Political Correctness and Language
In this era of people abusing pronouns, I am grateful to be living in Quebec. There are two reasons for this strange stance: the first is that Quebec is staunchly nationalistic, and the second is that it is more Catholic than the pope when it comes to the French language. I could also add that outside of the 'trendies' living in Montreal and Quebec City, French Canadians are profoundly not politically correct.
The battle over Quebec's culture has been going on for half a century now, and what a battle it has been! At times, it reached epic, jack-booted, neurotic proportions. We've had legislation that restricted the number of non-Francophone employees a company could have on the payroll (as determined by their family names) to a tiny percentage. We had government inspectors going under cover and listening in on conversations between customers and salespeople in stores, in order to ensure that the language being spoken was French - even when both the customer and salesperson were anlgo- or allophones.
For those individuals not aware of what all these 'phones' are, an 'anglophone' speaks English, a 'francophone' speaks French, and an 'allophone' speaks some other language. For Quebecers, this is basic language speak 101.
Oh yes, speaking of 101's, we do have the infamous 'Bill 101', which is actually Law 101. The original bill, which was aimed at protecting the French language and appointing it as the official language of the courts, workplace, government, and education in Quebec, was passed into actual law in 1977. Officially named 'Charte de la langue française' (the 'French Language Charter'), it seeks to preserve Quebecois culture by preserving and strengthening the French language in Quebec.
I have always personally believed that the Charter was founded on mistaken principles. Even if every Francophone started speaking English tomorrow, Quebec's culture would not change. Culture is stronger than language. Or so I thought... .
When manufactured words such as 'zhe' started being forcefully inserted into the English language, I had to change my perspective on language and culture. Language does shape culture, or perhaps it is better to say that culture is shaped by the rules of the language that it uses. The French language does not have a neutral pronoun, or even a concept of gender neutrality. Everything is either masculine or feminine, or has it's masculinity or femininity determined by the gender of the person who possesses it. In such a structure, there is no such thing as 'patriarchy' in language. Everything has its assigned gender, and that gender is carved in stone. There is no room for screwing around with the structure of the language.
Yes, some people will yodel and rip their hair out because a group of individuals will automatically be referred to in the masculine, even if there is only one man among them. To the sane mind, this way of structuring the concept is nothing more than a workable solution to the problem of a mixed gathering in a language that categorizes everything as either masculine or feminine, and has no neutral gender.
In other words, the concept of no gender is completely alien to the French-speaking mind because it doesn't have the language to express the thought. The French language simply cannot be messed with in the same way that the English language can. The horrid 'zhe' cannot, and will not, be tolerated, let alone incorporated into, the French language.
That is a good thing. It prevents at least some people on this planet from falling for the ridiculous belief that language in itself can be inherently sexist, racist, or 'violent' simply because of the pronouns, rules, or expressions it requires to be used in describing a thing.
In Quebec, very few people get their nose out of joint when a man calls his girlfriend ['ma blonde'](https://www.immigrer.com/faq-les-origines-de-mon-chum-ma-blonde/) - which in English translation literally means 'my blonde'. There is some real history around how this expression came about, which I won't get into, but that you can read about in the hyperlink if you can read French. The basic truth I am trying to point out is that most Quebecers can see a colloquialism for what it is, and just go with it.
Which is another good thing, because there are even more eyebrow raising terms for one's girlfriend used in this province that I am not going to mention here. 
Generally, Quebecers are laid back and a tad on crazy side, which I consider part of their natural charm. There is, however, one thing that they will fight to the death to protect, and that is their culture. They love their culture. They are proud of their culture. They don't see anything wrong with their culture - and they have a provincial government that is willing to resort to draconian measures in order to promote and protect that culture.
I now see that the English-speaking world could learn a thing or two from Quebec about the importance of protecting the integrity of the language, and having pride in our heritage. The current nuttiness can only go so far in this province, and no further, because the notion of spitting on one's culture and and defaming their langue is something Quebecers are not allowed to do. Protecting the province's language and culture is cared into the stone of our government.
What I once viewed as a nasty thing, has turned out the be one of the few remaining bulwarks against the more insane aspects of political correctness that is now engulfing the North American continent. I simply cannot see Quebec ever allowing itself to apologize for being the white European culture that it is. Nor can I see it drowning in a sea of personal pronouns. The language simply won't allow it, and neither will the Académie française and the Quebec Language Office. I am now thanking God for that!
Image: Pixabay
Culture and language is very important, we are very protective of both here in Texas, and yes we do have a language, the language and food share the same name, "Tex-Mex"
It a combination thing, part Texan and part Mexican.
The only French that I know is, "you want french fries with that order", which is mainly spoken in fast food joints down here.
Thanks for sharing, I can cross Quebec off my places to travel to, I dang sure couldn't speak the language there.
Until next time,
@sultnpapper
Living in Quebec can be like living in a straight jacket at times if you're not Francophone. On the other hand, Quebecers can be the nicest people you'll ever meet. But... stay away from our crumbling highway system... some people have likened it to Beirut after it's been strafed by bombs.
That is funny, thanks.
The West attempts to define her culture in the absence of religion, common history, and regional/communal loyalties. Man does not form identities based solely on abstract, "universal" ideologies alone. Man's identity is defined by the physical and personal relations rooted in regional, communal, historical, and religious milieu. To fragment religion, locality, common history and challenge man to "define himself" leads only to insanity and insecurity.
The Jews, for instance, maintain their identity based on cultural and religious cohesion. They refer constantly back to a regional history and loyalty in defining themselves. The Christian West, in contrast excised Christianity from her society, destroyed any regional roots in the creation of the amorphous Eurozone, and imports millions of immigrants of completely different historic, religious, and regional awareness. This cultural suicide is defended with ludicrous term "multiculturalism" and any rational critique of European extinction is labeled "hate speech."
Most interesting is the fact that Quebec has defined itself as 'secular' and in a weird way uses this to protect its culture. Face-coverings have been banned when performing or receiving public services. People instantly screamed 'islamophobia', but the government said 'pfft! We are secular! No religious stuff is permitted to be displayed in public service areas!'. I think Quebec is the only place outside of France that dared to enact such legislation. Quebecers really have a weird relation to Catholicism, by the way. Plenty of reason to resent the Church (due to history), so I guess the secularism here grows from a different seed than the European version. But that is for another time... .
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All the people, societies, civilizations and cultures of the world do it. Civilizations can not exist without self-esteem for their culture, their language, their religion, their history. The Arabs are happy with their culture, like the Persians, or the Turks, or the Chinese, etc., etc. The West is the one that is falling apart because some elements want to destroy the culture from within, to this day I still can not understand how Europeans criticize their own culture, it is absurd, the Western civilization from Rome until today, has always been the standard and one of the largest cultural strongholds in the world.
Do not believe that ALL Americans or ALL Europeans hate their culture, that is only a minority, but with enough coverage.
The Chinese have already destroyed all of their cultural heritage in the fury of Mao's "cultural revolution." The 1-billion or so amorphous drones can not even decipher their cultural texts, due to the Western communists' changing the Chinese logographs. The only Chinese live in Taiwan, which island increasingly seems trending towards absorption into the mainland that has jettisoned her cultural heritage. The Chinese are a soon to be extinct people. What a sad end to their history.
The power of communism. We will have to see what happens when PR China invades Taiwan, as it said it would before 2050, then it will be the end of a millenary culture or its resurgence.
The difference is that in Quebec, our government is willing to do some very hard and unpopular things in order to preserve the language and culture - including stomping on the toes of minorities. In the west, there are very few governments willing to do that, or that have widespread support, including in their media, when they do do it. It is a very different world in this little province from other places in Europe and North America. The whole guilt-thing just doesn't work on the average Quebecer.
It is quite true what you say, I think there is a problem in Europe but especially in the United States, the media and politicians want something very different from what people want.