24 ms·

What was it, 10 to 20 years ago, people started to be noticeably nervous when they were coming near a description of my disability. It used to be so simple. I

• ShredKazoo 4y ago
  Interesting, thanks for chiming in. I wonder if the best way to push back against language policing is to simply poll various groups, see which language they prefer, and publish the results. The deltas could be interesting as well, e.g. even if most blind people dislike the term "blind", it would still be interesting if they are more likely to prefer the term "blind" than a member of the general population. I think public opinion polling might actually solve the problem, because the actual group has greater moral authority than language police activists. I suspect people might not cite this Atlantic article during a discussion of whether their organization should adopt language policing for fear of coming across as a reactionary old fogey. But if you were citing a poll of the group in question, that's a level of moral authority that's hard for a language police activist to argue against. Basically the hypothesis to test here is that a latinx-type reaction is fairly common, it just doesn't generally reach public consciousness the way it did in the case of latinx.
  • parineum 4y ago
    Groups don't have homogeneous opinions on this stuff. The prime example these days being Latinx. If people aren't called what they prefer, as long as they weren't called a slur, a simple correction is fine. Or, if you're never going to see them again, just let it go.
    • prepend 4y ago
      The challenge is when there is no single term that doesn’t offend everyone. So you can call a group “Latinx” and offend some and call a group “Latinos” and offend some and call a group “Latinos/Latinas” and offend some. I want to offend the fewest people with my speech. I would like to use opinion polling to both offend fewest as well as signal that I’m working to offend the fewest. What’s annoying and frustrating to me is when someone tells me “You must use term X because term Y offends.” Then I change it and someone else tells me “You must use term Y because term X offends.” And the worst part is the circular waste of time. I work in an organization that has a communication clearance process for the purpose of scientific accuracy and we spend a decent amount of time on this kind of editorial preference change/revert. Most isn’t even “offensive” words but stuff like Oxford comma, data are plural, etc.
      • parineum 4y ago
        I don't want to be offensive to people either but I also don't want to have to keep up on polling of what the plurality of any particular group is okay being referred to as. There are an infinite set of groups that I'd have to keep track of. I'll find out if something's offensive when I say it, with no ill intent, and someone respectfully lets me know that they'd prefer to be called something else. My language will change over time in response to the overall language changing over time.
        • prepend 4y ago
          Right, I act similarly. But when people have competing preferences like latinx vs latino, what do you do?
• recuter 4y ago
  I was going to recommend a masterpiece of cinema to you called Blind Fury: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Fury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Fury The realization that it would be pointless, alas, came to me too late. Let me just give you a taste: While serving in Vietnam, American soldier Nick Parker was blinded by a mortar explosion. Rescued by local villagers, he recovered his health and, though he remains blind, was trained to master his other senses and becomes an expert swordsman. So, he wears 80s sunglasses and wields a goddamn katana. He is also a hobo. Like Caine from Kong Fu he roams the earth and lowlifes always pick fights with him because they underestimate his... err... blind fury. There is an "adorable" little kid aptly named Billy, and one dimensional baddies, 'etc. The character is masterfully portrayed by one of the best b-movie actors of all time -- Rutger Hauer (best known for the best bit of Blade Runner). Anyway I think it is a shame woke imbeciles who run movie studios would refuse to make such a thing today because when I saw it as a kid it made me realize being blind is really not the end of the world. Here you are posting on HN and your insights about society are more astute than the majority of the population. So I just wanted to say that you certainly see what is going on accurately. P.S. - if you wish to visualize the language police people, they typically look like vogons and pull ugly faces when they speak.
  • lynx23 4y ago
    Hehe, thanks, I know about Blind Fury, Daredevil, and See No Evil, Hear No Evil... As I am embedded in a visual culture, I do consume movies from time to time, so there is actually no reason to be self-conscious about mentioning media products like that...
    • recuter 4y ago
      Not self conscious at all my dude (I'm not one of those insensitive woke people who get off on making everybody feel like shit to try and elevate themselves at all costs), glad I made you chuckle. How do you consume movies? I didn't know that the ̶a̶c̶c̶u̶r̶s̶e̶d̶ "visually impaired" do that. Dope. Don't know why I'm surprised. I bet blind fury would watch movies somehow too. Also, you should obviously change your username. :) P.S. - Daredevil sucks so bad it makes me wish I was blind. You aren't missing out on anything there. See No Evil, Hear No Evil is a classic. Yet another example of something great that currently wouldn't get made. I've decided I want a blind friend. Prank potential off the charts.
• zmgsabst 4y ago
  That’s because they care more they were bullied in the past than about your feelings. People appropriating your disability to excuse their bullying has led to what is effectively PTSD dealing with the groups whose voice was appropriated. That’s sad — and has impacted not only disabled people, but race and gender relations. I miss 10-20 years ago, when people were people rather than defined by protected class.
  • lynx23 4y ago
    Amen. Its sad, and there seems to be nothing we can do about it. To a degree, I am used to being treated in a condescending way. This is just a level up, the worst kind: "I know better how you should be treated then you because you are to simple to know what I already know."
    • recuter 4y ago
      [flagged]
• jjav 4y ago
  > I prefer the term blind because it is pretty descriptive and relatively short Always reminds me of the George Carlin bit on language euphemisms used to distance us from reality (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc).
  • mnsc 4y ago
    Funny you could argue that "disabled" is language that distances us from reality. Since describing someone not present as just "disabled" doesn't tell you anything whether that person in reality is able to do one specific thing, eg tedious react frontend development in a large organization. "differently abled" doesn't tell you anything more but clearly signals that "more information is needed".
    • vasco 4y ago
      It does tell us many things, you're being obtuse on purpose. If someone is disabled you know they generally suffer from some health issue which is serious enough and probably chronic, to afford them that status by the state. Among this umbrella you have many common things like, they can probably park closer to doors, if they are disabled. I'm not sure why people just pretend things are not how they are when discussing these subjects. Of course we have more information than less.
      • mnsc 4y ago
        If you are blind, are you disabled? And if you are blind can you park closer to doors?
        • vasco 4y ago
          Yes if you are blind you have a disability, as per almost every developed country's rules. My mom isn't even fully blind and pays less tax due to her disability status, she is officially disabled. Regarding parking closer to doors, I said "probably" and that was literally to illustrate that there is an umbrella that covers most cases even if there's edge cases. Obviously there are people with disabilities that don't even allow them to leave their bed so they can't drive. I think the most accurate part of my previous comment was about you being intentionally obtuse.
• roenxi 4y ago
  > The language terror they were subjected to has made them so unsecure that they actually dont want to hear that blind people have no issue with being called blind. It is unusual for the opinions of the minorities involved to be relevant.The language policing appears to be a power play within the majority. What you are observing is consistent with that - they aren't worried about offending the blind, they're worried about how their language will allow their peers to jostle for position.
  • funcDropShadow 4y ago
    > It is unusual for the opinions of the minorities involved to be relevant.The language policing appears to be a power play within the majority. That is so true. Often the stated goal is to deconstruct society, not to help any minority.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  • sbuk 4y ago
    It not even a majority that dictates. It’s ostensibly a vocal minority of professional offence-takers who wield power, generally on social media. My partner has MS, and I made an off-the-cuff joke about it, and got pilloried by people that neither of us know. Not one of them took the time to consider that this is how we deal with it; they were too busy being offended on her behalf.
    • circlefavshape 4y ago
      > a vocal minority of professional offence-takers A role that used to be filled (in Ireland) by priests and nuns, and the Legion of Mary. One of the big problems I used to have with religion was the moral policing - imagine my surprise when the power of the church waned, but the moral policing only intensified
    • LewisVerstappen 4y ago
      > It’s ostensibly a vocal minority of professional offence-takers who wield power, generally on social media The issue is that these people have seeped into positions of power at media institutions like the NY Times, WaPo, etc. Now they're using the decades of trust those institutions have built to shove their ideology down everyone's throat.
• Lazare 4y ago
  My partner is disabled, and by chance and via support groups she is a member of, she has many friends annd acquaintences who are as well. And while it's by no means universal, she and all her disabled friends absolutely loathe the "people first language" currently in vogue (ie, "person with a disability" over "disabled"). And it's odd! Because while there are certainly disabled people who prefer one form over another when they speak or when people refer to them (although again, in my experience, the overwhelming majority prefer the clarity of "disabled"), the only time I've ever run across someone making a universal dictate about how everyone should speak about all disabled people everywhere, the speaking has been non-disabled. And invariably backing a viewpoint which is tenditious at best among actually disabled people! And to what end? It sometimes feels - certainly to my partner, hence her anger - an attempt to just sort of pretend the issue dosn't exist so that nobody has to be uncomfortable. Her disability is, at the moment, entirely incurable. She has experienced significant grief over her disability; she would love not to have it. But she does, and relabelling her as "differently abled" or a "person with a disability" doesn't suddenly remove the physical limitations she is struggling with.
  • lynx23 4y ago
    I can relate to what she told you about language changes not improving ones own situation. I am well past the point where I have any grief related to my disability. Its a fact of life, a part of me, very much like not being able to fly, or having a nose above the mouth. But there are of course situations in life where I feel that the world isn't always particularily accessible. But it doesn't help at all if someone uses appropriate language to explain to me that they dont want me as a customer because they are afraid of liabilities. Thats a bit cynical, I know, but thats another trend. With "awareness" about special groups comes more exclusion. Anyway, I digress.
  • sunderw 4y ago
    I suffer from a disability and so does my girlfriend. Note that our main language is French and so there is a bit of nuance to how the terms are used. Disabled is usually said "handicapé" (this word means more "incapacitated" that anything) and "person with a disability" is usually said "personne en situation de handicap" which more literally translates to "person in a disability situation" / "person currently incapacitated". While we don't have any problem with the term disabled, I can see some advantages to the "people first language" and try to use it when I can - but I agree it's often way more simple/clear to say "disabled", "blind", etc... The advantages are : - Including temporarily disabled people (maybe more in french than english). If you break your legs and spend a few months in a wheelchair, you might not feel legitimate to use the term "disabled" in comparison to someone who has never been able to walk and suffers more from it. I'd also add my personal story: I suffer from chronic pain that is very incapacitating in my life. I don't feel legitimate when I call myself disabled. It's not temporary, but it's not as clear as blindness etc... Using people-first language feels more right. - Including more person means reducing stigma and reducing the gap between abled/disabled. - Not letting that disabilty define you as a person. I am not disabled, I am Sunderw, a complicated person with many different aspects. That said, it should definitely not be a dictate because it only serves to divide more. Also, I had never heard the term "differently abled" which could sound almost sarcastic when employed to speak about someone in a wheelchair for example. [Edit: formatting]
• pizza234 4y ago
  This is the exact same dynamic that happens with comedy. When a comedian offends a group, it's typically not people from that group who complain - it's third parties who step in to represent that group. IMO the purpose of language changing is not to improve the world; instead, it's to give the feeling of changing the world without putting any real effort. Fun (in a sad way) fact: a friend of mine collaborates with an association that deals with diverse people. Some high-up complained that my friend's group (within the association) is "not diverse enough". Thing is: my friend is actually non-binary themselves. Go figure. EDIT: replaced the definition of my friend from "diverse" to "non-binary", in order to be exact; the same principle stands, though!
  • Y_Y 4y ago
    A single person shouldn't be able to be diverse on their own! That's a property of groups. You can try to define a "default person" and then say you want each individual to differ from that in your favourite characteristics, but that's a different game and provides none of the benefits of actual diversity.
    • Scarblac 4y ago
      It's me, actually. I'm 48, white, male, cis, hetero, graying, healthy, overweight but not obese, married with two kids, and slaving away in a wage job behind a computer somewhere. "Diverse" specifically means different from me. I feel it's good companies are looking for more diverse people to fill their jobs, I can't do them all.
    • slackdog 4y ago
      I think you could reasonably describe a single person as 'diverse' in the 'diverse set of skills or experiences' sense. Like a jack-of-all-trades handyman. Or maybe for somebody that has a wide array of personalities which they reveal in different social contexts.
    • the_af 4y ago
      > A single person shouldn't be able to be diverse on their own! Agreed, but I've seen it used like this more than once, and it's both hilarious and unintentionally offensive. A diverse group -- which makes more sense -- means something inoffensive: that the people in that group are different from each other, representing there's variety within the group according to some parameter (say, skin color). A "diverse" person as used in PC language is... exactly what? Someone with "diverse ethnicity" (seen this used!) is someone who what? Was this person the offspring of an orgy of people with different skin colors? Oooh.. I get it, a "diverse" person is someone who is not white, meaning the standard/normal skin color is white, and being "diverse" is to be "other than white", which is of course abnormal, because being white is what's normal. And people saying "diverse" don't even notice the irony of this!
• ookblah 4y ago
  I think it all starts from a good place. Would you rather people just using words "carelessly" without regard to how you might feel? It's questioning the assumption that the word used is fine throughout history. I don't think there is anything nefarious about it, just that "people" always co-opt the motives in the end and make it muddled for their own benefit. Overthinking it I guess. I know it when I see it, but it's hard to articulate it to something that works for everyone.
  • DharmaPolice 4y ago
    >Would you rather people just using words "carelessly" without regard to how you might feel? I can't speak for anyone else but surely the answer to this is yes?
  • recuter 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_road_to_hell_is_paved_with_good_intentions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_road_to_hell_is_paved_with... > It's questioning the assumption that the word used is fine throughout history. Bullshit. It forbids questioning of the questioning. That is all it is really about. > "people" always co-opt the motives in the end and make it muddled for their own benefit At least you can concede that point. Which is an enormously important point and more than enough of a reason not to go down this idiotic path of linguistic power struggles.
    • ookblah 4y ago
      I'm not arguing what is currently happening or the end result, just that from even my own personal perspective I usually want to ask "is this word okay to use around you?" instead of just assuming it as such or automatically making someone else responsible for their feelings around my words. You might ultimately be right, but go down that road enough and these people are usually called "assholes" lol. That phrase isn't an indictment of good intentions, just a warning to be aware.
      • recuter 4y ago
        > or automatically making someone else responsible for their feelings around my words If people are not responsible for their own feelings and the onus is on you, you are at their mercy. Some percentage of them are going to abuse you as a result. Where is the win? All you are enabling is psychos and mentally/emotionally unstable people.
• makeitdouble 4y ago
  The difficult part of this being, some of the 100% blind people effectively don’t like the word and don’t want to be called blind. Then some people are ‘only’ 80% blind, and don’t want to be called blind. Then some family members of blind people don’t want the word to be used. I think it’s pretty common phenomenon, like the people who call themselves “black”, those who are called “black” but hate it, and everyone in the middle usually not knowing what’s the position of any specific person’s on the issue. I don’t think there even is a correct answer, as long as there are many people in different situations with different perceptions of what the words mean, there’s no way we get a consensus on this. At most we could get a majority sharing a common sensibility and bully the rest into submission, as it happened so many times in history.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • parineum 4y ago
    The answer is for people to make their preferences known and not hold it against people what is not done with malice. It's pretty simple.
    • faeriechangling 4y ago
      Pretty simple if you don’t have to deal with the logistics of this. How can you judge if something was done with malice or not in the first place especially when we’re talking about disabilities which impair being able to read between the lines fairly often? People can make their preferences clear but how does one meet the preferences of many people in a mass communication?
      • tmn 4y ago
        Benefit of the doubt? Why is it important to know for sure if something so benign is done with malice or ignorance on an initial take. Just assume ignorance and if it continues it becomes clear that it's malice.
• mihaaly 4y ago
  Apparently people wanted to intensionally offend people so much the traditional swear words or offenses were not enogh so used anything they thought could hurt - disability or mere difference in the shade of the skin - that forgot the original meaning of the words (raising childs learned the offensive meaning first?). People need to stop being intensionally offensive instead of using then banning more and more words doing that. The words are the symptom not the cause.
• wonderwonder 4y ago
  I see it as unintentional discrimination. It's treating the people they are relabeling as children that need the kind progressives to step in and save them. It's so condescending. Minorities don't need white Knights to save them, neither do the disabled. If an individual wants me to not refer to them as x because they find it offensive, no problem. But a group of academics should not be able to sit around and decide that a group as a whole needs saving. It very much forces otherness on people and to your point furthers the divide. it forces us to see them as different. Side note, and this is completely off topic and I really mean this in the most positive way but you typing here has completely altered my perception of the need for following web standards for accessibility. I don't know any blind people in real life so really just assumed that accessibility standards really weren't worth the effort as they wouldn't make a difference. But here you are reading and responding in a manner that's probably better than I do. I am 100% on board now. You opened my mind today, thanks for that.
  • hutzlibu 4y ago
    [flagged]
    • wonderwonder 4y ago
      There are always exceptions and genocide is very obviously one. I was referring more to the socially constructed self inflicted battles society has been engaging in lately.
      • attemptone 4y ago
        I was looking around for societal battles that were not socially constructed. But I guess I'm visually impaired in that respect. Maybe you can help me?
        • raspberry1337 4y ago
          I was looking around for something that is not socially constructed. But I guess I am socio-constructually visio-impaired in that respect. Maybe you can help me?
• taylorius 4y ago
  It's certainly unfortunate, but not that weird in my view. People in general don't want to offend, but rightly or wrongly, there is a perception that the acceptable terms for any person who has some "protected characteristic" are an ever-shifting minefield, and any infraction will be unforgivable. This fear is 99% unfounded of course, but due to the disproportionate prominence of such "woke takedowns" in media, has absolutely added to the distance between groups.
• chronogram 4y ago
  Your opinion as a blind person doesn't matter to someone not wanting to call you blind, it's the opinions of others around them that matter to them.
• boomboomsubban 4y ago
  From spending time with students of my local school for the blind and visually impaired, I am under the impression "blind" and "visually impaired" are seperate things. Some of the people I knew seemed to care about the distinction, so it seems better to stick with something neutral until I am sure.
  • lynx23 4y ago
    Sure, but I was not refering to the somewhat blurry distinction between blind and visually impaired. I am well aware there is a spectrum. I was talking about my own experience, and that is limited to being pitch-black-darkness-blind myself.
    • boomboomsubban 4y ago
      Of course, but I was also talking about my own experience. If I randomly met you I would be hesitant to call you "blind" until I knew more about you. It stems from a young man being very angry at being called "blind" when he could see. Rereading your post, it sound like people are unwilling to call you blind even after you tell them you are, so we may be talking about different things.
• YeBanKo 4y ago
  From non-native speaker perspective, it sounds like it also obscured the truth: visually challenged can still consume visual info, blind - can’t. For the former larger fonts, adapted color palette, simplified graphics, etc can be useful, for the latter no amount of adaptations will work and you have to completely switch to audio or tactile mode of communication.
  • bombcar 4y ago
    It’s complicated by “legally blind” being a term that includes people who can see “somewhat”.
• atoav 4y ago
  Isn't there is an actual difference between blind and visually impaired tho? The way I understood it blind people are a subset of visually impaired people, but not all visually impaired people are blind in a medical sense. So the reasoning behind such language might be to include people who are not technically blind, but still require similar consideration, assistence, infrastructure and so on. Language is odd here. The public used to call neurodivergent people "retarded" till the word had developed such a negative connotation that you wouldn't be able to use the word when adressing actual neurodivergent people without feeling like you are swearing. Of course that negative connotation didn't come out of nowhere, it is an expression of the way society looks (or looked) at the people it described. Of course people who live with mentally disabled people (or mentally disabled people themselves) often self-label themselves as "retarded" very bluntly and not without some sense of humour. But a bit like with race there are certain things you can say when you are part of the minority, that might not be okay to say when you are part of the majority. When I was a kid people would constantly call something or someone "retarded", my niece's generation talks about how that is not okay. And they don't do it out of political correctness, but because they truly don't think neurodivergent behavior is something anybody should have to be ashamed of. But of course there are also people who don't go that deep and just want to not offend anyone (good luck with that). They are the people who will feel uncomfortable when they describe something that isn't part of their perfect little world.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • projektfu 4y ago
    Yes and actually that subsetting is why we need the richness of the language. A school for the blind is specifically for people who need to learn to make do without hardly any visual input. Assistance for the visually impaired can range from screen reading and braille to large text and high contrast. We also have a lot of definitions for blind and retarded, not referring to personal differences. A duck blind. Retarded bacterial growth. A blind sac. Sometimes people take offense at even these uses.
  • Pulcinella 4y ago
    I myself, as someone with ADHD, absolutely despise the term “neurodivergent” (and also “neurotypical”). I hate how it’s used to lump everyone with different neurological, mental, and learning conditions under one umbrella. I hate how it is used to separate us from the “neurotypical” who don’t have these conditions. And I hate how offensive it sounds (“neurodivergent” sounds like some C-tier, crazed, antisocial comic book villain obsessed with building bombs or something.) I feel clear[0] adjectives and nouns are the best, most direct descriptors. I’m not neurodivergent, I just have ADHD. I’m not oculi-visuallydivergent, I just wear glasses because I am nearsighted. [0] Yes I am aware that what counts as clear is itself very, very up for discussion and is a very loaded term. I hope I got my point across.
• LangIsAllWeNeed 4y ago
  The continuing to dissent aspect and persisting to use the “nice” words is dark to me. It represents to me the inescapable self referential pathway of all altruistic behaviors. That which makes cooperation and altruism possible also causes some strange glitches that sometimes reveals the motivating emotions are always self referential.
• prepend 4y ago
  I think it’s a consequence of the well-intentioned, but foolish idea of “bias toward action” that doing something is good and not doing something is bad or complicit. When people see something bad-discrimination against disabled- they want to improve the situation but don’t know what to do. So they do something, anything without considering if the action is effective or if the best course is to do nothing. So making a list of words to use or not use is doing something. There’s no way to measure if it makes things better or worse, but at least it’s something. If they don’t make a list, and do nothing then that might be confused with not recognizing the problem. So I think it’s well meaning people who want to help and do something stupid rather than not doing something. I wonder if just releasing a statement of values is more appropriate for noting that an organization is against all these injustices but not advocating for lots of dumb little changes. That and I think these lists naturally suffer from collaboritis. Where someone makes a document and circulates it for edits. All the obvious stuff is already on there so people want to help and think up any edge case and add it to the document. It’s hard to argue for parsimony for fear of being called out as a bigot. And it’s hard to suggest removing an item for the same reason.
  • TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
    It's a superficial thing to complain about, because it's rare that isn't linked to action - from dropping kerbs, to adding lifts and ramps, to building special toilets for wheelchair users. It's questionable how many of these things would have happened if the language wasn't made memorable. Of course it irritates people who would prefer not to think about these things - because it's supposed to. There's actually far more us/them divisive language on the right. Even if you hate progressive tropes and don't always agree with the politics they're at least making an effort to be inclusive. Right wing language is always irredeemably divisive - usually aggressively so. Frequently with outright contempt, and sometimes with normalisation of violence. And it makes no attempt to be anything else.
    • prepend 4y ago
      In my experience it isn’t rare at all. In work I see this a lot where an error is ambiguous and changes make it worse. I see “bias toward action” frequently in work presentations and whatnot. For debugging it’s not so much to change nothing, but to investigate and figure out what to change rather than change things without an understanding of the intended impact of the change. Also, it’s not that I don’t think about these things. It’s that I think and determine the best course of action is no action. That gets conflated with not thinking about these things because on the outside it’s hard to differentiate those that thought and care and think to do nothing vs those that are oblivious vs those that choose not to think about this. In this example, I think the best course is to not include disabled in the list. I want to include disabled people, but I think changing language in this way is not valuable.
• msla 4y ago
  I have a similar story: When I was a child, I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. This is now malady non grata: For one thing, it's been folded into autism spectrum disorder, the DSM-5 being more on the lumper end of things than previous DSMs were, and, for another, it has a checkered history, with Hans Asperger using his position as a doctor in Vienna during the Second World War to choose which children were saved and which were murdered in camps. His collaboration with the Nazis and odious views have resulted in a backlash against the diagnosis. Later still, the very word "Autism" seems to have faded out of polite speech, with people like me being referred to as "on the spectrum" with no explicit mention of which spectrum. This is, as far as I'm concerned, a straight-up euphemism treadmill: The DSM-5's lumping of Asperger's into autism spectrum disorder is something that can be defended on its scientific merits, but moving away from any mention of autism is purely down to the word's use as an insult. OK, so be it. The treadmill rolls on. The final point is person-first language and why I don't use it: I am an autistic person. I don't say I'm a person with autism because I can't possibly be without autism. Is someone who identifies as a man a "person with gender" or is anyone a "person with race" or "person with ethnicity"? No. Some things are fundamental enough to how we experience the world that saying we're a person with that thing, which implies we could be without it, is wrong.
  • skissane 4y ago
    > Later still, the very word "Autism" seems to have faded out of polite speech, with people like me being referred to as "on the spectrum" with no explicit mention of which spectrum It is terribly ignorant, because people who use "spectrum" as an alias for autism/ASD don't know that psychiatry/psychology contains many other "spectrums" – the schizophrenia spectrum, the obsessive-compulsive spectrum, the bipolar spectrum, the disruptive behaviour disorder spectrum, the trauma spectrum, etc, etc. The autism and schizophrenia spectrums are the only two which have officially made it into the DSM-5, but the others are all actively used in research and clinically, and the obsessive-compulsive spectrum was originally planned to be included (but for whatever reason didn't make the cut). > The final point is person-first language and why I don't use it: I am an autistic person. I seriously thought about paying a psychologist >$1000 for an autism assessment. Together, my psychiatrist and my psychologist [0] talked me out of it. They both said that if I really wanted a piece of paper saying that I had ASD, certainly some psychologist out there would be happy to take my money and give me one. But, their argument was, it wouldn't actually make any positive difference to my life, it would just be a waste of my time and money. And, for now at least, I decided to follow their advice. So am I an "autistic person" or not? What is "autism"? "Asperger's"? "ASD"? Well, in part, they are scientific theories; in part, they are cultural constructs, whose existence and success is quite independent of the quality or truth of the scientific theory. Focusing just on the scientific theory side, how good is the evidence behind them? Most professionals, families, and people who identify with those labels assume the evidence must be really good. But, there are voices out there arguing that they are far from proven, that the science behind them is deeply flawed, even that we ought to drop them and look for better theories to replace them with. See [1] – and for a weaker but overlapping position, [2]. Is something really "fundamental enough to how we experience the world" if it is a scientific theory which could well turn out to be false, a dead-end, a wrong turn in the history of science? What if, one day, people look back on ASD/autism/Asperger's/etc just as we now look back on hysteria, phlogiston, the luminiferous aether, the Ptolemaic model, the steady-state universe, etc, etc, etc? What if "autism" is really no more fundamental to anyone's identity than hysteria was? [0] my psychologist isn't qualified to diagnose ASD, hence he couldn't do it, I had to go to someone else. He could gain that qualification if he wanted to – all it takes is just a few short courses – but he isn't interested in practicing in that area. Similar story for my psychiatrist – he told me if any patient asks him about an ASD diagnosis, he tells them to see a psychologist for that instead, he doesn't want to get involved in it [1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40489-016-0085-x https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40489-016-0085-x [2] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aur.2494 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aur.2494
• coldtea 4y ago
  >It is so weird, because it adds yet another layer of distance between "us" and the "normal" people. Yeah, and those "sensitive" people also don't seem to get what normal means. It just means "how the majority is supposed to be/the baseline fully functioning state regarding X". It's not a moral judgement if one is not in the normal group regarding some ability. >Its a weird phenomenon. The longer I watch all of this, and I also mean the gender-language-hacks, I feel like this move has added to the distance between various groups, not made it smaller. I think the smaller distance is when groups can be relaxed and casual about language - and even joke about their differences. This is as opposed to hostile (as back in the day regarding e.g. whites against blacks) and overcautious tip-toeing around the other group.
  • kenjackson 4y ago
    This line is probably smaller than it may appear. The reason much of this language policing started is because of the dominant group using language to reinforce the inferiority of a less powerful group. It’s always easier for the dominant group to say “it’s just words — no one cares” since the words are never at their expense.
    • account42 4y ago
      Which dominant group isn't subject to slurs?
      • kenjackson 4y ago
        Everyone is subject to slurs. That’s not what I’m referencing. I’m talking about the use of language where you use the less-dominant group as a negative reference point. For example “retarded”. Or “fag”. You apply those terms to people who are neither as a way of disparaging them.
        • andsoitis 4y ago
          I’m gay. Whether someone calls me fag or gay or LGBTQI+ (this one I hate more that “fag”, BTW) is orthogonal to: a) how they treat me b) whether they would actually stick their neck out for me when it really matters (e.g. marriage equality). I will almost universally guarantee that the same person who insists on non-offensive language for me would NOT fight for marriage equality if it means they have to give up something or risk something. True ally.
• sva_ 4y ago
  I once had an injury in both of my legs after a long hike. It caused my legs to be so swollen that I had very limited mobility, but I could still walk - though it probably looked very awkward. In school, children get taught that when someone looks disabled, you shouldn't look at them, because staring at them is some kind of discrimination or so. I couldn't disagree more. When I had that injury, and was kind of crip-walking, people would intuitively stare at me for a second, then -very obviously- force themselves to look away. The injury wasn't that bad and went away after a week or two. But the way people forced themselves to look away, was much worse. I can't imagine dealing with that every day. I'd argue that the people who make up these kind of "rules" probably aren't themselves affected by it.
  • bombcar 4y ago
    I kind of feel the euphemism treadmill is the language version of “looking away”. Blind is stark; powerful; forces me to contemplate the lack of vision - I can’t escape it. But if I start using “visually challenged” then it’s softer, sounds like a game, challenges can be overcome, this isn’t something I need to worry about.
    • GartzenDeHaes 4y ago
      George Carlin has a great bit on euphemisms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isMm2vF4uFs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isMm2vF4uFs
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  • notamy 4y ago
    > When I had that injury, and was kind of crip-walking, people would intuitively stare at me for a second, then -very obviously- force themselves to look away. > The injury wasn't that bad and went away after a week or two. But the way people forced themselves to look away, was much worse. I can't imagine dealing with that every day. Having experienced this, I personally find that what's worse is the way people look at me in the first place. It's not as simple as someone looking at me, I can _see_ on their face or in their eyes or ... what's going through their mind, before they reassert control and hide it again.
• pibechorro 4y ago
  It is. Similarly Latinx is hated by 99.99% of latinos, yet here we are.
• KielFisch 4y ago
  Recently I came across a discussion on Twitter where a selection of scientists were arguing that the long-used term "blind peer review" (i.e. where the authors do not know the identities of the reviewers, and vice versa) could be construed as able-ist and should be referred to as "anonymous peer review". I'm all in favour of using inclusive language, but at the time this discussion struck me as odd because I've never connected the definition of "blind" in "blind peer review" to the disability, although its obvious that the link exists from a linguistic standpoint. What are your thoughts on such discussions? I do believe that none of those arguing for the change were themselves blind.
  • YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
    Wiktionary has attestations for use of 'blind' to mean 'concealed' or 'not visible' going all the way back to the 16th century, and if you follow the etymology it becomes likely that that was the original sense of the word, with 'sightless' coming later. This same disingenuous reasoning was used with Twitch with the phrase 'blind playthrough' (to mean 'playing a game without having seen any of it before').
  • arbitrarian 4y ago
    Not OC, but I am also totally blind, so I'll bite. IMHO, just more silliness. The biggest problems that I as a blind person face don't generally stem from my blindness. Don't get me wrong, it's incredibly inconvenient, and causes a whole host of problems. But the biggest, most life altering problems tend to stem from societies misconceptions. And the best weapon we have against misconceptions is communication. But all this fuss over words does not aid communication in any way. In fact, I think it does the exact opposite. The only thing the language police have done for us is to make communication more awkward. How am I supposed to have a real conversation with anyone if they're constantly worried they're going to not use the right code words (which, by the way, change routinely). How is a blind person supposed to convince a potential employer that they can handle the work when they (according to the language police) can't even handle people using regular words. People learn by asking questions, and people aren't likely to ask questions if they are afraid of stepping on a verbal landmine and being labeled insensitive, or worse. I don't know who the language police think they're serving by all this outrage and/or false concern, but it certainly isn't me. If I need to, I can get offended on my own behalf just fine thanks.
• dzek69 4y ago
  I used to work for a while with blind people. The boss of the local blind people community was shooting dad-like jokes about blindness all the time, I loved that attitude! It helped to make connection with these people and we needed that, because I was developing some app that main audience was blind people and to actually understand their needs and problems you need to make a connection with them.
  • cpursley 4y ago
    Decade or so ago I was once in a room with a group of people where one person was blind. An acquaintance of the blind person came into the room and said oh hey good to see you to him. The blind person replied back to them with one of the best comebacks I’ve ever heard in my life with “well I’ve never seen you” before” and had the whole room laughing.
• ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  It's bafflingly common for someone on this site to say something along the lines of "woke people should stop being woke and instead should listen to my opinions as a minority and change their ways to suit me better because I have special insight into the problems I face that they don't". Which to most people, is what being woke is. But I guess if you are on team non-woke and some kind of a minority then things get complicated quickly.
• mistermann 4y ago
  > It is so weird, because it adds yet another layer of distance between "us" and the "normal" people. I like to call normal people "Normies", and with all the terror and hardship they've brought to the world (being the vast majority of the population), while self-righteously pointing their fingers at other people, assigning 100% of the underlying causality to them (usually based on heuristics or blindly accepting the mainstream narrative explanation) it only increases my enjoyment when I'm insulted and downvoted/rate-limited in response. "We have met the enemy and he is us". > Its a weird phenomenon. The longer I watch all of this, and I also mean the gender-language-hacks, I feel like this move has added to the distance between various groups, not made it smaller. I often wonder if this is purely accidental/organic.
• naasking 4y ago
  > It is so condescending to believe your own language-police more then the person you are talking to. This is exactly it. They have theories that spin a narrative telling them that you just don't understand why your preferred language is oppressive. Like women who just want to be housewives and stay at home with kids are suffering from internalized misogyny, or that Hispanic people almost universally hate the term LatinX but we must keep using it because gender neutrality is way more important than pissing off almost everyone.
• duxup 4y ago
  Distance worries me too. A school I would visit had a native American name for their sports teams. I attended a game where they opened the season with local tribe members singing, and drumming, the dedicated it to the coach of the opposing team who died during off season. If you've never heard Native American music live in person you really should, it's like nothing else. Several local tribes supported the school using the name, but one chose not to. The school the had to use another name, logo, etc. It struck me how nothing seemed to be gained except distance ....
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• 00F_ 4y ago
  i used to live on the coast and moved to a midwest state. i did it because property is cheaper in the midwest and also i thought it would be refreshing to get a break from coastal culture. i moved to the midwest but a metro area in the midwest, not a rural community. the state is red, we have constitutional carry and we have stand your ground rather than duty to retreat. i have gotten into developing real estate in this place and i have had a lot of theft. naturally, i thought that because the state is red, constitutional carry and stand your ground i would be able to confront someone committing a crime. i thought that if that person attacked me, i would be well within my rights to defend myself. one day i did catch someone trespassing, looking for something to steal. i did confront him and he did try to attack me. luckily, drawing my gun was enough to make him change his mind. it was a whole incident. and what happened next shocked me to my core and changed my understanding of what is going on in this country. the police treated me like the criminal. they didnt charge me but they were really mean and aggressive with me, as if i were not the victim of a crime, and they lied to me. they said i should have just called and not followed the man. i said if they hadnt taken 20 fucking minutes then i wouldnt have needed to keep him in sight. i said if it takes you 20 minutes to show up to me following the guy, it would have taken you an hour to get here otherwise. and i said that the guy would have gotten away. if people follow your advice the criminals will get away every fucking time. how the fuck does that work? his response, from a midwestern cop, was that i should just let insurance cover the losses. the insanity of that statement is shocking. but not as shocking as this: people in the community didnt support me. nobody was in favor of me confronting criminals. these people, who are often victimized and stolen from, are not just apathetic about crime but look down on me because i was involved in a violent interaction. these people wont confront criminals or be associated with people who do because they dont want to reduce their social status. thats what it is, its snobbery. these people "support the police" and there are blue porch lights everywhere, and they claim to be tough on crime, but they are no different than los angeles liberals when it comes to actually confronting crime. and people wonder why we have crime in this country. its because people are fucking retarded. they have no fucking principles. this mind virus has taken over the entire country. and its all connected. these are the same people who allow themselves to fumble over language, who bend over backwards to not call a spade a spade. people who stumble over not offending a blind person, as if it would make them less blind, are the same people who shy away from confronting crime. in both cases, there is a total lack of critical thought, a total blindness to the bigger picture. the simple and plain fact is that society cannot be good or even exist unless everyone makes a little sacrifice every once in a while. people have to stand up to crime every once in a while or else crime will become rampant. and it has. people have to say what they think every once in a while even if it makes you look bad or else the truth, our only guiding light, will become extinguished. but all these idiots avoid any and all risk to their own wellbeing no matter whats at stake. these people wont even accept the tiny, tiny little loss of face involved in unintentionally offending someone. literally any loss of face or status, any tiny little deviation from the script, is simply too much for these people. its fucking disgraceful. everyone knows that the country has become much more crime ridden, much more seedy, much more crappy in recent times. especially when you control for technology. its cultural for sure, not economic. and since we are on the topic, let me just say it: fumbling around when calling a black person black or a blind person blind is more insulting than not! when you dance around and fumble and so on, you are making a huge and embarrassing insinuation that the condition of the person you are referring to is problematic or undesirable. you are screaming in that persons face that you see them as less than and you are trying really hard to not portray them as such. thats what really cements these people in the category of "idiot." they are selfishly helping themselves by toeing the line and not helping anyone else despite the fact that the entire justification for that dogma is being selfless and helping others.
• ladyattis 4y ago
  >I am 100% blind, and guess what, I prefer the term blind because it is pretty descriptive and relatively short. Have you ever listened to the tv show Avatar the last air bender? There's a character who's blind named Toph and she always goofs on her friends who aren't blind throughout the series. It's quite amusing since it's not done in a manner that insults her for being blind but that they sometimes say things which might be insensitive which she makes fun of in her own way.
• lazyeye 4y ago
  Its this new concept that says you can only be a nice, respectful person if you sign up to a particular ideology and view the world through this lens. This ideology is usually espoused by people who have only have a couple of years life experience as an adult yet believe they are best positioned to tell everybody else how to think and behave.
• zzo38computer 4y ago
  I agree with what you are saying, but I also have my own comments relating to such things. What I had seen is that these use of banning words and using different words, mostly just makes it more difficult to communicate properly, rather than actually helping anyone. (Occasionally some specific change is helpful in some contexts, but often it just makes it worse.) I think that all of these changes are rather excessive. Sometimes they do make an improvement, but often they don't, and may make it worse. Sometimes it is an improvement in some contexts, but it should not be applied to contexts in which it is inappropriate. I also don't like such words like "visually challenged", etc. It is better to use words such as "blind", although it can depend on the context. Sometimes "unable to see" might be more appropriate (since, just because you are unable to see something does not necessarily mean that you are blind; e.g. maybe you are looking at something else at the time, or your eyes are closed, etc). "Disabled" is OK (using words such as "people with disabilities" or "differently-abled" or "people living with disabilities" or whatever, does not help), but usually it is better to specify the specific disability (e.g. "blind" or "deaf"), which is usually much more helpful than writing "disabled". (Although, in some contexts, it may be sensible to write "disabled", because it isn't about a specific kind of disabilities. Even in some cases, "differently-abled" may be appropriate, possibly.) Accessibility features can be helpful whether or not you are blind, deaf, or other kind of disabilities. For this reason, it is helpful to not restrict their usefulness or to claim that they are only good if you are disabled in this way. (For example, many people can use captions on TV even if you are not deaf, although they are also useful if you are deaf, which should not be disregarded.) I think that many kinds of features can be useful whether or not you are blind/deaf/etc, if the system is well-designed. In some cases, there just aren't any good words to describe some unusual situations clearly, though.
• prewett 4y ago
  I've been reading "Cynical Theories" by Pluckrose and Lindsay which explains this whole thing as coming from a one-dimensional, activistized Postmodern framework. In this framework, society is a subtle network of power that creates oppressors and oppressed, sustained by "truth" created through language. There is no such thing as objective truth, so truth is a social construct created through language. But since the word "blind" is used by the default, in-power group, your claim to prefer "blind" is acquiescing to the oppressive in-power structure. So if they really buy into the framework, they cannot actually use the word you prefer, or they would be furthering the oppressive structure. Ironically, intersectionality adds that truth is created by identity groups (e.g. "blind", "blind females", "blind black females", etc.), and cannot be truly known by people outside that identity group. So even by their own assumptions, your claims as a member of the blind identity group ought to trump their assertions. But, this is functionally a fundamentalist religion, and the assumptions are sacrosanct. (I am using "fundamentalist" here meaning a one-dimensional ideology that is non-negotiable, which is essentially how Christian fundamentalism, for example, currently operates.) You might be able to mess with the minds of cultural believers, though. This absolutely has increased the distance between groups, because the real goal is not kindness but activism to disrupt entrenched power structures.
• jopsen 4y ago
  I also wish we could call it the "master" branch, renaming the primary branch to "main" is just pointless. But it's simply less risky and less work to just call it "main". It doesn't matter, and nobody gains anything from calling it "main" -- but if we call it "master" someone might get offended or waste my time arguing over it. There is no incentive to insist calling it "master". So similarly, I guess we'll end up calling you "photonically disadvantaged" :) Or maybe we can give it a positive spin and call it "darkness unimpaired"? (Just kidding of course)
  • skissane 4y ago
    Sometimes you end up with a random mishmash of repos, some with the default branch called "master", others with it called "main", and then a handful with something else altogether (e.g. "develop"). Someone pushes for a massive "master=>main" rename – but once you get "master" baked into umpteen dozen ultra-complex CI/CD/testing pipelines, etc, it takes a lot of time to change them all and deal with all the fiddly breakage that results. So people do the rename for brand-new projects, and some of the low-hanging fruit of the existing ones, but the "too obscure" or "too-big-to-deal-with" existing projects get put off indefinitely. And then you are constantly scratching my head trying to remember which one this repo is. Even worse, a few repos someone creates a new "main" branch but keeps an old outdated "master" branch around just to confuse people. Even if your organisation has been so diligent as to finish off the rename everywhere, sooner or later you need to make changes to some open source project you are using which hasn't. What Git really needs, is some kind of "branch alias" feature. Some config setting like "branch_alias.main=master", and then I could always write "git checkout main", and it would checkout "main" if that exists, and "master" if it didn't (and vice versa). That would solve it in most cases – except for the rarer "we decided to use neither main nor master" and "we made a new main branch but kept an outdated master branch hanging around".
  • faeriechangling 4y ago
    As a rule, I don’t complain about changes in language that make things more terse or clear. Main is better than master.
  • zzo38computer 4y ago
• faeriechangling 4y ago
  Attitudes around such things vary by disability community, peoples relationship to it (self proclaimed “ally’s” or people who work with the disabled for a living tend to use pained language, people with the actual condition tend not to), and individual differences. Personally though people using extra syllables to describe me when a more terse way to describe me gets the point across always comes off as condescending. People seem to be utterly obsessed with the connotation of words and if a word starts having a bad connotation they will just replace it with a different usually inferior word and consider themselves heroic for doing so. Blind becomes “visually impaired” making 1 syllable into 5 and ironically making language more complex and less accessible (since the entire point of such language is that it’s so awkward that nobody who isn’t woke will use it allowing it to have a signalling purpose). In reality what such people attitudes come off as is “you’re such weak shit everybody around you should be like me and constantly expend effort to protect your feelings”. It’s the language of “allyship”, not the language of the disabled most of the time. If people need such terms to feel comfortable with the disabled, I’ll humour them I guess, but I just hope people understand that this language mostly exists for the sake of people who are immensely uncomfortable with the concept of disability and those people tend not to be disabled.