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George Carlin's "Soft Language" (2019)

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Re: George Carlin's "Soft Language" (2019)

#341

Post by OfSanguineFire »

tsimionescu wrote: post #339
OfSanguineFire wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A glance at Mastodon top posts will show that the term “fascism” no longer refers to a set of political beliefs that arose in early 20th century Europe, and the associated violent regimes. It is used now for anything whatsoever that the person does not like. For example, since trans advocacy is such a big part of the Mastodon community, I have seen a poster claim that anything less than considering a person their cla…

Comparing people who don't use someone's preferred pronouns/gender association to Hitler is obviously ridiculous and I don't think there's too much to be gained from discussing with someone who believes such a thing. However, I'm not sure why this contradicts my point. Those people are simply wrong in their use of the word. Unless you believe that Mastodon woke lefties are representative of the broader American Engli…

> Unless you believe that Mastodon woke lefties are representative of the broader American English zeitgeist

A year ago I would have thought those people some weird online-only fringe. But not after travels around the USA for a couple of months last year, followed by time spent in Baja and interacting with Americans who came down there. So many young Americans are very concerned with pronouns and their proper usage, and the attitudes of early-millennium activist movements like Antifa seem to have made inroads into the wider culture. Of course, American society is polarized and there is a whole other camp.

I suspect that “fascism” is increasingly a popular slur even for Americans who aren’t so terminally online, and because a word’s meaning is popularly determined by its usage, that means that it’s pointless to complain that they are “using it wrong”.

Re: George Carlin's "Soft Language" (2019)

#342

Post by tsimionescu »

Angostura wrote: post #273
Waterluvian wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something I was rather ignorant to for the longest time was how fascism can exist at both ends of the spectrum. My last day on Mastodon was the day a few people ganged up on me quite aggressively for not putting Alt text in an image. Tolerance isn’t acceptance. It’s letting things you don’t like exist without making a big fuss over it. You can dislike certain speech patterns without having to go on a crusade against…

> My last day on Mastodon was the day a few people ganged up on me quite aggressively for not putting Alt text in an image. Why was it important for you not to include it?

It wasn't important for them not to include it, it wasn't important for them to include it. There is a world of difference. And being aggressively ganged up on for something you don't believe is an important detail is an excellent reason to leave a group. It makes it abundantly clear that you have a fundamental difference of values with much of that group.

Re: George Carlin's "Soft Language" (2019)

#343

Post by trgn »

_dain_ wrote: post #162
DangitBobby wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Webster's: 1a: an unforeseen and unplanned event or circumstance Their meeting was an accident. 1b: lack of intention or necessity : chance They met by accident rather than by design. 2a: an unfortunate event resulting especially from carelessness or ignorance Car accidents match one or all of these definitions.

With proper road design, traffic fatalities can be reduced to a negligible rate. Oslo famously achieved zero per year. Since roads can be designed with this degree of safety, it follows that high rates of fatalities are a result of poor road design, and hence not unforeseeable accidents. "Accident" is actually softening language -- it diminishes the agency of the driver, and the designer of the road. "Traffic collisi…

Yep, "hit by a car" is the perfect example of fetishization, the attribution of agency to inanimate objects.

Note to that it will be the cyclist that will hit the old lady, never the bicycle. The bicycle, even though as old as the car, has resisted this fetishization. It's really curious, which objects cast the spell, and which don't.

Re: George Carlin's "Soft Language" (2019)

#344

Post by memefrog »

mcpackieh wrote: post #308
SenAnder wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which term would you use to distinguish between deliberate and accidental civilian casualties?

The difference between deliberate and accidental civilian casualties is not clear cut. For instance, what do you call it when you intend to attack the enemies soldiers with a bunch of bombs but you know a certain percentage will fall on civilians and you accept that inevitability and proceed anyway? Is that deliberate? Not quite, because it wasn't your intention. Was it an accident? Not really, because you knew it wa…

[dead]

Re: George Carlin's "Soft Language" (2019)

#345

Post by tsimionescu »

jabradoodle wrote: post #292
theodric wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns out you can put whatever text you want in the alt text field and it won't get clocked by the scolds because they don't actually care enough to check. It's enough that it appears compliant in a surface-level audit. However, there is an issue suggesting adding an automated scold in the Mastodon client (and Megalodon already has such a scold, plus a (!) of shame on images without alt text) https://github.com/ma…

That very issue you linked appears to have a request from a screen reader user asking to be able to skip content with no alt text

I saw the comment you're talking about, but I'm not sure I understand what it meant. What does a screen reader do other than skipping an image without alt text?

Either way, that person was also explicitly saying that they don't want mandatory alt-text, that they believe an option users can toggle on their own account to be reminded about alt-text is better, so I don't think they would qualify as "complaining about missing alt-text".

Re: George Carlin's "Soft Language" (2019)

#346

Post by tsimionescu »

OfSanguineFire wrote: post #341
tsimionescu wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing people who don't use someone's preferred pronouns/gender association to Hitler is obviously ridiculous and I don't think there's too much to be gained from discussing with someone who believes such a thing. However, I'm not sure why this contradicts my point. Those people are simply wrong in their use of the word. Unless you believe that Mastodon woke lefties are representative of the broader American Engli…

> Unless you believe that Mastodon woke lefties are representative of the broader American English zeitgeist A year ago I would have thought those people some weird online-only fringe. But not after travels around the USA for a couple of months last year, followed by time spent in Baja and interacting with Americans who came down there. So many young Americans are very concerned with pronouns and their proper usage,…

> I suspect that “fascism” is increasingly a popular slur even for Americans who aren’t so terminally online, and because a word’s meaning is popularly determined by its usage, that means that it’s pointless to complain that they are “using it wrong”.

If you're right that it's becoming such, than I would agree it's simply changing its meaning, I'm not a presciptivist.

However, from my experience, which is limited to online content, I've only seen accusations of fascism being used by left-wing speakers against right-wing (or perceived right-wing) adversaries.

So, my theory is that the term actually retains most of its original meaning even by those throwing it around willy-nilly. It is then not a wrong use of the term nor a novel use, but in fact a sign of increasingly extreme language. That is, people who call you fascist for not caring whether you add alt text to an image aren't using fascist to mean generic bad person, they actually intend to compare your actions to Hitler.

It's similar to how "socialist" is used by right-wing pundits. When they call a boss who raises employee wages "socialist", they are not using that as a generic insult, they explicitly mean to compare that boss with Stalin or Chavez or other such boogeymen.

I think it's all a sign of increasingly more extreme discourse. I would actually be much happier to find out that you are in fact right and fascist is just a more generic insult now.

Re: George Carlin's "Soft Language" (2019)

#347

Post by rglover »

nightfly wrote: post #313
rglover wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've proven Carlin's point.

No. How do you think your students would feel if they knew this is how you think of them? I know lots of insecure people, some who are new but still learning, some very skilled in some areas with holes in others but their skills areas way more then make up for their deficiencies, some who just have anxiety issues who don't have any skill issues at all. And a few who really might be in over their heads. The last categ…

I'm very direct and honest with them about things just like this. I don't hold punches. I teach them to work the problem [1] instead of whining or wasting time on spinning their mental tires.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0h2Wk6-C_I

Re: George Carlin's "Soft Language" (2019)

#348

Post by addcommitpush »

ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #18
harryvederci wrote: post #3

My favourite one in Dutch: People with a disability used to be called "handicapped". At some point, that was no longer acceptable. The correct term to use became "invalid". So it was better to say "that person is invalid" than "that person is handicapped".

That's funny we went the opposite way in France, "invalid" in the past, now "handicapped".

You're late. It's en situation de handicap now, not invalide or handicapé.

See for instance https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F31029

Re: George Carlin's "Soft Language" (2019)

#349

Post by [deleted] »

OfSanguineFire wrote: post #330
tsimionescu wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think fascism is a bad term to use here, totalitarianism or thought-policing is more what you mean. Fascism refers to specific political beliefs including totalitarianism plus some form of cultural supremacy (typically racism, but it can also be religious or nationalistic), rigid hierarchy, and might-makes-right morals. Not all totalitarian regimes are fascist, and the behavior you're describing is neither hierarch…

A glance at Mastodon top posts will show that the term “fascism” no longer refers to a set of political beliefs that arose in early 20th century Europe, and the associated violent regimes. It is used now for anything whatsoever that the person does not like. For example, since trans advocacy is such a big part of the Mastodon community, I have seen a poster claim that anything less than considering a person their cla…

[deleted]

Re: George Carlin's "Soft Language" (2019)

#350

Post by volloe »

OfSanguineFire wrote: post #330
tsimionescu wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think fascism is a bad term to use here, totalitarianism or thought-policing is more what you mean. Fascism refers to specific political beliefs including totalitarianism plus some form of cultural supremacy (typically racism, but it can also be religious or nationalistic), rigid hierarchy, and might-makes-right morals. Not all totalitarian regimes are fascist, and the behavior you're describing is neither hierarch…

A glance at Mastodon top posts will show that the term “fascism” no longer refers to a set of political beliefs that arose in early 20th century Europe, and the associated violent regimes. It is used now for anything whatsoever that the person does not like. For example, since trans advocacy is such a big part of the Mastodon community, I have seen a poster claim that anything less than considering a person their cla…

> That would make even non-Western cultures with an ancient tradition of acceptance of transpeople, but ascribing them to a third gender, comparable to Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco.

It's not comparable to any of those of course, but it wasn't exactly acceptance either. These 'third genders' were a method of othering those who didn't conform to strict gender roles, typically effeminate men. It would be like if we had just three gender categories today of 'man', 'woman' and 'faggot'. Not really a societal situation to aspire to in my view, we'd be better off ridding ourselves of constrictive gender roles and be more accepting of e.g. men who enjoy wearing dresses and makeup while still understanding that they are of course men.

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