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Banning words won’t make the world more just

theatlantic.com

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Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#131

Post by wonderwonder »

hirvi74 wrote: post #109
wonderwonder wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a white Jew from Africa:) So race wise I'm either Jewish, White, African or maybe African American now that I live in America. Joking aside, I agree with your point

> So race wise I'm either Jewish What did I just say? ;) Which part of Africa? As I understand it, Middle Eastern (including Egypt). people are considered "white" by the US Census (for those unaware). If natively from Morocco/Egypt/Perhaps more, would you not be considered Mizrahi or are you talking like European ancestory? Not like any of this matters in the absolute slightest at the end of the day. I, myself, have…

My great grandparents fled Russia to South Africa during the pogroms. Ancestry wise I'm 99% Ashkenazi Jew (not a lot of mixing going on in my background I guess) and 1% (I can't remember what the test said, it's been years since I looked but it was a couple different ones). I kind of ended that by marrying into an Irish family and having kids that look like leprechauns :)

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#132

Post by scarmig »

roughly wrote: post #72
scarmig wrote: post #9

The semantic turn of the Left is one of the worst signs of intellectual decay. There's approximately zero evidence that linguistic changes influence thought: the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is rejected by linguists except perhaps in some very narrow situations. The euphemism treadmill is a running joke, from negro, to black, to African American, to Black, to person of color. And none of them are better or worse than the o…

Alternatively, there’s a theory of change at play here that follows a relatively long path of inquiry through politics, sociology, and neuroscience to identify in-group/out-group dynamics and mental shortcuts as central blockers to attempts to increase cross-group empathy and drive social change.

I don't dispute that there's a theory of change here: "if we explore the linguistic landscape, we can discover a set of signifiers that will help us to destroy racism/sexism/etc."

I just reject that. We don't live in a Harry Potter book where the correct series of incantations affect the material world.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#133

Post by ok_dad »

ryandrake wrote: post #123
scarmig wrote: post #9

The semantic turn of the Left is one of the worst signs of intellectual decay. There's approximately zero evidence that linguistic changes influence thought: the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is rejected by linguists except perhaps in some very narrow situations. The euphemism treadmill is a running joke, from negro, to black, to African American, to Black, to person of color. And none of them are better or worse than the o…

> The euphemism treadmill is a running joke, It feels more like a minefield than a joke. A minefield that gets new mines added every so often just to keep everyone on their toes. When I was younger, I used to feel like I could keep up with all the new taboo words, but it seems like it is happening faster and faster these days. You can unintentionally say something that turns out to be taboo, and you're done for. Some…

> I causally used the "r-word" and didn't even think anything of it

You casually called someone a "retard" (I assume that's the word) and someone took that wrongly? Of course they did! Even when "retard" was an acceptable put-down, it was still a put-down.

Maybe the way to avoid the "minefield" you speak of is to not put others down? Even deservedly! Just try to be nicer to everyone, even if they are not, themselves, nice.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#134

Post by cwkoss »

scarmig wrote: post #9

The semantic turn of the Left is one of the worst signs of intellectual decay. There's approximately zero evidence that linguistic changes influence thought: the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is rejected by linguists except perhaps in some very narrow situations. The euphemism treadmill is a running joke, from negro, to black, to African American, to Black, to person of color. And none of them are better or worse than the o…

> the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is rejected by linguists except perhaps in some very narrow situations

What do you mean by this? Hasn't linguistic relativity been studied and demonstrated quite extensively?

I don't disagree with your overall point, but found this surprising.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#135

Post by bradleyjg »

QuercusMax wrote: post #104
bl_valance wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our language doesn't need fixing, that's just the way it is. This whole latinx is literal cultural imperialism. It's not about not understanding the meaning of using these terms, it's the fact that it suggests that our entire language should be changed to be more "inclusive".

[flagged]

There’s nothing more prescriptivist than a term propagated entirely by HR fiat.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#136

Post by ticviking »

13years wrote: post #14

Given time, “woke” will evolve into its own dialect completely incomprehensible to common language. Every persons unique experience becomes new terms to be added to the lexicon. A burden of irrelevant knowledge for the rest of society to navigate in order to communicate.

ADnD called these kinds of dialects, "Alignment Languages." They're a larger form of Shibboleth that provide a filter of if someone is in a particular in-group, and the rulebook actually explicitly calls out speaking an Alignment Language in public as seen as very rude.

Being able to code switch between them, or simply avoid jargon from your own Alignment Language and understand the jargon from others is a critical communication skill when you need to work with people who have radically different values than your own.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#137

Post by Tade0 »

ryandrake wrote: post #123
scarmig wrote: post #9

The semantic turn of the Left is one of the worst signs of intellectual decay. There's approximately zero evidence that linguistic changes influence thought: the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is rejected by linguists except perhaps in some very narrow situations. The euphemism treadmill is a running joke, from negro, to black, to African American, to Black, to person of color. And none of them are better or worse than the o…

> The euphemism treadmill is a running joke, It feels more like a minefield than a joke. A minefield that gets new mines added every so often just to keep everyone on their toes. When I was younger, I used to feel like I could keep up with all the new taboo words, but it seems like it is happening faster and faster these days. You can unintentionally say something that turns out to be taboo, and you're done for. Some…

> Some years ago, I causally used the "r-word" and didn't even think anything of it, and blam! big mistake.

Doug Stanhope has a great skit in which he explains that the word "retarded" was originally the sensitive way to refer to this group, because at the time they were called directly derogatory terms.

But, like with every such attempt it was quickly adopted as an insult.

My not particularly original take is that policing language addresses only the effect, not the cause. Question remains: should the world learn of our peaceful ways by force?

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#138

Post by red-iron-pine »

throwawayapples wrote: post #100
JohnFen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good friend of mine is a Spanish translator for a social services agency. She was telling me that the "latinx" thing is a real problem, because for people -- particularly older people -- who are not strong on their reading in the first place, they hit "LatinX" and genuinely have zero idea what that's supposed to mean. So then time, energy, and goodwill gets wasted by having to explain to people what they "should" b…

The most amusing part about this is that literally the entire Spanish language is gendered, so we should probably change all words to 'x' replacements as well. No more "los gatos"! Lxs gatxs has so much more of a latin ring to it. (/s) Spanish is being obliterated by lXs que lo hablan peor.

Spanish, from Spain, a country in Europe, is a language made up by white people.

Latinx is form a handful of non-binary latin activists in the US, and co-opted by left-wingers who think they're doing the right thing.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#139

Post by [deleted] »

scarmig wrote: post #9

The semantic turn of the Left is one of the worst signs of intellectual decay. There's approximately zero evidence that linguistic changes influence thought: the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is rejected by linguists except perhaps in some very narrow situations. The euphemism treadmill is a running joke, from negro, to black, to African American, to Black, to person of color. And none of them are better or worse than the o…

[deleted]

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#140

Post by scarmig »

cwkoss wrote: post #134
scarmig wrote: post #9

The semantic turn of the Left is one of the worst signs of intellectual decay. There's approximately zero evidence that linguistic changes influence thought: the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is rejected by linguists except perhaps in some very narrow situations. The euphemism treadmill is a running joke, from negro, to black, to African American, to Black, to person of color. And none of them are better or worse than the o…

> the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is rejected by linguists except perhaps in some very narrow situations What do you mean by this? Hasn't linguistic relativity been studied and demonstrated quite extensively? I don't disagree with your overall point, but found this surprising.

It's meant a lot of different things in the past. The initial version (the "strong" hypothesis) has been roundly rejected. Claims associated with it are what people usually think of ("the Ancient Greeks couldn't see the color blue!") when they think of Sapir-Whorf.

Weaker versions with much more narrow claims are debated and controversial, but even for those, it's the most flashy (and least supported) claims that get the most popular press.

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