Banning words won’t make the world more just • Hacker News Board

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

#501

Post by Macha » Fri, Mar 03, 2023, 12:26 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #252

low_tech_love wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an academic issue, ”a solution in search of a problem” as almost all the rest of academia is. As such, it never stops at a reasonable, meaningful equilibrium; it has to be kept pacing, moving forward towards more and more ridiculous extremes. An academic, in order to stay relevant, needs to keep pushing the invisible and mostly inexistent boundaries that they perceive in whatever field they are involved in. I…

It’s important to remember, however annoying they are, their side is losing. Look at Dave Chappelle, who was the attempted target of cancellation and Netflix and people buying tickets to his shows completely ignored it. Or JK Rowling, who has been cancelled over and over again, but the latest video game based on her IP is incredibly popular. Twitter doesn’t reflect the real world.

> Or JK Rowling, who has been cancelled over and over again, but the latest video game based on her IP is incredibly popular.

I think to some extent this is largely because Rowling was kept at arm's length. If Rowling was the mouthpiece for the game's story, showing up in interviews, etc., then I think more of the backlash against Rowling's personal actions would be impacting the game.

See also how Disney happily sells Pirates of the Carribean while maintaining they will never work with Johnny Depp again.

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

#502

Post by Lukas_Skywalker » Fri, Mar 03, 2023, 12:27 PM UTC

Lazare wrote: post #320

lynx23 wrote: post #289

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…

My partner is disabled, and by chance and via support groups she is a member of, she has many friends annd acquaintences who are as well. And while it's by no means universal, she and all her disabled friends absolutely loathe the "people first language" currently in vogue (ie, "person with a disability" over "disabled"). And it's odd! Because while there are certainly disabled people who prefer one form over another…

Slightly related: in German, a strange thing happened at the end of the last century. Disabled people used to be called "behindert" (might be translated as "impeded" or "hindered"). I think the word was a good choice, because it took the blame away from people, and just described that they had to overcome bigger obstacles because of their situation.

In the eighties or nineties, people started to use the term as a slur. School children called each other "behindert" as an expletive.

This lead to a new term being used for the disabled: "invalid". Which in my opinion is the worst word you could use, since it origins in Latin and just means "unworthy". But it seems to still be in broad use.

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

#503

Post by PaulHoule » Fri, Mar 03, 2023, 12:31 PM UTC

karaterobot wrote: post #176

PaulHoule wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about mentality retarded -> special so that now "special" is the cruelest taunt on the schoolyard? As for "defund the police" I think I'm the only one who remembers the Reaganite "defund the left" slogan https://www.nytimes.com/1982/08/11/opinion/defund-the-left.h... which "defund the police" seems to be modeled after. Thatcherism (the British strain of Reaganism that was just a bit meaner) became so ingrained th…

> which "defund the police" seems to be modeled after. I think that's probably a coincidence. I didn't get the sense at the time that the genesis of that phrase was a sly historical reference.

I don’t see it as a sly reference. I see it as a lack of imagination, cynicism, people getting carried along thoughtlessly.

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

#504

Post by worrycue » Fri, Mar 03, 2023, 12:32 PM UTC

bnralt wrote: post #202

low_tech_love wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an academic issue, ”a solution in search of a problem” as almost all the rest of academia is. As such, it never stops at a reasonable, meaningful equilibrium; it has to be kept pacing, moving forward towards more and more ridiculous extremes. An academic, in order to stay relevant, needs to keep pushing the invisible and mostly inexistent boundaries that they perceive in whatever field they are involved in. I…

I came to realize that this is the case with advocacy groups. These groups will never want to say, "Hey, things aren't that bad anymore. We're working on some small problems, but honestly, we solved most of the stuff we were concerned about." Everything always needs to be in perpetual crisis. Wikipedia always needs to be in danger of shutting down. Political enemies are always supposed to be one step away from destro…

Organizations tend to be self-perpetuating. People whose power is derived from the organization and people who make money from the organization will want to keep the racket going.

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

#505

Post by wonderwonder » Fri, Mar 03, 2023, 12:34 PM UTC

madaxe_again wrote: post #475

wonderwonder wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 have been told in no uncertain terms that the word “minority” is offensive, as it has come to have pejorative use. No alternative term was suggested, rather that one should refer to specific groups of people with their specific terms, and never generalise. Additionally, “white knight” I have also been told off for, for the reasons you might expect. In both of these cases (actually, almost every case I can think of)…

I love the term white knight specifically because it's offensive to those I reference with it and because it does such a great job describing my view of them and ironically their unconcious view of themselves. Also the amusing thing is that they are always white.

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

#506

Post by Gareth321 » Fri, Mar 03, 2023, 12:35 PM UTC

tastysandwich wrote: post #182

jurassic wrote: post #50

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" Calling my wife a "birthing person" just made her feel like some gross vessel for having a baby. We purposefully chose providers that didn't use that language. "Chestfeeding" is another one that's cropping up and makes zero sense. Men have breasts, so breastfeeding is already gender-neutral. But it's seen as female-centric so out th…

I would be pissed if anyone referred to my wife as some kind of breeding vessel. These DEI bureaucrats have lost their minds, and companies have lost their minds for allowing this layer to grow so large.

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

#507

Post by BrandoElFollito » Fri, Mar 03, 2023, 12:39 PM UTC

iLoveOncall wrote: post #440

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #414

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.

écriture inclusive is basically non-existent in France, whee did you see it except on some university pages that wanted to be "ahead of their time"? It is BTW forbidden by the ministry of education.

Which other words have we incorporated? Un handicapé is a disabled person. We do not have any "mobility challenged" words. Aveugle is blind, malvoyant is vision impaired (which is not the same, one being an extreme of the other).

There was an attempt to use iel as il+elle (he+she). The only places you can read it is in articles that debate whether it is a good thing on not. It is completely absent elsewhere.

Now - my comment was about everything except that intro line.

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

#508

Post by sirsinsalot » Fri, Mar 03, 2023, 12:40 PM UTC

All too often the people calling for a certain change, often aggressively and with great judgement ...

Have never bothered to ask those they claim to fight for what they need or want.

Its a form of virtue signalling that needs to end.

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

#509

Post by kenjackson » Fri, Mar 03, 2023, 12:45 PM UTC

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #418

wonderwonder wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Identity politics is not unintentional. Those indoctrinated into it may be unaware but the intention is to divide us.

While partially true, what most fail to see is that identity politics is played by virtually everyone. It’s just “your” side is the right approach and “not really identity politics”.

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

#510

Post by prepend » Fri, Mar 03, 2023, 12:45 PM UTC

parineum wrote: post #392

ShredKazoo wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, thanks for chiming in. I wonder if the best way to push back against language policing is to simply poll various groups, see which language they prefer, and publish the results. The deltas could be interesting as well, e.g. even if most blind people dislike the term "blind", it would still be interesting if they are more likely to prefer the term "blind" than a member of the general population. I think p…

Groups don't have homogeneous opinions on this stuff. The prime example these days being Latinx. If people aren't called what they prefer, as long as they weren't called a slur, a simple correction is fine. Or, if you're never going to see them again, just let it go.

The challenge is when there is no single term that doesn’t offend everyone.

So you can call a group “Latinx” and offend some and call a group “Latinos” and offend some and call a group “Latinos/Latinas” and offend some.

I want to offend the fewest people with my speech. I would like to use opinion polling to both offend fewest as well as signal that I’m working to offend the fewest.

What’s annoying and frustrating to me is when someone tells me “You must use term X because term Y offends.” Then I change it and someone else tells me “You must use term Y because term X offends.” And the worst part is the circular waste of time. I work in an organization that has a communication clearance process for the purpose of scientific accuracy and we spend a decent amount of time on this kind of editorial preference change/revert. Most isn’t even “offensive” words but stuff like Oxford comma, data are plural, etc.