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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

#171

Post by muyuu »

t344344 wrote: post #3

Is not "equity language" just another form of neocolonialism? How can "rich educated people" rename entire ethnic group (latinx) without their consent? Also there is nothing offensive about being "poor"... Equity language is just another tool to oppress people.

in more ways than one

they have no qualms in oppressing and showing intolerance towards cultures that won't play ball with those linguistic impositions, especially when they cannot just ignore them as foreign

they will impose actual systemic intolerance and litmus tests to force their cultural supremacy

the people who say disagreement is invalidating someone's existence will actually deny the existence of the culture they spun from, violently so if necessary

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

#172

Post by blahblah1234567 »

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…

I welcome "The semantic turn of the Left". It shows the emperor has no clothes.

By increasing the silliness, more and more people observe "Wow these folks are ignorant lunatics, unaware that they're driving the perception of themselves as immature, ignorant hypocrites whose identity is built upon political trends."

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

#173

Post by deely3 »

fundad wrote: post #25

Has anyone considered that non-binary Latine benefit from inclusive language differently than people pretending there is a ban on the word Latino?

Could you help me, I have a question: who should define how group of persons should be called? * Group that outside of the group * Majority of the group * Minority of the group * Any of the above when they think its for inclusion ?

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

#174

Post by low_tech_love »

0xbadc0de5 wrote: post #125

Those whose focus is on controlling language are not primarily concerned about controlling your words. They're primarily interested in controlling you . I'm old enough to remember when the word 'retard' was the politically correct term before it became "mentally handicapped" then "challenged" and so on. Same goes for 'cripple' which also accurately and concisely describes a particular class of physical impairment. Th…

I agree with you that the purpose is to control the person, not the language—the language here being just a tool or means of control. This was made very popular in 1984 (I feel stupid just mentioning this reference but it seems impossible not to).

However, one problem here is that, when faced with this affirmative-that these people are trying to control you-I think many well-meaning persons will say ”you’re exaggerating”. That’s because I think that most of the time, the people who propose these rules (and the more passive ones who agree with them blindly) actually really believe they are doing a good thing-they strongly believe that they know better than you what you should say. I have to assume this because, if not, if I assume they are only just trying to control me, period, I’ll feel like I am wearing the same aluminum foil hat that they are using.

As such, it is important to understand that yes, they are trying to control you, and no, maybe they don’t realize this, because their moral superiority complex is just too deeply rooted. By understanding this you can be more broadly aware that these attempts of control will come from other directions than language (artistic taste, sexual preferences, behavior in general, political beliefs, etc.)

What really screws up the entire thing is that, their belief is so deeply rooted that, the next step of their logic then becomes: if they were so nice to inform you and educate you about the right way to behave, then why is it that now that you know the truth you still insist on not practicing it? The only conclusion is that you must be ill-intentioned on purpose.

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

#175

Post by low_tech_love »

” But the people in Behind the Beautiful Forevers know they’re poor; they can’t afford to wrap themselves in soft sheets of euphemism. Equity language doesn’t fool anyone who lives with real afflictions. It’s meant to spare only the feelings of those who use it.”

Ouch. Bull’s eye.

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

#176

Post by RichEO »

blahblah1234567 wrote: post #149
dragonwriter wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine being an immigrant and having to learn both English and then a made up filter created by well paid academics on top of it. Latine and LatinX both originate in (different geographical parts of) the spanish-first-language non-binary community, originally for use in Spanish, neither (AFAIK) by “well-paid academics”. Latinu and Latin@ I’m less sure about, but wouldn’t be surprised if they are the same. While th…

>Latine and LatinX both originate in (different geographical parts of) the spanish-first-language I doubt it. Having lived in Latin America, Latin American social norms are influenced by Catholicism and their societies are more conservative & traditionalist than the US and Europe. The vast majority of people in Latin American countries (outside of Costa Rica & Chile) struggle with academic achievement (including lite…

You’ve commented a number of times on this post, and every time you relate equity language to communism/Marxism.

I’m struggling to follow your reasoning. What does communism have to do with anything?

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

#177

Post by gumby »

tgv wrote: post #35
gumby wrote: post #2

The use of Sierra Club as the lead example is a good one because of the racialist motivations in the founding of the club. The change of usage to “enslaved people” is an important one because of the lack of agency in being enslaved (!). It’s easy for the brain to make the connection that a term like “slave” is an inherent property of the person so described, like “brown-haired” rather than something imposed upon them…

> the lack of agency in being enslaved I don't get this, at all. It makes at least one fallacy, namely assuming that people are born free. They are not. Every newborn is restricted by parents, society, environment, etc. We must accept that: we can't think, act or sustain ourselves until much older. Thus, we loose our restrictions slowly, and we don't loose them all. Some people were actually born as slaves. That's th…

> Agency has nothing to do with it: suggesting that it does implies the possibility to avoid it

That was the point of my referring to it: the agency lies with the enslaver, not the enslaved.

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

#178

Post by gumby »

feoren wrote: post #119
gumby wrote: post #2

The use of Sierra Club as the lead example is a good one because of the racialist motivations in the founding of the club. The change of usage to “enslaved people” is an important one because of the lack of agency in being enslaved (!). It’s easy for the brain to make the connection that a term like “slave” is an inherent property of the person so described, like “brown-haired” rather than something imposed upon them…

> seeing the term “American” used generally doesn’t bother me: it’s trivial and automatic to see when it’s simply synecdoche for “resident”, “taxpayer” Nitpick: synecdoche would be if someone called you "America". You can imagine a teasing "Hey America, get out of the way" toward a tourist who encapsulated their views of Americans. "American" is just a regular adjective.

I meant "American" as a noun ("Americans benefit from the investment in national parks") -- sure, I do too.

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

#179

Post by gumby »

mc32 wrote: post #4
gumby wrote: post #2

The use of Sierra Club as the lead example is a good one because of the racialist motivations in the founding of the club. The change of usage to “enslaved people” is an important one because of the lack of agency in being enslaved (!). It’s easy for the brain to make the connection that a term like “slave” is an inherent property of the person so described, like “brown-haired” rather than something imposed upon them…

It's like they want to abolish metaphors and want to become language prescriptive --which people and grammarians wanted to get away from in the 60s and later (not that that ever persuaded the French against prescriptive language). And I guess English lends itself to more demands like this because its vocabulary-rich. Other languages have to re-use and recycle words for different meanings a lot more and are not able t…

> Other languages have to re-use and recycle words for different meanings a lot more

A rather extraordinary and unlikely claim. Not to mention that words in languages like Arabic have much deeper semantic ramification compared to a Germanic language like English.

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

#180

Post by throwawayapples »

blahblah1234567 wrote: post #145
throwawayapples wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 is being obliterated by white people." Spanish is being obliterated by a very small minority of politically biased and likely neo-marxist-propaganda-influenced young people.

You're right, fixed it to 'those who speak it worst'
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