often manifesting as either claiming bias when none exists, exaggerating biases that do exist, or overgeneralizing to large swaths of life from studies finding bias in some narrow or specific context.
Emotional imperialism: The strange belief that your feelings should dictate someone else’s behavior.
Kafkatrap: A rhetorical move whereby protesting your innocence is interpreted as proving your guilt. Example: If you deny that you are a racist, you are a racist. [ed.: See House Democrats]
Quackademic: A person in academia who should not be allowed around students.
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As long as we are on the subject of saving minds and language, it is imperative to add another reference for readers to save and utilize.
The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce
Compiled between 1881 and 1906
ABRUPT, adj. Sudden, without ceremony, like the arrival of a cannon- shot and the departure of the soldier whose interests are most affected by it. Dr. Samuel Johnson beautifully said of another author’s ideas that they were “concatenated without abruption.”
ABSURDITY, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion.
ALLIANCE, n. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other’s pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.
POVERTY, n. A file provided for the teeth of the rats of reform. The number of plans for its abolition equals that of the reformers who suffer from it, plus that of the philosophers who know nothing about it. Its victims are distinguished by possession of all the virtues and by their faith in leaders seeking to conduct them into a prosperity where they believe these to be unknown.
QUORUM, n. A sufficient number of members of a deliberative body to have their own way and their own way of having it. In the United States Senate a quorum consists of the chairman of the Committee on Finance and a messenger from the White House; in the House of Representatives, of the Speaker and the devil.
RESPECTABILITY, n. The offspring of a liaison between a bald head and a bank account.
Last, but not least, we can’t forget this most excellent new word, coined by the late, great Roger Scruton:
OIKOPHOBIA
Roger Scruton coined the term “oikophobia” (from the Greed oikos for “home”) to describe the fear of one’s fellow countrymen. And there seems to be rather a lot of it among the gentry liberals who make up America’s ruling class.
See Roger Kimball’s tribute to Roger Scruton here.
UPDATE: Contribution from El Gordo
Anatidaephobia
Anatidaephobia (pronounced anna-tidy-phobia) is a pervasive and irrational fear that you are being watched by a duck. A person with this rare phobia fears that somehow, somewhere a duck is watching their every move. It can become a disabling condition that stops a person from maintaining daily functions and can interfere with the person’s personal and social life as well as compromise their job responsibilities. Anatidaephobia is derived from the Greek word “anatidae” which means ducks, geese or swans and the word “phobos” which means fear. The underlying cause is still unknown but is surmised to be a result of childhood trauma, perhaps having once been attacked by waterfowl.
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