3 ms·

The meaning the words change with context. Much like the way the Swastika is no longer recognised in the western world as a Hindu peace symbol. My point is that

by verroq 8y ago

The meaning the words change with context. Much like the way the Swastika is no longer recognised in the western world as a Hindu peace symbol. My point is that the modern usage of concentration camp is the extermination camps of Nazi Germany, which is obviously not what’s happening in China.

roymurdock 8y ago
They're extrajudicial camps used to punish and re educate people, the semantics aren't as important as the reality of the chinese government rounding up, imprisoning, and torturing an ethnic group of "muslim terrorists"
seanmcdirmid 8y ago
I don’t think that is modern usage at all. The dictionaries haven’t been updated, at least.
- verroq 8y ago
  https://www.dictionary.com/browse/concentration-camp https://www.dictionary.com/browse/concentration-camp "a guarded prison camp in which nonmilitary prisoners are held, esp one of those in Nazi Germany in which millions were exterminated" "A place for assembling and confining political prisoners and enemies of a nation. Concentration camps are particularly associated with the rule of the Nazis in Germany, who used them to confine millions of Jews (see also Jews) as a group to be purged from the German nation. Communists, Gypsies, homosexuals, and other persons considered undesirable according to Nazi principles, or who opposed the government, were also placed in concentration camps and eventually executed in large groups. ( See Holocaust.)" Particularly associated
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    Yes. Note the “particularly associated” with but lack of extermination as a requirement in the definition. The word in neither definition is limited to those cases, and concentration camp has been used to describe situations post 1945 that are unrelated to genocide. The debate on the word is also well known, from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment: > As a result, some[who?] say that today the term "concentration camp" may be conflated with the concept of "extermination camp" and historians debate whether the term "concentration camp" or "internment camp" should be used in order to describe other examples of civilian internment, such as the United States government's internment of Japanese Americans during World War II,[4] the Australian government's immigrant detention facilities,[25][26] and South Korea's detention camps for "undesirables" in the 1970s and 1980s.[27]

by verroq 8y ago

roymurdock 8y ago

They're extrajudicial camps used to punish and re educate people, the semantics aren't as important as the reality of the chinese government rounding up, imprisoning, and torturing an ethnic group of "muslim terrorists"

seanmcdirmid 8y ago

I don’t think that is modern usage at all. The dictionaries haven’t been updated, at least.

verroq 8y ago
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/concentration-camp https://www.dictionary.com/browse/concentration-camp "a guarded prison camp in which nonmilitary prisoners are held, esp one of those in Nazi Germany in which millions were exterminated" "A place for assembling and confining political prisoners and enemies of a nation. Concentration camps are particularly associated with the rule of the Nazis in Germany, who used them to confine millions of Jews (see also Jews) as a group to be purged from the German nation. Communists, Gypsies, homosexuals, and other persons considered undesirable according to Nazi principles, or who opposed the government, were also placed in concentration camps and eventually executed in large groups. ( See Holocaust.)" Particularly associated
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  Yes. Note the “particularly associated” with but lack of extermination as a requirement in the definition. The word in neither definition is limited to those cases, and concentration camp has been used to describe situations post 1945 that are unrelated to genocide. The debate on the word is also well known, from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment: > As a result, some[who?] say that today the term "concentration camp" may be conflated with the concept of "extermination camp" and historians debate whether the term "concentration camp" or "internment camp" should be used in order to describe other examples of civilian internment, such as the United States government's internment of Japanese Americans during World War II,[4] the Australian government's immigrant detention facilities,[25][26] and South Korea's detention camps for "undesirables" in the 1970s and 1980s.[27]