4 ms·
> This expansion takes “horizontal” and “vertical” forms: concepts extend outward to capture qualitatively new phenomena and downward to capture quantitatively
by tablespoon 5y ago
> This expansion takes “horizontal” and “vertical” forms: concepts extend outward to capture qualitatively new phenomena and downward to capture quantitatively less extreme phenomena.... Although conceptual change is inevitable and often well motivated, concept creep runs the risk of pathologizing everyday experience and encouraging a sense of virtuous but impotent victimhood.
Also the dilution in the "downward" direction denies the people with the original, more-serious issues the vocabulary to deal with their unique problems and will eventually engender skepticism in large parts of the general public (e.g. if "abuse" expands to encompass extremely common experiences, saying "I was a abused" ceases to have much meaning, and you end up with nonsense like "Were you just abused, or were use abused abused?").
- AnthonyMouse 5y agoAnd in the meantime it creates injustices in the other direction, e.g. when Julian Assange is accused of "rape" which the public understands to mean a particular very serious thing, but Sweden uses a definition that encompasses much more than that very serious thing. Meanwhile a thousand articles are published containing his name and the word "rape" together in the headline.
- kongin 5y agoIt already happened with rape. We need a separate word for leering, groping, fondling, sex with dubious consent, and violently beating someone during penetration without consent. Rape used to mean only the last thing and it was regarded as basically the worst form of assault short of murder since it included every possible form of assault. Today it's moved to fondling and people are trying to make it include leering. Using the same legal punishments for something that is clearly different makes very little sense and normalizes rape in the long term.
- zpeti 5y agoFunny how you are getting downvoted, I can guess the thinking behind it. But you are right. The way rape is being treated now is like saying an accidental traffic accident manslaughter should be punished like a serial killer. It’s just not the same and it’s not fair. This in no way makes groping or leering acceptable. But it’s still completely different to violent rape penetrative assault.
- the_rectifier 5y ago> Rape used to mean only the last thing and it was regarded as basically the worst form of assault No, it did not. That's why you find courts always charged offenders for multiple different crimes when they are carried out together: rape, assault, kidnapping, life threats...
- luckylion 5y agoIt's much clearer in German. Rape = Vergewaltigung. It contains gewalt = violence. Stuff like "rape by deception" as a court ruled in Israel because a Jewish Israeli woman had sex with a man she though to be Jewish but wasn't shouldn't be considered rape (I'd argue being the wrong ethnicity while having consensual sex shouldn't be a crime at all). Now we have rape and we also have rape rape, like, the real rape.
- aeoleonn 5y agoSome even consider the financial rape of divorce. And quantitatively speaking, surely there is some amount of money, which when lost in divorce, is tantamount to the original definition of rape. (That is, a thought experiment whereby a person might decide a certain amount of money is worth the allowance/aversion of rape of the said bargainer-- such a threshold is different for each person but arguably represents an approximation of a financial quantification of rape-- which, perhaps that amount of money, when lost in divorce, can thereby arguably be considered financial rape) Especially given that in public health administration, life and health is quantified in monetary terms.