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Basically that's the new school of thought. Look at the Wikipedia page on Racism, for instance. It's a tactic that's been around for a long time. Redefine word
by MichaelGG 11y ago
Basically that's the new school of thought. Look at the Wikipedia page on Racism, for instance.
It's a tactic that's been around for a long time. Redefine words. Then pretend everyone's using your new, made-up definitions, and claim you've won the argument.
Maybe I'm just starting to notice it, but the level of doublespeak is really astounding these days.
- parasubvert 11y agoI don't think it's necessarily doublespeak, it's that people actually use the terms differently. Racism for example means BOTH the individual belief in superiority/inferiority of a particular race AND the societal/systematic belief. This is why there are debates about whether Racism still exists in America, or whether discrimination against White people is racist. It depends on the context.
- MichaelGG 11y agoI've never seen this. I've only seen people say "Racism is bias PLUS POWER. It's literally impossible to be racist as a Y because Xs have power." I've not seen people say "Yes of course we'd traditionally call Y a racist, but what I mean is that they aren't being institutionally racist." No one's talking past anyone. It's obvious what's going on. They don't want to admit that non-Xs can be terribly racist. So they flip words around so they can, at worst, say "well they may have prejudice". They invent stuff like "reverse racism". And in fact, that's what Github's code of conduct enshrines. It's intellectually dishonest.
- parasubvert 11y agoReally have to disagree. "No one is talking past anyone" means you're not actually interested in having a conversation about this. Intellectual dishonesty is believing you have THE TRUE MEANING of the word. You really don't.