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Our language is full of ambiguities, and this is one. Both interpretations are listed in the Cambridge dictionary. The truth is: clarity require lots of words,

Our language is full of ambiguities, and this is one. Both interpretations are listed in the Cambridge dictionary. The truth is: clarity require lots of words, and that makes a terrible slogan. Most people react stronger to a slogan than a nuanced discussion, so the messy slogans will remain.

zepto 5y ago
That doesn’t mean a bad slogan like Defund the police isn’t just divisive, ill-advised, and harmful.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  There's nothing activists can do that won't be labeled "divisive, ill-advised, and harmful". See how Martin Luther King Jr. was portrayed in the 1960s, for example. https://twitter.com/BerniceKing/status/1300196044693741574 https://twitter.com/BerniceKing/status/1300196044693741574
  - torstenvl 5y ago
    That's the trope, but it's also completely wrong. It was, after all, MLK and not Malcolm X who achieved so much of the progress in the 1960s. And it was the Log Cabin Republicans, not HRC, that won the fight for gay marriage. Advancements for minority groups are better facilitated by building bridges than by burning them.
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      MLK was regularly accused of burning bridges at the time, as I've demonstrated in the link.
      - torstenvl 5y ago
        You posted a Twitter link to one caricature cartoon in an unnamed paper. It is dishonest to say you've "demonstrated" that anything happened "regularly." And it is dishonest to conflate the entirety of the time elapsed - it's indisputably clear who has the better historical reputation. And it is dishonest to suggest that a false allegation of X is moral justification to begin doing X.
        ceejayoz 5y ago
        This is pretty trivial to research. https://time.com/5099513/martin-luther-king-day-myths/ https://time.com/5099513/martin-luther-king-day-myths/ > In the 1960s, the vast majority of white people, South and North, disapproved of the movement’s tactics. In a May 1961 Gallup survey, only 22% of Americans approved of what the Freedom Riders were doing, and 57% of Americans said that the “sit-ins at lunch counters, freedom buses, and other demonstrations by Negroes were hurting the Negro’s chances of being integrated in the South.” Just before the March on Washington, Gallup found only 23% of Americans had favorable opinions of the proposed civil rights demonstration. > Lest we see this as Southerners skewing the national sample, in 1964—a year before the passage of the Voting Rights Act—a New York Times poll found a majority (57%) of New Yorkers said the civil rights movement had gone too far. “While denying any deep-seated prejudice,” the Times reported, “a large number of those questioned used the same terms to express their feelings. They spoke of Negroes’ receiving ‘everything on a silver platter’ and ‘reverse discrimination’ against whites.” Fifty-four percent of those surveyed felt the movement was going “too fast.” Nearly half said that picketing and demonstrations hurt the Negro cause, and 80% opposed school pairings to promote school desegregation in New York City public schools. "You're being divisive!" has long been the cry of the status quo. The arguments made against BLM and Defund - including the "it's communism!" stuff; https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Little_Rock_integration_protest.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Little_R... - are very, very familiar.
        zepto 5y ago
        > "You're being divisive!" has long been the cry of the status quo. The arguments made against BLM and Defund - including the "it's communism!" stuff; Just because a complaint has been heard before doesn’t mean it’s wrong, indeed it could just as easily mean it’s being said again because it is valid. Dismissing people who have a valid criticism as ‘the status quo’ to be ignored, is by definition divisive. It is the literal opposite of inclusive behavior.
        ceejayoz 5y ago
        > Dismissing people who have a valid criticism... I'm not inclined to assume "BLM is communism!" as valid criticism. Bad faith actors work really hard to derail conversations about racism and police reform; at a certain point, you have to dismiss the same age-old arguments that've been made and debunked at every step along the way. See also: All the anti-miscegenation arguments that turned into anti-gay marriage arguments that turned into anti-trans ones, with basically just a find/replace for the term used. Returning to the point at hand, I believe I've sufficiently demonstrated that MLK's sterling reputation is a more recent phenomenon, and at the time of his actual actions he was being treated and discussed similarly to how many activists are today.
- brutusborn 5y ago
  Of course it doesn't. But it does show how hard it is to come up with slogans. Can you think of a 'synonym' that isn't divisive, ill advised or harmful in any way? That's a high bar.
  - zepto 5y ago
    Maybe slogans are just a damaging way to do politics?
IncRnd 5y ago
> Both interpretations are listed in the Cambridge dictionary. That is due to a change that was made in the last year. [1]. Historically, that dictionary has defined defund as "to stop providing the money to pay for something". The change to the Cambridge dictionary entry was made recently in response to the "defund the police" discussions, so we can't use the newly changed meaning as always having meant to "divert some money". [1] https://web.archive.org/web/2020*/dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/defund
- roenxi 5y ago
  And, indeed, the Cambridge dictionary appears to be bizarrely focused on the use of 'defund' in the context of us military/police defunding. They've obviously written the definition in light of US political events. Pretty weird. It doesn't make sense to define words in context of current political events, they are supposed to have more staying power than that.
- brutusborn 5y ago
  Thanks so much for providing that context! Amazing to be able to see meaning changing in real-time. I would prefer language meaning to be more static, it irritates me to hear people using "literally" to mean "really" but we must accept change. It's easier to put on shoes than to carpet the whole world.

zepto 5y ago

That doesn’t mean a bad slogan like Defund the police isn’t just divisive, ill-advised, and harmful.

ceejayoz 5y ago
There's nothing activists can do that won't be labeled "divisive, ill-advised, and harmful". See how Martin Luther King Jr. was portrayed in the 1960s, for example. https://twitter.com/BerniceKing/status/1300196044693741574 https://twitter.com/BerniceKing/status/1300196044693741574
- torstenvl 5y ago
  That's the trope, but it's also completely wrong. It was, after all, MLK and not Malcolm X who achieved so much of the progress in the 1960s. And it was the Log Cabin Republicans, not HRC, that won the fight for gay marriage. Advancements for minority groups are better facilitated by building bridges than by burning them.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    MLK was regularly accused of burning bridges at the time, as I've demonstrated in the link.
    - torstenvl 5y ago
      You posted a Twitter link to one caricature cartoon in an unnamed paper. It is dishonest to say you've "demonstrated" that anything happened "regularly." And it is dishonest to conflate the entirety of the time elapsed - it's indisputably clear who has the better historical reputation. And it is dishonest to suggest that a false allegation of X is moral justification to begin doing X.
      - ceejayoz 5y ago
        This is pretty trivial to research. https://time.com/5099513/martin-luther-king-day-myths/ https://time.com/5099513/martin-luther-king-day-myths/ > In the 1960s, the vast majority of white people, South and North, disapproved of the movement’s tactics. In a May 1961 Gallup survey, only 22% of Americans approved of what the Freedom Riders were doing, and 57% of Americans said that the “sit-ins at lunch counters, freedom buses, and other demonstrations by Negroes were hurting the Negro’s chances of being integrated in the South.” Just before the March on Washington, Gallup found only 23% of Americans had favorable opinions of the proposed civil rights demonstration. > Lest we see this as Southerners skewing the national sample, in 1964—a year before the passage of the Voting Rights Act—a New York Times poll found a majority (57%) of New Yorkers said the civil rights movement had gone too far. “While denying any deep-seated prejudice,” the Times reported, “a large number of those questioned used the same terms to express their feelings. They spoke of Negroes’ receiving ‘everything on a silver platter’ and ‘reverse discrimination’ against whites.” Fifty-four percent of those surveyed felt the movement was going “too fast.” Nearly half said that picketing and demonstrations hurt the Negro cause, and 80% opposed school pairings to promote school desegregation in New York City public schools. "You're being divisive!" has long been the cry of the status quo. The arguments made against BLM and Defund - including the "it's communism!" stuff; https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Little_Rock_integration_protest.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Little_R... - are very, very familiar.
        zepto 5y ago
        > "You're being divisive!" has long been the cry of the status quo. The arguments made against BLM and Defund - including the "it's communism!" stuff; Just because a complaint has been heard before doesn’t mean it’s wrong, indeed it could just as easily mean it’s being said again because it is valid. Dismissing people who have a valid criticism as ‘the status quo’ to be ignored, is by definition divisive. It is the literal opposite of inclusive behavior.
        ceejayoz 5y ago
        > Dismissing people who have a valid criticism... I'm not inclined to assume "BLM is communism!" as valid criticism. Bad faith actors work really hard to derail conversations about racism and police reform; at a certain point, you have to dismiss the same age-old arguments that've been made and debunked at every step along the way. See also: All the anti-miscegenation arguments that turned into anti-gay marriage arguments that turned into anti-trans ones, with basically just a find/replace for the term used. Returning to the point at hand, I believe I've sufficiently demonstrated that MLK's sterling reputation is a more recent phenomenon, and at the time of his actual actions he was being treated and discussed similarly to how many activists are today.
brutusborn 5y ago
Of course it doesn't. But it does show how hard it is to come up with slogans. Can you think of a 'synonym' that isn't divisive, ill advised or harmful in any way? That's a high bar.
- zepto 5y ago
  Maybe slogans are just a damaging way to do politics?

IncRnd 5y ago

> Both interpretations are listed in the Cambridge dictionary. That is due to a change that was made in the last year. [1]. Historically, that dictionary has defined defund as "to stop providing the money to pay for something". The change to the Cambridge dictionary entry was made recently in response to the "defund the police" discussions, so we can't use the newly changed meaning as always having meant to "divert some money". [1] https://web.archive.org/web/2020*/dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/defund

roenxi 5y ago
And, indeed, the Cambridge dictionary appears to be bizarrely focused on the use of 'defund' in the context of us military/police defunding. They've obviously written the definition in light of US political events. Pretty weird. It doesn't make sense to define words in context of current political events, they are supposed to have more staying power than that.
brutusborn 5y ago
Thanks so much for providing that context! Amazing to be able to see meaning changing in real-time. I would prefer language meaning to be more static, it irritates me to hear people using "literally" to mean "really" but we must accept change. It's easier to put on shoes than to carpet the whole world.