I see the following phenomenon repeat itself: someone convinces the world that a particular behavior, described by a particular term, is bad: bigotry, racism, e

I see the following phenomenon repeat itself: someone convinces the world that a particular behavior, described by a particular term, is bad: bigotry, racism, emotional labor, transphobic, sexual assault. Usually this is straightforward because the behaviors are truly monstrous and the offenders deserve to be un-personed. Then a bunch of other people draft behind this term to air out their grievances: this person did something racist, racism is bad, this person is bad. This works for some years, but eventually society just normalizes out the effect of the word: if so many actions are racist, then racism must not be so bad. When this happens, it actually lessens the opprobrium that the hardcore offenders, the people whom the term was designed to denigrate, experience. It’s effectively trademark dilution.