Phil Williams Commentary: Don't follow the 'lemmings' jumping into the pronoun sea
Recently the U.S. Department of State raised eyebrows once again with an internal directive requiring its personnel to follow the crowd. We’ve all heard the phrase, “like lemmings to the sea.” The State Department is demanding its staff become pop culture lemmings.
What was originally a description of animal behavior, the "lemmings" phrase has become an analogy for people who blindly follow something, or someone, to their own demise. But when one digs into its origins, the phrase takes on an entirely new twist.
With the world in upheaval and diplomacy needed for actual prevention of war, the State Department issued a memo signed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken directing staff on the proper use of gender-neutral terms.
According to the memo, State Department staffers should avoid the use of such inflammatory words as “mother and father” or “manpower.” Entitled “Modeling DEIA: Gender Identity Best Practices,” the memo instructs staff to "increase understanding of gender identity and provide guidance on gender identity language and best practices that support an inclusive work environment." It goes on to advise "when speaking, avoid using phrases like ‘brave men and women on the front lines.”
The world is sure to be a better place for all of us as State Department staff members use gender-neutral terms while working with Iran, where there are chants of “Death to America!”
Cultural issues should not be mandated from fad to norm. Five years ago, pronouns on official signature blocks were a fad. Then, like lemmings to the sea, it became a norm, albeit forcibly in most circles. The pronoun fad became a norm when one lemming bought into the idea that the fad was real. They knew that they had to jump off of that cliff. And everybody needed to go with them.
In reality, the rest of the world looks on in amazement and wonders how so many so-called “smart people” can be sold on a lie. Just over a year ago the U.S. Navy put out an official (and very cringe-y) training video of two young smiling civilians advising Navy personnel how to make use of preferred pronouns. The same Navy that defeated pirates, helped win wars, freed the world from oppression, has now jumped off the proverbial cliff, like lemmings into the pronoun sea.
But the lemming analogy may take on new meaning when the backstory is fully known. Lemmings are rodents, similar to muskrats, native to arctic regions. In 1958, the Disney company created a wildlife documentary, “White Wilderness,” as part of its “True Life Adventure” series. The film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary.
Audiences were fascinated by close-up scenes that included masses of rodents running at the camera in waves as they migrated in great scurrying herds toward the sea. With reckless abandon the lemmings began to throw themselves off cliffs, with many of them drowning in the waves far below.
The movie taught us that when the lemming population reached a certain point they would leap to their feet and rush to commit mass suicide as a form of natural population control. The narrator explained that, “A kind of compulsion seizes each tiny rodent and, carried along by an unreasoning hysteria, each falls into step for a march that will take them to a strange destiny ... over they go, casting themselves out bodily into space."
The movie shocked the world and the phrase “like lemmings to the sea” has since become synonymous with people following blindly en masse to their own doom.
But we now know the video was faked. Do lemmings mass migrate? Yes. Do lemmings have population booms every few years? Yes. But do lemmings blindly rush into mass suicide plunges off cliffs? No, they do not.
In a 1983, investigation it was determined that the lemming scenes were fabricated. A few dozen lemmings were placed on a revolving turntable and filmed as they tried to run on the spinning disk. Disney employees literally threw them off the cliff using tight camera angles to film lemmings falling to the waters below.
But despite its false origins, the phrase has stuck and blindly following the crowd is still likened to “lemmings to the sea.” Yet now that we know the whole lemming film was a lie, the phrase might actually be more apropos.
Think about it: The U.S. government, countless big-name corporations, stars and starlets in Hollywood, and social media sycophants everywhere, have all fallen prey to the false notion that we need to avoid gender-specific terms and carefully use preferred pronouns. They’re all in, leaping before they look as they follow the masses. Yet they are following an absolute lie.
Science, and common sense, reveal that there are only two genders. Pronouns have very specific usage in the grammatical sense. “He and she” don’t require explanation. “Mother and father” are absolutely acceptable in all venues.
But somewhere along the way, a progressive left fad became a norm. A fake narrative was created that says that if you abuse the English language enough that you will somehow virtue-signal to the world that you are more understanding, more inclusive, more with it.
Someone somewhere threw some pronoun lemmings off a proverbial cliff and the left-wing world bought the lie and decided to go with it.
The use of gender-neutral terms and preferred pronouns is really nothing more than virtue-signaling. We don’t have to play word games to show respect. Just tell the world you have no intention to live out a lie like lemmings jumping headlong into the pronoun sea.
Phil Williams is a former state senator from District 10 (which includes Etowah County), retired Army colonel and combat veteran, and a practicing attorney. He previously served with the leadership of the Alabama Policy Institute in Birmingham. He currently hosts the conservative news/talk show Rightside Radio on multiple channels throughout north Alabama. The opinions expressed are his own.
This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Phil Williams on 'lemmings' who blindly follow the pop culture crowd
