171–180 of 540 posts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance I am really afraid this is another sign of the death throes of Liberal values and institutions. They need to realise that pragmatism and nuance are acceptable and desirable attributes of a sustainable and long lasting civilisation.
I've always found the US obsession with taboo words quite baffling. I used to tease Americans of my acquaintance by pretending to be offended when they said "oh my god" (dildo in French) or nick (fuck.) Context matters a lot in linguistic, and the Sapir-Worff hypothesis is not just unproven, it's almost certainly completely wrong.
What is more baffling is that this attitude is exported internationally. When I was a kid, it would never occur to me that the Russian word негр has negative connotations. Now, the word негр disappeared from public use.
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Have you come across a "fartkontrol" yet? Or taken a lift with a light that says "i fart"?
Sadly not - I am studying from England and have not spent too much time in Denmark yet. I look forward to these delights :-)
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Students are "like that", because they feel powerless and complicit by slaving away in a virtually for-profit education system, that they see as part of the problem. They understandably want change, progress, solidarity, etc. Basically think of this as the very very very watered down version of a student protest. After all young adults are the prime age cohort who are sensitive to social issues. This requires no orga…
For fucks sake. This sort dumbarse action sets back the cause of equality by a country fucking mile. This stuff happens when you take Dr DiAngelo too seriously and ignore what minorities are saying and just go with your ill informed guilt ridden heart. Clearly he wasn't saying what is implied. I had assumed that "nà ge" was a slur in mandarin(when I saw the original news report). Its 100% clear from context that its…
' who want to make this a "thing" ' Clearly it is a thing, why pretend otherwise? If this were some extremely small minority, it would not have such widespread cultural influence now. It is a thing.
I strongly suspect that this decision was not made by someone from the affected minority, so it seems unfair for them to shoulder the blame.
Two possible futures for ill-informed over-political correctness: 1. It continues to be pushed by those at the tops of organizations, which leads to a new pseudo-language of baby-talk that is constructed to be as inoffensive as possible. Simultaneously a ‘black market’ counter-culture emerges of those who don’t comply. 2. The entire enterprise collapses under its own weight and exhaustion. People get tired of being o…
> The entire enterprise collapses under its own weight and exhaustion. People get tired of being offended and move on. You'd hope so. But that complaint in the article might have happened regardless: it only takes a few indefatigable die-hards to keep that machine going.
A few complaints should not be able to make a university give in/up. They do so because there is a big group amplifying the outrage.
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As much as I totally understand the downvoting of this comment, it unfortunately isn't entirely wrong. I desperately want to be an all-in liberal person, and I would rather not have stock phrases in existence that can be misappropriated by the Donald Trump / Katie Hopkins' of the world, but with any knee-jerk reaction from humans there are people who take them to extremes, and this story is one of an increasing numbe…
Well I think the phrase has been used by people whose views you may or may not agree with, the phenomenon itself has conditioned companies/organisations to immediately roll over at any whiff of a controversy or face a twitter/social media hate mob.
I think there's a difference between honest people saying honest things - even if those things are incorrect or not fully justified - and people with a history of dog-whistling and flat-out repugnant behaviour using it as a get-out-of-jail-free card.
And there is language on both sides that get this treatment - for example "gaslighting" or "racist", both can be used by vile individuals who would use their power to divert from lies and bad behaviour. But if the term has a good head-start, before its more controversial uses, it's more likely to have benevolent connotations in people's heads, and is less likely to be labelled a "hate-word" from the start.
So while I think that cancel-culture may make a genuine point, unfortunately that word was saddled with baggage from the start, and may never mean what you want it to mean again. As is often the case, we need not just better words, but words with a better history.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The entire enterprise collapses under its own weight and exhaustion. People get tired of being offended and move on. You'd hope so. But that complaint in the article might have happened regardless: it only takes a few indefatigable die-hards to keep that machine going.
No, it takes the majority to constantly validate these intentional or maybe ignorant dickheads. A few complaints should not be able to make a university give in/up. They do so because there is a big group amplifying the outrage.
I am not sure a majority is necessary. There's no magic happening at 50%.
In combating against bigotry, it is important that we do not become bigots ourselves. Regarding painful words, it is my position that policies against uttering them (for people without any intent to hurt) must essentially be no more a courtesy to those sensitized against them, because of words with multiple meanings and foreign languages with different meanings, and also because what is taboo on one society may not b…