Greene With Envy

 I hate that we have the same last name.  No relative.  Of that, I am sure because my family shortened the original name down to Greene.  She is ignorant.  She rattles on about things that inspire others to label her an "evil lunatic."  She does her best to earn that description.  

Georgia Congress person Majorie Taylor Greene was at it again last week with a real winner of a false equivalency.  In her mind, she believes that being "forced" to wear a mask during a pandemic is akin to being discriminated against and treated as a second-class citizen as Jews during the Holocaust.  

Of course, this offends many.  It's a classic example of poor critical thinking: a stunning false equivalency that she sadly doesn't get.  In fact, it's very difficult to even use the word Holocaust any more without it being a direct reference to that particular act of genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany.

There was a time, pre-WWII when the word had a popular usage.  Near the end of The Great Gatsby, a good example presents itself.  After the death of Myrtle Wilson, her husband George mistakenly identifies Gatsby as being responsible.  After he seeks out Gatsby, murders him as he swims in his pool, Wilson turns the gun on himself and Fitzgerald writes, "...and the holocaust was complete. 

That line will forever remain in American Literature, but the use of the term now requires a capital H.  I found that out when I used the term holocaust to describe the purging of 20 teachers from a district that nearly went bankrupt.  The editor of the journal that was to publish my piece kindly asked me to change the word.  I made a simple defense about not referring to The Holocaust but rather using the word as Fitzgerald did to describe a small conflagration.  No dice.  I gladly changed my sentence.  Problem solved.

We live in a different climate today.  People feel hypersensitive about the language that they use.  Yet there is a huge difference between someone who listens to the objection, considers it, and then decides, yeah, I get that.  Words matter.  I can do better, and someone who blindly defends their error.  Ms. Greene will remain ignorant because she is not open to learning what and how language can offend people. Besides, what is her real motivation in this kind of behavior?  She's an attention seeker who is trying to represent the mindset of the anti-intellectual.