The other week, I came across an interview with a communication expert arguing that pronoun culture created divisions in society as it increases communication barriers and so harms mutual understanding between people. If people are anxious or confused about how to address someone (as can happen with pronounery), it creates awkwardness and bad vibes he said. It also creates more noise / information overload (demands attention) when you don’t even have enough bandwidth for your own stuff, and life is complicated enough.
That’s why he also slated awareness raising campaigns. The world is so seemingly unhinged he said people need to limit the amount of new information and communication coming in, especially irrelevant stuff outside their sphere of influence. There must be a way to find common ground outside narrow identity categories. It really does seem to add an additional burden and barrier.
You could also argue that people shouldn’t really be able to force your attention and head space on these issues – attention in the 21st century has economic value and it isn’t really fair on others in society to grab the limelight and force you to pay attention. Don’t have people the right to protect their own mind and attention, to not being megaphoned at?
Pronounery, when excessive, seems both totalitarian and creates division in society. Stop paying attention and ignore it if you can, he said, and just treat people as normal (or be extra-friendly, to help heal the division it creates).
How to be Happy 