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Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

itcommunity.stanford.edu

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Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#951

Post by fleddr »

bloppe wrote: post #397

"Moron" was once considered a technical term for mental disability. Then, kids starting using it, and it became offensive. It was replaced by "mental retardation". We all know how that term evolved in kind. Many people now use "disabled" (including this list's suggestions), but that is now often seen replaced by "differently abled". If I were a betting man, I'd say that in 5 years even "differently abled" will be co-…

I think you didn't stay on top of developments for 2 weeks, because the new thing is to basically call any activity "ableist".

Ableist and privileged, magic words to bring anything down.

You can also get more specific. For example, we all know that white people suck. When white people do a good thing, they're white saviors. Or center themselves. When they're quiet, it's white silence. When they get angry, white fragility. When they learn about other cultures, cultural appropriation. Even when being bloody on time for a meeting that's "whiteness".

It's a divisive, anti-progress, hateful, cynical death cult.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#952

Post by davidmurdoch »

maximus-decimus wrote: post #929

What I'm not seeing anybody mentioning is how hard that kind of stuff make it to speak English for non-native speakers. Coming from French, it's already weird enough that you're allowed to say "n word" or "s word" but not the actual words, as if it was some loophole. That's just not done in French, at least in Quebec. In Quebec, you say the word, you don't or for swear words people use a slightly transformed version…

One of the driving forces of these language initiatives is to create division within native English speakers, too.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#953

Post by [deleted] »

3np wrote: post #457
cipheredStones wrote: post #332

It's pretty remarkable that this conflates: - Well-known slurs like "Jewed" - Outdated, now-offensive terms like "hermaphrodite" - Touchy metaphorical language like "slave replica" - Gendered terms that if you're being assiduous you probably want to avoid, like "manpower" - Words that have long since lost any stigmatizing meaning by virtue of the original use being so ancient ("lame", "dumb", "stupid") - Words that,…

Some further examples that stood out to me as being too far-fetched, fashion, and/or excessive to be part of any reasonable "Elimination of harmful language initiative" (explanations verbatim qouted from TFA): > abusive relationship (The relationship doesn't commit abuse. A person does, so it is important to make that fact clear.) > rule of thumb (Although no written record exists today, this phrase is attributed to…

[deleted]

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#954

Post by OctopusLupid »

fennecfoxy wrote: post #573

Ugh, taking this stuff too far is stupid. Even just something like "blacklist", "whitelist"; it has nothing to do with the modern black skin white skin world of racism - literally every culture on this planet has similar associations with the colours white/black... It's almost like primitive cultures could only observe the Sun and our planet's day/night cycle and based it all of daytime = safe, nighttime = unsafe. Al…

No, a few days ago this page was public.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#955

Post by onepointsixC »

Chazprime wrote: post #565
yunwal wrote: post #371

Probably what you should take away from this is not “wokism gone crazy” (err, sorry “wild”). The more important lesson here is that the bloat in academic institutions has gotten so outrageous that people start bullshit time-consuming initiatives to justify their positions and the positions of their reports. Absolutely no one will take this seriously including the person who wrote it but they will be able to put it on…

> Probably what you should take away from this is not “wokism gone crazy” Perhaps not, but every year this rhetoric grows more and more aggressive - and thanks to social media - is now leaking into our everyday vernacular. At what point do we say “this is enough” rather than hand-waving it away as yet another excess of academia?

>At what point do we say “this is enough” rather than hand-waving it away as yet another excess of academia?

That point will never happen, because those who stand up will be righteously cut down. An acquaintance is seeking a faculty position and they are being asked ideologically filtering questions in interviews, with the pretty overt suggestion that the wrong answer to any would disqualify them as a candidate.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#956

Post by erenyeager »

midasz wrote: post #532

Serious question, and maybe this is ignorant because I do not have an academic background but: Are these people not just a vocal minority? And if so, who cares? It seems like the internet is always up in arms about woke-ism but I honestly don't notice much of it in my daily life. At work, sure there are rules and regulations, but they make sense. Treat people with respect is always my default stance. If I make an ass…

I don’t subscribe to so called woke gender ideology so I will be calling “non binary” people by their “assigned at birth” gender pronoun. It’s my freedom to do so and I refuse to change my core beliefs for someone’s own personal deviances.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#957

Post by necovek »

rmak wrote: post #612
cipheredStones wrote: post #332

It's pretty remarkable that this conflates: - Well-known slurs like "Jewed" - Outdated, now-offensive terms like "hermaphrodite" - Touchy metaphorical language like "slave replica" - Gendered terms that if you're being assiduous you probably want to avoid, like "manpower" - Words that have long since lost any stigmatizing meaning by virtue of the original use being so ancient ("lame", "dumb", "stupid") - Words that,…

Totally ok to use "incel" but not Karen. Notice how they are fine with using words like "gunman", "conman" but not the positive masculine words like man-made, mankind ... Also no issues with "motherboard" or "mother nature".

Well, I am not sure they understand those words the same way I do: eg. a "man-made lake" should be a "lake made by hand"? ;)

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#958

Post by rufus_foreman »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #846
cipheredStones wrote: post #332

It's pretty remarkable that this conflates: - Well-known slurs like "Jewed" - Outdated, now-offensive terms like "hermaphrodite" - Touchy metaphorical language like "slave replica" - Gendered terms that if you're being assiduous you probably want to avoid, like "manpower" - Words that have long since lost any stigmatizing meaning by virtue of the original use being so ancient ("lame", "dumb", "stupid") - Words that,…

> - Well-known slurs like "Jewed" Homophones are next. "Hey Jude". > - Touchy metaphorical language like "slave replica" Slave comes from "slav"[0]. So speaking of "slaves" or "slavery" is racist. [0] https://www.etymonline.com/word/slave#etymonline_v_23653

>> Homophones are next. "Hey Jude".

Rob : You're a total paranoid.

Alvy Singer : Well, how am I a para-? I pick up on those kind of things. You know, I was having lunch with some guys from NBC, so I said, uh, "Did you eat yet or what?" and Tom Christie said, "No, didjew?" Not, "did you", "didjew eat?" Jew? No, not "did you eat", but "Jew eat"? Jew. You get it? Jew eat?

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#959

Post by Beltalowda »

veltas wrote: post #520
cipheredStones wrote: post #332

It's pretty remarkable that this conflates: - Well-known slurs like "Jewed" - Outdated, now-offensive terms like "hermaphrodite" - Touchy metaphorical language like "slave replica" - Gendered terms that if you're being assiduous you probably want to avoid, like "manpower" - Words that have long since lost any stigmatizing meaning by virtue of the original use being so ancient ("lame", "dumb", "stupid") - Words that,…

It's my opinion that the best policy is no policy. If you make rules people will break them. And when the rules are so strict it means nobody bothers. If the rules aren't strict some will push it as far as they can. Everything has context. But in general I think people are far too easily offended today, and considering offense a valid issue to fight on has turned out to be a real rabbit hole. Unfortunately, there's n…

> I think people are far too easily offended today

One has to wonder who was ever offended by the usage of the term "whitespace". Yes, that is actually on the list under "Institutionalized Racism" because it "assigns value connotations based on color (white = good), an act which is subconsciously racialized."

I am skeptical of the entire "subconsciously racialized" idea in the first place; to the best of my knowledge there is no evidence for it. But even if we accept it for the sake of the argument, does "whitespace" assign any value connotation at all? [Insert tabs vs. spaces joke here]

I don't really have a problem with with a policy on this as such, but the issue tends to be that once you start drafting a policy you will get a committee or the like and they will search for words that that could possible maybe perhaps be considered problematic by someone, somewhere, sometimes. That's kind of the reverse of how it should work: policy should reflect real concrete problems that were encountered. "I'm black and find the usage of 'slave' problematic" is, I think, more than reasonable, and a concrete situation. But grepping the dictionary for (white|black) ... a bit less so.

Once you start looking for something you will find it. This is why studies are double blind etc.

I have a lot of issues with this list. Does "more than one way to skin a cat" really "normalize violence against animals"? Cruelty against animals – especially pets – seems one of the very few topics where everyone from the most hard-core "Stalin did nothing wrong" communist to the most hardcore "Hitler did nothing wrong" neo-Nazi can find common ground. Does a phrase like that change it? I don't see how it does. I can go on and on, but clearly this is a "dictionary grep" list and not a "let's solve concrete problems" list.

So, are people "far too easily offended today"? I'm not so sure if they are.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#960

Post by alphachloride »

josteink wrote: post #704
alphachloride wrote: post #200

There are too many suggested replacements that I find are overly prescriptive, contextually blind, and needlessly aggrandizing. Some, I admit, have merit. (Senile, grey-beard etc.) To me they are common sense. Perhaps, the rest of the terms were common sense to the authors. Several suggestions about cultural appropriation are hypocritical. People of all cultures say the Lord's name in vain all the time. But saying gu…

> Some, I admit, have merit. (Senile, grey-beard etc.) To me they are common sense. Speak for yourself. To me "grey beard" is a word which refers to someone with great authority on a subject, whose experience is certain to exceed anyone else. If someone were to refer to me as a gray beard, I would consider that a sign of respect.

Yes, I am speaking for myself.
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