51–60 of 1001 posts
From a sociological & political perspective, I’m most concerned here by the expansive notion of “harm” embedded in these guidelines. Harm is a serious thing: It represents the line where my rights end at yours. If using an inappropriate but common cultural idiom harms someone as opposed to being simply rude, that has a potentially revolutionary significance.
I heard a theory that woke is actually a class marker of manners, indicating that someone has the time and privilege to track the constantly shifting, baroque signals of what is and is not acceptable to say during any given season. If someone were to make that case, this could be evidence in favor.
https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-in...
All words are harmful in some context or other. I suggest we abandon language and return to good old argument by flinging feces at one another.
Should we get rid of bravo then as well? I assume people making these lists have good intentions, but efforts like this really get lost in the sauce. They are effectively parodying themselves.
There would be less emphasis on symbolic politics, such as this project, if we could make material progress on social inequity. It does not cost any money to change language. It would be difficult and costly to seriously reinvest in people who have been left behind. For example, if it was politically possible guarantee schools in poor neighbourhoods were funded just as well as schools in wealthy neighbourhoods, do yo…
Are humans no longer capable of recognizing context? How is "he mastered the material in the lecture" invoking centuries of internalized slavery and causing harm in the process?
It’s derived from the noun “guy”, which is indeed often gendered. But etymology doesn’t determine meaning. Otherwise we would have to conclude that “woman” is male-gendered because it etymologically derives from “man”.
Making “you guys” taboo seems to be a cultural phenomenon specific to certain industries. I’ve asked several of my friends, and never encountered one outside of tech or academia who thought “you guys” was problematic at all. In fact, the vast majority had never even heard of the issue or imagined that it could be controversial.