GurtTractor wrote:

I was really talking about things like terminology guidelines in tech etc, not about whether certain slurs etc are acceptable in some circumstances. That's usually more cut and dried. As a general rule I would I tend to disagree with deliberate disuse of language unless there's a reasonable case for causal links to social harm, i.e actual offense/othering/etc, not just hypothetical reckons from a non-affected party.

On a deontological - utilitarian axis I tend towards the utilitarian, so people may disagree on this. And to clarify I'm talking about wider use of language not aimed at any specific person, if someone has a good reason why they'd prefer not to have a particular word used around them then I've got no problem going along with that, I'm not a dick.

Not quoting the previous part as it appears there were crossed wires and I’m happy to leave it there. Wasn’t trying to straw man you - wasn’t referencing you directly at all, more that I question people getting defensive as a first reaction to being pulled up on language. However, as neither of us can read minds and assume intentions of the other, it’s a fruitless and improvable avenue to say who meant what when they said what.

For me, re. The above, such approaches will always tend towards an, often unfair, status quo and rely on those already subject to discrimination to “prove” that the language is really as bad as they believe.

Such proof is hard to muster, as origins are often ambiguous, as the users are rarely moustache twirling villains. If you are a utilitarian, I would position myself as a realist - these terms were often coined and used in times of great social and racial inequality, they persist to these days, and they hurt those already marginalised. I don’t see why the onus should be on them to prove why language should go out of fashion, especially when disuse is rarely legally enforced - it’s a social contract.

It’s takes little effort to not use a word, so why wouldn’t I stop using a term when it upsets people. To persist on using it on a purely utilitarian viewpoint seems, to me, to be placing an abstract philosophical question above real world hurt these words can cause.

Master / Slave, as an example, was created as a technological term after the abolition of slavery but during a time of great racial inequality. How do people give good reasons without being accused or dismissed as offering “reckons”?

Or…crazy thought, we stop using that term and move on.

I remember thinking in 2002, back in the Gulbenkian library reading Hart, Dworkin, Finnis and Raz, then Austin and later Searle: I promise to myself never to use the term deontological outside the jurisprudence exam. I knew I wasn't going to be a legal philosopher, and it was clear to me back then, aged 21, that only philosophers could use that word without coming across like a wanna be big brain using obfuscatory language to disguise their ignorance.

I'm 40 now and I hold that view still.

Minnesänger wrote:

It’s takes little effort to not use a word, so why wouldn’t I stop using a term when it upsets people. To persist on using it on a purely utilitarian viewpoint seems, to me, to be placing an abstract philosophical question above real world hurt these words can cause.

The whole point of being utilitarian is to assess the real world effects of something, and make decisions about what to do based on that. I'm only using deontology/utilitarian as shorthand so people can understand tbh, I think they are often framed as some kind of dichotomy which is false.

I'm honestly not that invested in arguing about most individual cases of supposed harmful terminology currently, and I'm not suggesting that we should demand absolute proof about such things, I just mean we should actually ask at least some of the affected parties if they even care first.

It's more that I take issue with the common idea that 'X can cause harm, so simply remove X'. It's like wanting to remove all pointy things from our environment to prevent stabbing, which is a similarly daft line of reasoning. Words, like knives, are tools that can be used for good and bad, so it's just about determining reasonable limits that offer enough protection to the vulnerable without excessive limits to freedom and practicality.

Aside from issues with the logic of some kinds of language policing, I think it's more important to think about whether it's actually doing anything towards ameliorating the root of the problem, for individual words I'm not sure it does, for longer phrases and ideas I can see more potential. It's not so much about 'not seeing the harm' in changing things, it's more that the reasoning for why some stuff will make things actually better for affected classes is either tenous or non-existent, and it feels more like a way to make yourself feel good and appear to be doing something progressive without actually making a substantial difference.

To be super super clear I'm really not proposing some kind of shitty 'PC gone mad anti-SJW' adjacent viewpoint here, and it's a strong opinion as far as it goes but one I'm holding pretty lightly. I would just like actual progress and I feel like sometimes people are overly focused on stuff that doesn't actually help much, and the occasional daftness of such doesn't do the cause many favours.

What are their posters like?

nick_md wrote:

Obscure but someone will know the reference, I hope.

Aye, but it’s a food.  Here I am.

Yep. "It's not the guns that kill, it's the people" is technically true, but dismisses the important conversation about the limits of weapon ownership. If we're making analogies I suppose racial slurs are like assault rifles, and I'm really not talking about them. I'm talking about every day words that become 'problematic' for sometimes dubious reasons. Perhaps you can think of these words as like kitchen knives, power drills, screwdrivers.

It's not that big of a deal honestly from what I've seen so far, like I'm not taking a "can't say owt anymore with all this political correctness" kind of position. Political correctness is on the whole has been a very positive thing. I just find the edge cases pretty curious and find it interesting to think about, language and words are important obviously.

acemuzzy wrote:

I don't get how the reasons can be declared dubious though. Or at least, I believe the people who say they find then offensive, so just because you're not offended shouldn't undermine that.

Or to rephrase, can you give an example of a word in this category, where you're confident nobody is offended, there's no equally good word, but you're still being asked to change it?

I'm not sure there is any word that can't be changed. But I think the push back isn't over the word, it's over who is saying they are offended.

acemuzzy wrote:

Ok, and have you got an example of people saying they're offended who you don't believe? Or is it that you think there's "white knighting" or some such? Why actual evidence beyond a gut feel / intrinsic resistance?

I can believe there are people saying "we shouldn't use X" who aren't directly that offended - but I strongly suspect those cases would be where they're doing so in behalf of others whose voices are perhaps less heard. So I'm totally ok with that, and think it's a good thing, and think we should listen and try to stop using X in those cases.

Is that aimed at me? Because I think you have misinterpreted my point.

It was trying to understand "the pushback is over who is saying they are offended". I didn't really understand what it meant.

GurtTractor wrote:

...I'm not suggesting that we should demand absolute proof about such things, I just mean we should actually ask at least some of the affected parties if they even care first.

And here, you've come full circle. 

So asking people if it's ok to say (or more often, do) something that might possibly offend (or disadvantage) them, is fine...

Makes sense...

But if someone raises a complaint, then we need to thoroughly review the complaint to ensure that the victim was actually offended, or not just a bit 'uppity'.

You can see the flaw in both instances right?

That said, I can't entirely dismiss your point. Occasionally, wires do get crossed, and I can't say it hasn't happened before (still unpacking the whole Jussie Smollet case. WTF?). But we're also here, because real instances are very common.

Too common.

dynamiteReady wrote:

...I'm not suggesting that we should demand absolute proof about such things, I just mean we should actually ask at least some of the affected parties if they even care first.

But if someone raises a complaint, then we need to thoroughly review the complaint to ensure that the victim was actually offended, or not just a bit 'uppity'. You can see the flaw in both instances right?

Totally not what I'm saying. I'm just saying that in the first instance of considering something as being possibly harmful to a particular group, that we should actually find out what they think about it and if it is in fact harmful, and then consider if there's any good reason not to make a change to ameliorate the situation. This doesn't require 'hard proof' or whatever, just basic due diligence. If this is being done in an instance then that's great.

As for people raising complaints about a thing and society considering making a sweeping change, I do think we have to be looking at wider impacts, not just an individual's opinion. I don't think that is particularly controversial.

Why can't that due diligence be done at the macro level? I think the position that phrasing that perpetuates white=good black=bad is unhelpful is fairly well understood. Do we really need to dig into whether blackhat/whitehat is a valid exemption to that? Isn't life just kinda easier/better to say we'll try to avoid it wholesale?

acemuzzy wrote:

Why can't that due diligence be done at the macro level? I think the position that phrasing that perpetuates white=good black=bad is unhelpful is fairly well understood. Do we really need to dig into whether blackhat/whitehat is a valid exemption to that? Isn't life just kinda easier/better to say we'll try to avoid it wholesale?

It's easy sure, but not necessarily better, and as I said I don't think it actually deals with the real problem. It's a sideshow. If someone has the view that black people are bad, because they've seen that the colour black is sometimes attributed to badness, that's indicative of a total lack of exposure to any amount of wider societal context, and of a severe lack in reasoning ability. Just tweaking the terms probably isn't going to help there.

Also white=good black=bad is only inherently bad when applied to people's skin colour, black=darkness=unable to see=danger/unknown=bad is also a thing. As with most proposed harmful language it's not actually the terms themselves that are the big issue, it's that the underlying prejudices persist within the beholders. Black=bad=racism doesn't inherently flow out of superficially related phrases, the idea of dark skin=bad is something that is nurtured in them by the culture they grew up in, the prejudices and inequalities that were impressed upon them.

I'm of the opinion that if a word used to have some unsavoury connotations, and now the meaning has changed and no-one uses or perceives the word with the same intentional or unintentional mal-intent anymore, that it doesn't make sense to prune it out in case it might cause harm. If the context has changed, if the intent when used has now changed, it's not the same word any more. And I would say that I think keeping such previously painful words in our vocabularies is sometimes important, as their etymologies act as markers that remind us where we came from, and that we can change.

I understand that, I'm just very doubtful that some of the previously discussed terms are in fact fostering unconscious biases, it seems immensely unlikely to me that those would impart a meaningful amount of bias vs so many other major socio-economic and cultural factors that are the real root causes of racism.

I'm very likely to be wrong about some of this for particular examples and in particular cases. I do agree that language has the potential to unintentionally reinforce negative stereotypes.

Yossarian wrote:

GurtTractor wrote:

If someone has the view that black people are bad, because they've seen that the colour black is sometimes attributed to badness, that's indicative of a total lack of exposure to any amount of wider societal context, and of a severe lack in reasoning ability.

I think that’s missing the argument here. I don’t think anyone is arguing this, but rather that the constant use of black being bad may help foster unconscious biases, assumptions that we make without even realising that we’re making them. We know that unconscious bias is a thing, if this has a possibility of reducing that, then it’s probably worth trying.

Not to be argumentative here but the use of the word black being a bad thing though doesnt come from skin colour though (although I'm not saying there isnt a connection) . Many illness involve parts of our body (whatever you're colour) turning black as a warning sign from nature. Necrosis, Decayed teeth, Smoke Damaged Lungs. No-one assigned that, its a visual fact. In Science, Black is the absence of Light.

Conversly there are also uses of the word black that are positive - In the Black, Black Gold etc. Black generally is linked to sophistication and oppulance - black tie, black limo etc.