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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

#461

Post by ShredKazoo »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #452
ShredKazoo wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair point, but on the other hand, if language policing leads the American Medical Association to make decisions which decrease the quality of medical care, I'm not enthusiastic about that. The relative importance of the opinions of everyday people vs these associations is not obvious. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35006303 Re: "the edifices from which actual powers spring" -- if you want a high-paying job as…

I think the thing much more likely to shorten people's lives than their doctor not being able to speak frankly because of woke vocabulary, is not having a house. I'm not even talking about the homeless here. The Atlantic should be running an article every day extolling the virtues of home building and questioning the morals of a country which fails to shelter even working people. Rather than pouring over the editoria…

The "this topic is less-than-maximally-important" critique applies to pretty much every story on the HN homepage.

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

#462

Post by taylorius »

lynx23 wrote: post #363

What was it, 10 to 20 years ago, people started to be noticeably nervous when they were coming near a description of my disability. It used to be so simple. I am 100% blind, and guess what, I prefer the term blind because it is pretty descriptive and relatively short. But all of a sudden, people external to the community started to fumble around with "visually challenged", and all the nonsense variations of that in m…

It's certainly unfortunate, but not that weird in my view. People in general don't want to offend, but rightly or wrongly, there is a perception that the acceptable terms for any person who has some "protected characteristic" are an ever-shifting minefield, and any infraction will be unforgivable. This fear is 99% unfounded of course, but due to the disproportionate prominence of such "woke takedowns" in media, has absolutely added to the distance between groups.

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

#463

Post by jamilton »

kergonath wrote: post #399
jurassic wrote: post #54

The pendulum is swinging back because equity language censors took this way way too far. People-first language ("enslaved people" not "slaves") makes complete sense to me, but making a big fuss about how common English idioms like being "blind to a problem" is somehow offensive is going to earn you nothing but eyerolls from nearly everyone. Some of these, like "grandfathering", cannot even be understood without deep…

> For my partner's entire pregnancy, our providers only referred to "birthing people" because of some tiny number of trans men that exist and also want to give birth. I completely understand the “gender is social and not biological” concept, and I believe it is true to a large degree. But this is not the case: if you are able to bear a child, then by definition you are female and a woman in the biological sense.

Why does it become purely biological and not social in this case? Applying this definition strictly means woman who aren't able to bear children are not women.

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

#464

Post by ookblah »

recuter wrote: post #460
ookblah wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not arguing what is currently happening or the end result, just that from even my own personal perspective I usually want to ask "is this word okay to use around you?" instead of just assuming it as such or automatically making someone else responsible for their feelings around my words. You might ultimately be right, but go down that road enough and these people are usually called "assholes" lol. That phrase isn…

> or automatically making someone else responsible for their feelings around my words If people are not responsible for their own feelings and the onus is on you, you are at their mercy. Some percentage of them are going to abuse you as a result. Where is the win? All you are enabling is psychos and mentally/emotionally unstable people.

Like I said, people ARE ultimately responsible for their own feelings, but that doesn't mean we can't do with erring on the side of empathy in our day-to-day. Don't mistake this for me saying "policing language is fine to preserve someone else's feelings".

My comment was mainly to the parent on why it's bad for someone to feel awkward about potentially using a "wrong" word and for me sometimes it stems out of care.

All that said, I basically think all this shit gets perverted in the public space where there's a lot more gamesmanship and manipulation.

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

#466

Post by wonderwonder »

recuter wrote: post #382
lynx23 wrote: post #363

What was it, 10 to 20 years ago, people started to be noticeably nervous when they were coming near a description of my disability. It used to be so simple. I am 100% blind, and guess what, I prefer the term blind because it is pretty descriptive and relatively short. But all of a sudden, people external to the community started to fumble around with "visually challenged", and all the nonsense variations of that in m…

I was going to recommend a masterpiece of cinema to you called Blind Fury: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Fury The realization that it would be pointless, alas, came to me too late. Let me just give you a taste: While serving in Vietnam, American soldier Nick Parker was blinded by a mortar explosion. Rescued by local villagers, he recovered his health and, though he remains blind, was trained to master his other…

Following up on this I wonder if Tropic Thunder (2008), a relatively new movie could be made today.

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

#467

Post by funcDropShadow »

roenxi wrote: post #413
lynx23 wrote: post #363

What was it, 10 to 20 years ago, people started to be noticeably nervous when they were coming near a description of my disability. It used to be so simple. I am 100% blind, and guess what, I prefer the term blind because it is pretty descriptive and relatively short. But all of a sudden, people external to the community started to fumble around with "visually challenged", and all the nonsense variations of that in m…

> The language terror they were subjected to has made them so unsecure that they actually dont want to hear that blind people have no issue with being called blind. It is unusual for the opinions of the minorities involved to be relevant.The language policing appears to be a power play within the majority. What you are observing is consistent with that - they aren't worried about offending the blind, they're worried…

> It is unusual for the opinions of the minorities involved to be relevant.The language policing appears to be a power play within the majority.

That is so true. Often the stated goal is to deconstruct society, not to help any minority.

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

#468

Post by nicbou »

Counter-point: we used to call lousy things gay, and made up a whole sexuality for men who took care of their appearance (metrosexual). Perhaps it wasn't as bad as the Nazis' "useless mouths", but it certainly wasn't great.

Nowadays we call white immigrants "expats" and other immigrants "immigrants".

Words have power.

The problem is when people start using words to create a sort of password game. It keeps some people busy, makes them feel better than others for knowing the passwords, and does little for anyone else.

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

#469

Post by josephg »

imoverclocked wrote: post #445
Sunspark wrote: post #360

In my life, I have been deaf, hearing impaired, hard of hearing, hearing challenged. I suppose at some point I will be acoustically disadvantaged. You know what? At the end of the day, I'm still deaf. It's true. I have limitations that others take for granted. If I can't see someone speaking or if I'm out of batteries, we aren't going to be communicating well. That's pretty deaf. I won't be offended, it's just realit…

> Character and intent is what matters. This. I recently ran up against a filter on Reddit where I used a phrase that I was completely unaware of. My account was flagged for hate speech. The comment had no ill-intent. The problem with language is that we want individual words to have inherent meaning but as people adopt phrases to identify a movement, those meanings get carried along for the ride. eg: until recently,…

> I suspect the unease you perceive with people using different terms for blindness are unease with their own attachments to those words.

Nah. I think people are just terrified of coming across as a jerk for not knowing the latest non-offensive term for things. Black? African American? Oh black is ok again? Will I get in trouble with HR/Twitter for calling you blind? And if so, what word do I use instead? Do I ask? Is that awkward? Am I making it awkward??

It feels like a minefield, where the location of the mines change every few months and stepping on a mine could cost you big time.

The language police keep finding new things to get offended by, too. The Stanford “harmful language list” includes things like “user”, “tribe”, “client” and “addict”. Pleasing these people is exhausting.

[1] https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/stanfordlanguag...

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

#470

Post by bruce343434 »

zuminator wrote: post #432
ShredKazoo wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NAACP stands for "National Association for the Advancement of Colored People". Interesting how "Colored People" was an enlightened term in 1909, but "Colored People" is now out and "People of Color" is the new way to go.

Colored People and People of Color are two different things. Colored People was the polite term for blacks 60+ years ago. People of Color means nonwhite. Also, side point, the founders of NAACP included both black, white, and at least one person (Mary Church Terrell) that we would in 2023 consider mixed race. And initially it was predominately led by white Americans.

As a non native speaker I would have never known this. Learned something today!
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