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Looking at the headline, one might think this is another tedious guide to what (arguably) constitutes politically correct language in modern society (case examp
by photochemsyn 4y ago
Looking at the headline, one might think this is another tedious guide to what (arguably) constitutes politically correct language in modern society (case example: "use 'unhoused' in favor of 'homeless'"), but it's actually a collection of well-researched and documented examples of misuse of technical terms.
For example:
> "Chemical imbalance. Thanks in part to the success of direct-to-consumer marketing campaigns by drug companies, the notion that major depression and allied disorders are caused by a 'chemical imbalance' of neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and norepinephrine, has become a virtual truism in the eyes of the public... There is no known 'optimal' level of neurotransmitters in the brain, so it is unclear what would constitute an 'imbalance.' Nor is there evidence for an optimal ratio among different neurotransmitter levels."
They also discourage the use of the term 'brainwashing' (introduced in the 1950s during the Korean War by the US government), although I'd argue that 'operant conditioning' is an acceptable and well-researched concept, particularly when it is applied steadily from a young age through to adulthood:
https://www.thoughtco.com/operant-conditioning-definition-examples-4491210 https://www.thoughtco.com/operant-conditioning-definition-ex...
- lupire 4y agoI don't see the difference. Both "Politically Correct" and "Psychiatrically Correct" are addressing the same concern of misconceptions due to inaccurate or misleading language. You can be houseless but not homeless, and still need help with your housing.
- feet 4y agoIt sounds like there are some misconceptions about "political correctness"
- ltbarcly3 4y agoThis is not the case. Often the "politically correct" version is not actually more correct, but is replacing some common phrase that is declared obnoxious by some very small unrepresentative minority of people who coincidentally make their living as activists. Yes you can be houseless but not homeless, but you can also be homeless and not houseless. It's an utterly stupid distinction predicated on an intentionally incorrect, close, and literal minded reading of the term, done for political reasons.
- cnity 4y agoYou're downvoted by not far off to be honest. See also: the Euphemism Treadmill[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Lifespan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Lifespan
- mc32 4y agoSome iconic precursors to PC speech was the redefinition of role titles. Janitor which everyone was familiar with would be replaced with "sanitation engineer" or something similar which conveyed less what the person did do.
- Cthulhu_ 4y agoIt kinda sounds like classism or wage related; "janitor" or "cleaner" sounds common, a "sanitation engineer" or "chief housekeeping manager" sounds like they would earn more.
- mc32 4y agoWould I prefer to be a Janitor earning $20/hr or would I prefer being a sanitation engineer earning $15/hr. Sounds like I'm trading title for less money. There is probably some relationship with the now passe "rock star" "ninja".
- Lio 4y agoI think it's worse than that because it actually devalues the role of engineer, and the role of janitor by presenting it as something it's not. A sanitation engineer sounds like someone that knows how to safely build sewers or run a sewage processing plant. i.e. something you'd have a formal education and be accredited for. With respect for honest hardworking janitors everywhere, that's not the same thing as minor plumbing or ensuring that places are properly cleaned. Neither task is engineering. - “I understand that you’re a neurosurgeon.” (Bert grins.) “…No; I’m a barber. But a lot of people make that mistake.”
- Gordonjcp 4y agoRight, but that's a fictional example. No-one has actually unironically called a janitor a "sanitation engineer".
- MichaelCollins 4y agoHuh? If you live in a condo, you have no house but you are not homeless. A house is only one kind of shelter that can be a home, of many.
- Cthulhu_ 4y agoIt could also refer to the difference between living in someone's spare room, couch surfing, or living in a camper van vs having a home (rented or bought).
- MichaelCollins 4y ago> living in someone's spare room Children living with their parents don't own houses, but they aren't homeless either. Or adults for that matter. For a few years in college I lived in a spare room in my grandparent's house. I had no house of my own, but I certainly felt welcome and wasn't homeless by any means.
- rad88 4y agoThere is no meaning of "housed" that implies "owns a house".
- AnonCoward42 4y agoUnhoused vs homeless looks like a good example of a euphemism treatmill (in progress). Their state is not being altered by the "finer" wording instead it sounds pretentious and condescending. There are a lot of these political correct terms that are being used more cynically by now, however I'd prefer to not open that can of worms.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoGood example of this from the article: "alcohol use disorder (formerly called alcoholism)"
- altruios 4y agopedantically, I find alcohol use disorder more accurate to my internal definition of condition and disease. What we call things matter: as even slight changes in wording affect how people perceive things - so great care should be use when deciding what vernacular we should adopt generally.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- hirvi74 4y agoIn my mind, an alcoholic is someone that has a dependency on alcohol, but not all people with AUD have a dependency on alcohol. For example, I think binge-drinking consistently (college students on weekends, for example) can be considered to have a mild AUD, but that person is not necessarily an "alcoholic" -- at least not what the average person considers to be an an alcoholic. (If anyone knows more, feel free to correct me)
- altruios 4y agoIt makes sense to have a distinction between the word disease and condition and a disorder. A disease particular is from a foreign agent: bactierial/fungal/viral/prionic/parasitic. a condition or disorder is an integral structure on awry, or rewritten (by chemicals or by viewing data) to go awry: the key distinction between this and disease being that there is no other 'lifeform' (yes - include viruses for simplicity's sake). so alcohol use disorder vs alcoholism reflects a more accurate state of reality. (there is no bacteria/fungus/prion/parasite/virus that is the CAUSE of alcoholism - a chemical rewrote your brain which has been damaged to potentially require alcohol to survive). the push back I've encountered had nothing to do with being 'correct'/'sensible' and had everything to do with protecting the feelings of people suffering from AUD - which is not a worthwhile goal to coddle people with fluffy medical terms in the aims of removing responsibility from one's self... ... sorry for the rant :)
- raxxorraxor 4y agoNo, political correct is most often the opposite. It tries to obfuscate. Certainly not gain precision.
- LAC-Tech 4y agoYou're looking at it too literally. Enforcing others to change their language is mostly about power. Any feel good explanations of why it needs to change is justification for executing that power.
- raxxorraxor 4y agoTrue, it is about the prerogative of interpretation and to backhandedly assign motivation to someone that uses certain terms to mostly discredit them. There are some that just mean well, but even then, the method is questionable.
- waprin 4y agoI had the same reaction. The phrase "chemical imbalance" can't die soon enough. I've met some very smart people who were misled into thinking there's much more scientific evidence than exists that there's some innate brain chemistry that's linked to mental illness. In general, people overestimate how much of psychiatry is first-principles instead of black box statistical conjecture. The first huge hint that there's no simplistic chemical imbalance explanation is they don't measure any brain chemicals when they do psychiatric diagnosis. Furthermore, when people discuss "chemical imbalance" they're almost always talking about something innate and unchanging e.g. I'm depressed because of a chemical imbalance, not my lifestyle. When there's actually a ton of evidence that to the extent there's chemistry in your brain, your lifestyle and things like your food diet and information diet play a massive role. I will recommend this guy in way too many comments here but if you haven't heard of Andrew Huberman, please listen to his podcast, it's been life-changing. He gives tons of lifestyle tips and backs up all his arguments with his decades of experience in neuroscience.
- hirvi74 4y ago> they don't measure any brain chemicals when they do psychiatric diagnosis They do not measure anything in my experience. They just take an educated guess at what will fix your issues based on heuristics, and then just wait to see if you love/hate whatever they gave you. If what they give you did not work, then on to the next option until something works or all options are exhausted (which they usually just send you off to a different professional). As I grow older, I am more convinced that psychiatry is more of an art than a science. Tangential: I used to listen to Huberman, but over time I started to dislike his podcast more and more. I think he is a phenominal researcher, and I think his intentions with his podcast are good, but it seems like he just reads off various cherry-picked studies without actually linking them (that I could find) and without any mention of important details in the studies e.g. sample sizes, methodology flaws, implicit/explicit biases, etc.. He claimed 14% of pregnant mothers use cannabis in the US, but from what I have read of others' ventures into this claim, no one can find any information to support this claim. I also remember his episode on ADHD, and how effective fish oil can be for treating some of the symptoms in ADHD. However, in my own reading of various research articles, I have found that there is quite a lot conflicting information pertaining to the purported benefits of fish oil (in regards to ADHD). But of course, he did not mention anything about the research that did not fit the supplement narrative... But don't forget to use the code "HubermanLabs" for a discount on your purchase of Athletic Greens though.
- bubblesort 4y agoI agree. I'm going to refer back to this article when debunking pseudo-scientific BS from now on.
- lvass 4y agoAgreed. I despise political correctness yet appreciate this list, using precise language is always a good idea. I clicked in ready to see "shell shock" being renamed for the third time in less than a century, but that type of shenanigan is not what this article is about.
- runarberg 4y ago> I clicked in ready to see "shell shock" being renamed for the third time in less than a century It’s interesting you’d say that because I always understood the term Shell Shock to have been abandoned in favor of a more accurate and descriptive term. So I think if it was still in use by psychologists today (for some reason), I would have expected to see that on this list, and see the authors argue for the far more accurate term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. As a case in point, this list does include Multiple personality disorder and argues we should instead use the more accurate term dissociative identity disorder.
- csours 4y ago"Shell Shock" of course being the feeling when you discover that you are not using bash 4+ === End joke section === Shell shock has a genuinely complex and interesting history. It has described different conditions, had different connotations and value judgements, and had different supposed causes over time. As I understand it, shell shock has at least two very real components: Traumatic brain injury and Post traumatic stress disorder - they are often found together, and they act together to make things much worse than either by themselves. Mainstream understanding of the harm of repeated mild traumatic brain injury is very recent, relatively speaking.
- LordDragonfang 4y agoSome of these are practically tautological in their reasoning for why the terms are "misused", though. For example, they criticize calling drugs "antidepressants" solely because it's not their "primary effect". But the term is used to describe drugs which do treat "mood disorders" (depression), and do have effects in many cases. I don't see how that's any different from how the term "anxiolytic" is used, even though that's one of the examples they contrasted it with. Likewise, the section on "hypnotic trance" talks about how hypnosis doesn't induce a sufficiently different brain state to warrant the term, but the term was coined to describe the state the hypnosis induces, which is subjectively distinct from normal waking consciousness. And from what I've heard from those who've experienced it, it's characterized by a reduced awareness of the self, which is the defining feature of a trance, if the term can even be said to have any definition outside its uses to describe hypnosis.
- csours 4y agoHow would I find the modern, generally accepted understanding of hypnosis?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]