You reckon you can actually back up those claims with evidence, or are you just making silly unfounded inferences about me? I mean, no worries either way.
Fair cop.
Count me in. Though I should note I took nothing from your views, I took it from your words. Perhaps if you changed your words you could change our minds?
You made reference to “the disabled” and “the different”. There, that’s the claims backed up (unless you need an actual link to your own post?)
You’ve skipped past my criticism of your dehumanising language, which is absolutely your right (perhaps especially when your choice of terms is indefensible), but I would still like some answers:
Who are “the different”?
Who or what (if not you) are they different from?
How does ‘a different’ integrate with (we assume) you and those like you (who we can also infer are a benefit to society)?
How “different” must ‘a different’ be before they become a burden on ‘the sames’?
No, sweetie, you claimed that I “cannot accept difference,” and that I “demand everyone be the same as me.”
Those claims are both incorrect and insupportable by evidence. They are, in fact, lies.
Also, I am still confused as to why my choice of language, and my treating others with respect, somehow makes me a tyrant. Do y’all somehow think that I am the government? That I force anyone to my views? That my choice of language somehow exerts undue influence on other people’s liberties?
“A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” OMG! That’s using language to change minds! EEEEEEEvillll!!
:rolleyes:
I was going to criticize andros, but now I realize he’s the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life
Are we quite certain the list is for real? It looks absurd enough to be a bit of trollish counter-PC satire.
If it isn’t, as a “starting point for discussion” it’s sorta like starting a salary negotiation with a bid for a zillion-kajillion-infinity dollars. (Not counting annual bonus, of course.)
That’s why I said “so what’s your point?”. Which you quoted.
Can’t we do both? There were many things that the civil rights movement did during the 50s and 60s… forcing legal school integration, allowing black people to ride in the front of buses, outlawing segregated drinking fountains, and so forth. And among them was directly or indirectly changing what language was acceptable to use when discussing black people. Whatever energy might have been expended on that last bit wasn’t wasted, nor was it sinister and Orwellian, it was just part of a larger set of goals and objectives.
A lot of people in the past few posts have been getting very up in arms about the very idea of trying to change peoples minds through changing language, as if it’s some horrifying subliminal mind-control technique. And those people have spent too much time reading 1984.
Yes, it’s horrifying when the government makes it a crime not to use Newspeak because it is trying to conceal the truth.
Comparing that to a public movement suggesting using a new term for very clear and open purposes is patently ridiculous. No one is going to arrest you for saying “handicapped” instead of “disabled”. And the people who do want you to say “person with disability” instead of “handicapped” will explain to you precisely why they are doing so and what their reasoning is.
Since you then immediately answered it yourself, I read it as rhetorical question. Perhaps I should have gone to say “…and wait for an answer”?
See above for mine and others comments on the value of changing language. None of the tiny steps towards a sinister Orwellian society are of themselves always sinister or Orwellian. But they are quite often wrong, and ineffectual. People who don’t say nigger in public still say it private, and racists are still racist.
Or, seen from their viewpoint, you haven’t read it enough (if at all). Hmm…I suppose we all tend to believe we’re right, and in this milieu at least it is only words that will change anyone’s mind. But changing language? If you pay slaves well, and treat them well, and have them do socially useful work (perhaps assisting “the disabled” and “the different”), their slavery would not be “horrifying”. It would still be morally wrong. I draw the same kind of line for mind-control (which is what you’re supporting).
But I’m always open to persuasion. Show me a mind that has been changed by a change of language. Show me, for example, one person who is provably no longer a racist simply because so many people say ‘the N-word’ or ‘african-american’ now. I get that many of the people who pointedly don’t say ‘nigger’ are quite keen not to be seen as racist - but they probably weren’t anyway…and we can thank MLK and Rock Against Racism and countless other social leaders etc for that. But stopping people saying ‘nigger’ hasn’t stopped anyone thinking ‘nigger’ or acting out their racial prejudices.
There was a lot more to Newspeak than that (read it…again?).
Any two things can be compared…and any two things will have points of difference. Pointing to the differences does not negate the similarities.
Currently, and in my own jurisdiction, nobody will arrest me for saying ‘handicapped’ (though I can be arrested for various forms of hate speech and incitement). As I mentioned elsewhere, I like to be aware of what something might lead to (since slippery slopes have their own gravity and friction issues).
I don’t know anyone who says “person with disability” - can you explain precisely why you did so, and what your reasoning was? As for others, the ‘reasoning’ is open to critical evaluation, and calls for evidence of efficacy. I myself try to address dehumanising speech when I encounter it (among UK youth, references to “the homeless” have led to individuals being referred to as “a homeless” often enough for me to be concerned with the dehumanisation of dropping the word ‘person’).
You need the Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can’t Read Good.
(excerpted from Good Omens, Gaiman & Pratchett)
If it’s plausible to gain a faint patina of tarnish, and I believe it is (after getting off the phone with Comcast, I am unpleasant to be around), then making the world a little nicer, even here and there, should rebound into a faint lustre.
And of course we know it does. Acts of kindness are good things that spread joy.
:shrug:
I understand that many don’t buy that. And it’s all but impossible to quantify. But yeah, the social opprobrium against words like “nigger,” “retard,” or “cripple” has made the world a slightly better place. I’m happy about that.
So you’re against disciplining children, and believe they should grow up without any moral training. That would be “controlling their minds” and you’re against that.
Makes you a bad parent, that’s for sure, and a bad neighbor, too, with your spoiled little hellions spray-painting graffiti everywhere. Too bad that anti-graffiti laws are “control of language.”
Ah, there you are, you see - I have no belief in demons, and though I do enjoy the works of Pratchett and Gaiman, even allowing for the wisdom that pervades the former’s work especially, neither offers any actual evidence to support your contention that "if something that isn’t so is so then surely this other thing that isn’t so would also be so. No?’ No.
Yes, I was literally suggesting that demons exist. Well done.
Also,
I made no such contention.
.
Control of language, as it’s being discussed here, would only relate to graffiti if someone’s hellions were spraying ‘I hate african-americans’ rather than ‘I hate niggers’. Anti-graffiti laws don’t attempt to control language.
You can’t food me. I’ve seen that Carly Fiorina ad.
G’nite, folks! Drive safe!
I can’t even figure out how you could food me! Dammit, brain!
At least I use sarcasm as wit, albeit the lowest form. I don’t know what you might believe in, but you did use a work of fiction regarding demons on which to build your contention.
Not in those words, no, but that’s what it amounted to. That said, I doubt your commitment to making the world a slightly better place when you can’t even work a little wit into your bitter sarcasm. Acts of kindness are good things that spread joy. Acts of witless bitter sarcasm are bad things, but they don’t spread the same way - they just fester where they were spawned.
Wow. “Bitter sarcasm,” twice over no less.
My sarcasm is almost never bitter. I flatter myself that it is occasionally biting, but not bitter. Project much?
What you seem to think was a contention was merely my personal worldview. As I’ve said clearly, I get that you disagree. You do you, man.