“Female Gentital Mutilation” Term Is Culturally Loaded

I was briefly puzzled by this one:

A top New York Times editor decided the paper shouldn’t use the term “female genital mutilation” because the phrase is too “culturally loaded” and widens a divide between the Western world and “people who follow the rite.”

Health and Science editor Celia Dugger said she came to the conclusion to refer to the act of removing the female genitalia of young girls as “genital cutting” during a trip to Africa in the 1990s. She spoke about her decision in a Times mailbag article in response to a reader’s question.

“I never minced words in describing exactly what form of cutting was involved, and there are many gradations of severity, and the terrible damage it did, and stayed away from the euphemistic circumcision, but chose to use the less culturally loaded term, genital cutting,” Dugger wrote. “There’s a gulf between the Western (and some African) advocates who campaign against the practice and the people who follow the rite, and I felt the language used widened that chasm.”

I think this is an attempt to reduce the amygdala triggering produced by the term, because of a fear that amygdala triggering could make people view migrants who mutilate children’s genitals negatively. What I didn’t get was how “genital cutting” was less amygdala stimulating than “genital mutilation.” To me, “genital cutting” may be worse than “genital mutilation.”

It makes me wonder if the term “cutting” is less amygdala-triggering among the hard left, because they associate it with a positive sensation. Girls who “cut” do so for a dopamine rush that relieves stress. To them cutting is trendy and hip – a way SJW’s try to out-do each other in the insanity Olympics which they use to bond. It makes me wonder if this editor was one the of the trendy girls who cut herself when she was a kid, and thus to her the term “cutting” has a completely different set of emotional associations in the amygdala.

As a result she thinks that using the term genital cutting will recast the concept as a sort of trendy, fashionable pastime among modernized African Muslims looking to relax, rather than a barbaric practice that ruins young girl’s lives forever.

Notice how the left is less concerned with logical realities, than they are with the immediate emotional response triggered by terminology. That is because they spend their lives seeing their amygdalae assailed by emotional triggers evoked by the terms they hear. We say something harmless, and they see a purposeful dogwhistle that hits their amygdala like a thunderbolt. When words trigger amygdalae, you will become much more focused on how that happens, and how to try and manipulate the effect in others.

To us, genital mutilation, genital cutting – it is all the same. But not to the left. It tells us something about how their mind works, and how they process incoming data. It also tells us how their prior experience and rabbit drives can desensitize them to the same words and ideas which shock and horrify us.

They really are a different species.

Tell everyone about r/K Theory, because r/K Theory sounds a lot better than, “The reason every liberal is going to die in Darwinian Selection”