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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

#571

Post by scotty79 »

wonderwonder wrote: post #451
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 see it as unintentional discrimination. It's treating the people they are relabeling as children that need the kind progressives to step in and save them. It's so condescending. Minorities don't need white Knights to save them, neither do the disabled. If an individual wants me to not refer to them as x because they find it offensive, no problem. But a group of academics should not be able to sit around and decide…

I think that people feel increasingly alienated. They feel bad so they search for their special "community". In doing that they alienate themselves further from average person. They create terminology and adopt language for their niche with clear disregard of any real people and issues.

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

#572

Post by prepend »

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 think it’s a consequence of the well-intentioned, but foolish idea of “bias toward action” that doing something is good and not doing something is bad or complicit.

When people see something bad-discrimination against disabled- they want to improve the situation but don’t know what to do. So they do something, anything without considering if the action is effective or if the best course is to do nothing.

So making a list of words to use or not use is doing something. There’s no way to measure if it makes things better or worse, but at least it’s something.

If they don’t make a list, and do nothing then that might be confused with not recognizing the problem.

So I think it’s well meaning people who want to help and do something stupid rather than not doing something.

I wonder if just releasing a statement of values is more appropriate for noting that an organization is against all these injustices but not advocating for lots of dumb little changes.

That and I think these lists naturally suffer from collaboritis. Where someone makes a document and circulates it for edits. All the obvious stuff is already on there so people want to help and think up any edge case and add it to the document. It’s hard to argue for parsimony for fear of being called out as a bigot. And it’s hard to suggest removing an item for the same reason.

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

#573

Post by divan »

> won't make the world more just

For whom?

Here is a comment of one of the members of roller skating community on the renaming "mohawk" and "choctaw" terms in figure skating.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Rollerskating/comments/jn7ewi/comme...

It's pretty clear this change makes world more just, but not for the majority. Which is kind a whole point.

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

#574

Post by iLoveOncall »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #538

I am French so the wording part did not reach us yet (we still have one word for deaf and blind, and handicapped (disabled)). What unfortunately is present is the way disabled people are perceived, intellect-wise. I can talk of two examples: a wheel-chaired guy in my team, and my wife who got progressively disabled due to MS. The way they are addressed is different from the way others are addressed; It seems that peo…

> I am French so the wording part did not reach us yet

This is not true at all. The absolute trainwreck that is "écriture inclusive" is spearheading those inclusivity initiatives, and we have also incorporated a lot of the other words mentioned here in the language.

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

#575

Post by scotty79 »

psyfi wrote: post #564
sunderw wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suffer from a disability and so does my girlfriend. Note that our main language is French and so there is a bit of nuance to how the terms are used. Disabled is usually said "handicapé" (this word means more "incapacitated" that anything) and "person with a disability" is usually said "personne en situation de handicap" which more literally translates to "person in a disability situation" / "person currently incapa…

> If you break your legs and spend a few months in a wheelchair, you might not feel legitimate to use the term "disabled" in comparison to someone who has never been able to walk and suffers more from it. I would say "I am hungry" even if I have food in the fridge, I do not need to compare myself to poor starving people and decide to say "I am currently hungry" or "I am in a situation of hunger" > Not letting that di…

> I would say "I am hungry" even if I have food in the fridge, I do not need to compare myself to poor starving people and decide to say "I am currently hungry" or "I am in a situation of hunger"

But saying "I'm starving!" when you are just hungry is a bit different. It's fine where there are no starving people around. It's just a exaggeration then. But if one of your friends starved last week while you are still fat and just a bit hungry it might not sound well.

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

#576

Post by bandie91 »

kergonath wrote: post #426
ShredKazoo wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For example, it seems like we can't say "mother" anymore in medical settings. 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. The troll argument here is: now that we're saying "birthing people" instead of "women", it's time to acknowledge that abortion is not actually a "women's issue".

> now that we're saying "birthing people" instead of "women", it's time to acknowledge that abortion is not actually a "women's issue". Which is partly right, to be fair. It’s a fundamental human right issue about who can force things on your body. The consequences also affect whole families, not all men are arseholes who vanish when their girlfriend gets pregnant. Framing this as only women’s issue is part of a dang…

1. the embryo/fetus inside the mother's body is not the mother's body.

2. it is not the mother's body, but it's completely dependent on it to live.

3. parents have and have to have natural responsibility over their offspring.

4. the society establishment (both secular and religious) are there to protect society's norm.

5. not killing innocent humans is a social norm.

6. the embryo/fetus is a human.

7. saying that someones on "religious grounds" want to subjugate "secular, liberal societies" by opposing to killing innocent humans is no more that projecting USA's domestic radicated bipolar politics to the global level.

8. "religious grounds" are nothing mystical, nothing like "things which only unreasonalbe superstitious are afraid of", but a core attribute of the human nature: just »don't kill humans who are annoying to you even if they don't have social security ID yet, even if they don't pay taxes yet, even if they are your own children«

9. "abortion rights" group also stands on religious grounds, except it worships Moloch.

10. "abortion rights" people often comes from the pre-assumption that they are entitled to enjoy sex without consequences and without any responsibility. gain without pain.

11. "abortion rights" is an other level of productionalization of people. our life is already mostly a product of soulless companies. now they are turning babies into commodity which you can return if you changed your mind or not satisfied with it. wondering how much does it differ from the menacing "slavery".

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

#578

Post by raspberry1337 »

Veen wrote: post #546
hardlytrueisit wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I didn’t know the British had manufactured potato blight. That’s quite advanced tech for the time.

The blight in itself of course was not manufactured, however the policies that led up to the total dependency on one type of crop never failing, and the botched emergency reponse; was.

However, this famine is of course, not even a tear in the sea compared to the holocaust, which remains the most horrific act ever, forever; and every other act past or future will only be a tiny fraction of the depth of its importance. History begin and ends with the holocaust the plight of the Jews.

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

#579

Post by cutemonster »

wonderwonder wrote: post #493
hutzlibu wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

There are always exceptions and genocide is very obviously one. I was referring more to the socially constructed self inflicted battles society has been engaging in lately.

It's a somewhat common exception unfortunately.

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

#580

Post by GoblinSlayer »

bandie91 wrote: post #576
kergonath wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> now that we're saying "birthing people" instead of "women", it's time to acknowledge that abortion is not actually a "women's issue". Which is partly right, to be fair. It’s a fundamental human right issue about who can force things on your body. The consequences also affect whole families, not all men are arseholes who vanish when their girlfriend gets pregnant. Framing this as only women’s issue is part of a dang…

1. the embryo/fetus inside the mother's body is not the mother's body. 2. it is not the mother's body, but it's completely dependent on it to live. 3. parents have and have to have natural responsibility over their offspring. 4. the society establishment (both secular and religious) are there to protect society's norm. 5. not killing innocent humans is a social norm. 6. the embryo/fetus is a human. 7. saying that som…

If human's mind was erased to embryo stage, does it constitute killing?
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