Don't call people Nazis

The BBQ Pit
81

Count me with those who think this is overblown hypersensitivity, both as regards to “Nazi” and “rape”. I think when you are not referring to the actual people or anything to do with them, it’s a bit much to demand that you refrain from using a word simply because your use will change the meaning of the word. No one can claim ownership of a word. All the same, if you are dealing with someone who you know might be offended, why not be nice about it? But if as a general rule you chose to use such terms, big deal.

Of note to the SDMB: one moderator (TVeblen) once made a huge deal out of danielinthewolvesden implying that another poster was a nazi - this ultimately led to his being banned. But my impression at the time was that this rule was concocted for the specific benefit of DITWD - I don’t know if it would apply to posters who are not as unpopular.

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FWIW I don’t use the Nazi label much anymore (besides discussing WWII, Holocaust, etc.), mostly due to discussions here on the SDMB. ::smiles somewhat ruefully:: But I still think it. And the distinction is more precision of language than PC sensitivity.

The real, historical horror set a benchmark for evil. It’s a shared definition for power lust that corrupted ordinary people by gradual degrees. Evil cloaked itself under niggly, everyday hassles and morphed them into nightmare.
Like it or not, Nazism taught the world “the banality of evil”; that corrupting one ordinary person at a time can multiply into a network of monsters, all heavily invested in maintaining the lie. That’s the shared nightmare: unimaginable horrors resulted from ordinary people just like us slowly corrupted by tiny, carefully doled flashes of power.

Calling someone a Nazi might be thougtless in terms of sensitivity but never–in my experience–intended to compare with firsthand victims, i.e. making light of tragedy. It’s used as an INSULT, a deadly putdown. It’s shared shorthand for everyday schmucks getting off on stupid, pointless exercises of power.

I rarely use the word but that’s mostly due to slowly learning (thanks, guys!) mental precision. But everyday bullies still rate my private, automatic label of “Nazi”–no matter how personally unfair–because that’s how the whole nightmare started.

One person at a time.

Veb

83

It was meant to be just that. You don’t have to call someone a goat felching, wife beating, sister fucking son of a bitch to be effective in the pit. John, you have set yourself up as the end all be all of what is right and wrong. Some of us think that we have a pretty good grasp of that. Is it any wonder that you got slammed? Based on this thread, I read your story at the www link in your sig. The story there was…not bad. Not bad at all. You seem to be going for the cynical, funny thing. I have to tell you that it takes a special kind of brilliance to pull it off. You’re close…but you don’t have it. It was a fun story to read all the same. What strikes me is that the central issue in your story was censorship and how it affected one man, and yet you try to impose censorship on us here at the SDMB. I told another poster about it. I casted it as ironic. He said it was hypocritical. Thinking more about it, he’s right. Your story says censorship is wrong, yet you put censorship forth here. That’s what I was refering to when I said “grow up”.

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by TVeblen *
**FWIW I don’t use the Nazi label much anymore (besides discussing WWII, Holocaust, etc.), mostly due to discussions here on the SDMB. ::smiles somewhat ruefully:: But I still think it. And the distinction is more precision of language than PC sensitivity.

The real, historical horror set a benchmark for evil. It’s a shared definition for power lust that corrupted ordinary people by gradual degrees. Evil cloaked itself under niggly, everyday hassles and morphed them into nightmare.
Like it or not, Nazism taught the world “the banality of evil”; that corrupting one ordinary person at a time can multiply into a network of monsters, all heavily invested in maintaining the lie. That’s the shared nightmare: unimaginable horrors resulted from ordinary people just like us slowly corrupted by tiny, carefully doled flashes of power.

Calling someone a Nazi might be thougtless in terms of sensitivity but never–in my experience–intended to compare with firsthand victims, i.e. making light of tragedy. It’s used as an INSULT, a deadly putdown. It’s shared shorthand for everyday schmucks getting off on stupid, pointless exercises of power.

I rarely use the word but that’s mostly due to slowly learning (thanks, guys!) mental precision. But everyday bullies still rate my private, automatic label of “Nazi”–no matter how personally unfair–because that’s how the whole nightmare started.

One person at a time.

Veb

Wow! Got chills on that one, and so very succinct.

As I’ve read the thread, I’ve been thinking, “lighten up”. But then I thought, you’re missing the point, John, language changes, especially for the young. “Cool” and “Groovy” aren’t, fags aren’t cigarettes, gay isn’t happy, and “phat” isn’t about how much you weigh. Thirty years ago, FUCK would have gotten you arrested, now it doesn’t mean so much. For the more mature crowd (I’m not referring to age), it’s likely to be seen as uncouth, and uneducated. When someone says “… got raped…” I think, “How sad that you can’t express your level of fustration without resorting to vulgarities”. My opinion of their intellegence usually drops a notch or few as well.

–But then I kept reading, and started thinking, you either need more sleep, or might want to invest in an anger management program, so much venom for so little cause. Most people were poking fun, but you didn’t want to see the humor. Language is an agreement for a community, it doen’t belong to you, or me, or any three of us. Get pissed if you want, write a rant, then delete it.

I’m pretty new to the board, and this is my second time in the pit. Mostly I’ve read some funny rants, but this seems a bit more serious. If you get this pissed off about the words someone uses, and they’re not even directed at you, then it’s a good bet you’re just pissed off. And if you’re going to throw stones about words, don’t be a hippocrite. “Christ”, “Dick”, “Jesus”, “Fuck you”, “Fuck”–not imaginitive, not funny, not colorful–just vulgar.

I hope you feel better tomorrow.

85

Fuck! I hate it when I mispell in posts!

86

(Backpeddaling)

I just read one of the “rape” references, something about the price of books. Lame, childish, weak. Still disagree with the Nazi thing, it’s part of the language. If Seinfeld can use it, it’s game for the rest of us.

87

Dave, it isn’t censorship if you have no power to enforce it. It’s just your opinion. I can’t help it if you and other people are determined to misread my posts and then ignore it when I explain that I didn’t mean to come across that way.

–John

88

Thank you Veb for saying exactly what I had been trying to get across last night.

89

**

That may be the intent of the speaker, but for me, that’s not really the issue.

When I hear some one refer to a realtively trivial incident as ‘like I was raped’, this is what goes on for me.

  1. I believe the speaker is attempting to magnify their own experience, by giving it a ‘similarity’ to something universally reconized as a Very Bad Thing [sup]TM[/sup]

  2. I also believe the speaker hasn’t a fucking clue how ‘being raped’ feels like or they wouldn’t use that analogy.

  3. I also feel that the speaker hasn’t a clue how using the term to describe something relatively trivial feels to some one who actually has been raped. It doesn’t make the other thing seem more important, it serves to trivialize my experience. Note this is what I feel. So apparently when some one raped me, it was similar to your experience of paying too much for that book, eh? So you went home and cried in the shower? you sat clinging to yourself, rocking back and forth for hours? You flinched when anyone else approached you for a significant amount of time? you had flashbacks and nightmares? Hmmmmm?

One day I got 2nd degree burns over my entire torso from a boiling water spill. I had blisters that were 4 - 6 inches across and about 10 inches in length. When I told my mother about the incident, she replied “I know how you feel - the other day I turned on the tap water and scalded my finger”. Mom was trying to empathize with me, so I didn’t chew her out. But, trust me when I say "no, she didn’t have a fucking clue how I felt, and it wasn’t the same goddam thing" Ditto for the above.

I accept that some folks use these terms as a negative. However, I agree that to do this (except for extreme cases - which would frankly opt out all of the ‘acting in a dictator type manner’ type things), serves to reduce our ‘most negative’ to a merely offensive.

I believe our language is rich and has a wide assortment of wonderful words, able to describe wide range of behaviors, emotions, etc. But when we use words that generally have connoted the ‘most baddest’ ‘worst’ etc to describe something significantly less serious on that scale, we’re loosing some of that richness.

90

You are right, our language has a richness that we should try our hardest to preserve. By refusing to realize that certain words have more than one meaning, such as rape (as we have seen from the excerpts from respected dictionaries), based on the experiences of people, we are ruining that word.
If I choose to use a word in context to mean one of the several meanings it has, there is nothing wrong with that. If you attempt to deny the true definitions of that word, you are indeed taking away that richness.

91

:rolleyes:

oh yea, the third definition of a widely used word is the one we should most protect. And of course, being charged too much for a book is just like being ‘abused’.

Just like silly putty, you stretch it out so much the original is lost.

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wring - I do not think someone who has used the word rape to describe how they felt at the bookstore has anything to do with the experiences of a woman who has been raped. They are simply applying this definition:

Main Entry: rape
Function: noun
Date: 14th century
1 : an act or instance of robbing

93

I disagree. You’ve discovered an archaic usage of a common word and you believe the yahoo at the bookstore or on the news even knew about a 14th century meaning for the word?

But, since we don’t have said yahoo here to 'splain himself, the point is moot. You have no problem with folks using the word in that way, my mileage varies.

94

OK, Yue Han, now you’re just being a hypocrite. I recall you raking me over the coals not too long ago for arguing heatedly. I shall throw this in your face the next time you pull your self-righteous BS in the Pit. Who are you to ORDER people not to use certain epithets in Pit rants? If a poster calls another 'Nazi", trust me, the mods and other posters will kick the miscreant’s ass without your prompting. You have no authority to tell other people what to do.

My last word:
“Vinston Churchill called us Naazis, Naazis. Ve vasn’t Naazis, ve vas NAZIS!” –The Producers

95

I don’t call people Nazis, it’s too unoriginal and I find isn’t a very good insult. I do call some (very few, may 4-5 in my whole life) Hitler-Wannabes, which I find is more insulting, cannot be offensive to anyone other than the insultee and also carries across the concept of failure. Ok, it’s not a four-letter word, but I find it more insulting than Nazi which is unoriginal and/or insensitive to holocaust survivors. FTR, all the people I called Hitler-wannabes were fully deserving of the qualification and each instance happened IRL.

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WRING, you know I love you, but I have to say that I’m with DIANE and VEB (hi, DIANE!).

I also don’t like the word “rape” in the context you mention because it’s a sure sign of a poor vocabulary and because rape is not a word I personally throw around lightly. But I also recognize that “rape” is a word with more than one definition, and that I really don’t have the right to insist that others think it means what I personally think it means.

This is the same point DIANE was attempting to make to JOHN – while he apparently feels using the word “Nazi” somehow trivializes what happened to people who suffered under the Nazis, she feels that using the word can really only insult either the person labelled or the group used as a label (the Nazis) – neither of whom she really cares if she insults. JOHN doesn’t have the right to tell DIANE her understanding of the term is wrong and his is correct. If he recognizes that her understanding is just as legitimate, he doesn’t have the right to demand that she stop using it as she understands it, just because of the understanding he invests it with. If he decides to raise the point anyway, because it bothers him, he would be wise to raise it as a request and not a demand, since a demand makes it appear he is attempting to impose his own understanding of the word on everyone and control how it is used – making him a bit of a, well, a word Nazi. (Sorry, JOHN.)

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t like “rape” used as discussed either, but I respect people’s right to use the word in a way I personally wouldn’t.

97

Doesn’t this strike anyone as…odd? The definition of “rape” has not always been its current one. The meaning has changed over time. Some people are now using the word to represent its “former” definition - given enough time, the definition may well change back. Words change definition all the time. Some for the better, some for the worse.

As a result, it’s pretty futile, not to mention unrealistic, for anyone to claim, “This definition is the one we should all stick to, forevermore!” It’s even more unrealistic to assume that just because one definition of a word may be offensive to some that it’s either going to a) fall into disuse, or b) not change its meaning over time, like many others have done before it.

This whole argument seems pointless. If you (as a general “you”, not a specific “you”) find a word offensive, you are free to point that out to the offender. That person is free to either heed your wishes, or not. If the offender chooses not to, you are free to then regard the other with disdain and contempt (of course, you are free to do so even if s/he does).

And the other person is free to not give a damn what you think, one way or the other.

98

Don’t know why folks are so up in arms.

I’m not telling folks ‘don’t use that word in any other way’ (John was the OP, not me). What I am saying is that if some one does use these words in these trivial ways, I will think less of that person.

whhooooooa, no, wring, not that!!!

yeppers. I’ll think less of them. So, let’s save the ‘you can’t tell me what to do’ speaches for a time and person who are telling you what to do. Let’s save the freedom of speech speaches for a time when your freedom of speech is being curtailed. And, while you’re at it, you can also save the speeches about language being a ‘fluid’ thing for some one that doesn’t appreciate that. (see also referenced threads about “oriental” vs. “asian”).

Honest, I get it. I also believe that the yahoo who claimed on tv that his being robbed of a tv set was ‘just like I had been raped’, was not using the word to mean that his tv was carried off by force (otherwise, he’d have not used the words ‘just like’), he was, in fact saying that he felt that his crime victim status was similar in nature to that of a sexual assault victim. And I thought less of him.

And, I also suspect that should some one scream out “I’ve been raped” in the vicinity of those folks who are arguing for the archaic reference, that you’ll not go up to the person and ask ‘which meaning of that word did you mean’?, and instead treat the person as if indeed, they’d been sexually assaulted.

So, while it is possible that the four legged equine running around Montana is a Zebra. It’s just a whole lot more likely that it’s a horse.

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I am done arguing with people who think I am ‘ordering’ others not to do these things. My original post was open to being misread, but I have explained that such was not my intention several times.

I did not intend to order anyone to do anything. If that is how you took my OP, I apologize for giving you that misconception.

What I intended by my OP, I have explained and clarified more than once in this thread, and I’m not going to do it anymore.

Gobear, I really don’t have any idea what you’re talking about; if I did this recently then it was very recently, as I have not been able to get on SDMB all summer, but I don’t remember telling you you were going too far in the Pit. Searching for your name I find only 2 Pit threads we’ve both posted in in the last 5 days: this one and the sauna troll thread, where I defended you.

Jodi, how I phrased my offense would depend on the context, just like everything else. In a thread about the topic, in the Pit, I thought I could use the strongest phrasing of it without too much furor, but apparently not.

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      • Also, nobody else is allowed to call anybody else an “abortion of a shoebag”. I retain the property rights - it is non-transferrable and is clearly stated as such in the E.U.L.A. -You are only allowed to copy or repeat it in reference to yourself, or to create a “backup copy” for archival purposes. - MC