5 ms·

I find that conservatives most often quote "Nineteen-eighty-four" as a comment on "politically correct" language. But when asked about "family values", "obamaca

I find that conservatives most often quote "Nineteen-eighty-four" as a comment on "politically correct" language. But when asked about "family values", "obamacare", "right to work" and other conservative double-speak, they often don't feel like those apply. My point is not that conservatives use more double-speak/newspeak then progressives, rather my point is that this is used and applied across the political spectrum, and even in the military ("enhanced interrogation", "collateral damage") and corporations ("restructuring", "cost engineering").

bigDinosaur 3y ago
How is 'collateral damage' newspeak? It's a useful concept even if you want to avoid it at all costs, but beyond that euphemisms have existed forever and are not the same as newspeak (which wanted to make something literally unthinkable, not merely euphemistic).
- lc9er 3y ago
  It's soft language for 'civilian casualties', even though it can include other things like property destruction.
  - SenAnder 3y ago
    Which term would you use to distinguish between deliberate and accidental civilian casualties?
    - Swizec 3y ago
      Does the father whose daughter didn’t come home from school care if the “civilian casualty” was deliberate or accidental? “Stop killing kids” sounds much more impactful than “establish rules of engagement to minimize collateral damage”. Language matters. Similarly: Does the worker without a job care whether they were fired, laid off, or affected by a reduction in force? Probably not. But “affected by a reduction in force” sure makes it easier for leadership to press the button.
    - mcpackieh 3y ago
      The difference between deliberate and accidental civilian casualties is not clear cut. For instance, what do you call it when you intend to attack the enemies soldiers with a bunch of bombs but you know a certain percentage will fall on civilians and you accept that inevitability and proceed anyway? Is that deliberate? Not quite, because it wasn't your intention. Was it an accident? Not really, because you knew it was going to happen and did it anyway. Or what do you call it when you are deliberately targeting some civilians (factory workers perhaps) but you know they share their homes with children? Do all of the civilians killed count as deliberate, or only some portion of them? Also, how do you determine intent? Suppose the official paperwork says "we're going to target this residential neighborhood because they have military-relevant cottage industry blended in with the population", but the men actually carrying out these orders are saying and thinking "burn them all, this is payback." Do you go by the intents stated on official records, or do the intents and feelings not committed to official records change the matter? It's the kind of thing that ends up getting debated by historians for decades.
      - SenAnder 3y ago
        You're right, incidental and primary are better words to use than accidental and deliberate. But every term has grey areas, and people trying to spin truth to make themselves look good. That doesn't make the term meaningless or "soft".
      - memefrog 3y ago
        [dead]
      - mcpackieh 3y ago
        Response to memefrog's [dead] comment: > It's not deliberate, which is the question that matters. I don't agree that deliberate or not deliberate is all that matters or the end of the discussion. In criminal law if you do something that could reasonably be expected to kill somebody without really desiring that outcome, you might still be guilty or murder or at least manslaughter. For instance if you drive your motorcycle at 200 MPH and crash into a family killing them, the fact that you lacked a specific desire to kill those people counts for something but it's not the end of the discussion. > "[targeting the civilian workforce] isn't a thing." You've obviously read my comment as commentary on the Israel/Palestine situation. Actually the incident I had in mind when I was writing that comment was the firebombing of Tokyo. If you go through official US documents about that, you'll find the justification that Tokyo had extensive cottage/light industry mixed in with their residential neighborhoods. Destroying that industry and workforce was in fact one of the official intents for firebombing Tokyo. However many of the bomber crews (who were all men, but I'm generally not one for gender-inclusive terminology anyway so you're not catching me in some hypocrisy here, lmao) were likely motivated by revenge for Pearl Harbor / etc and celebrated the civilian death toll. Not all of them I'm sure, but certainly some of them. Anyway, I'm not here to pass judgement on whether the firebombing of Tokyo was or wasn't a war-crime, or whether or not the US was deliberately trying to kill Japanese kids. It has been debated for decades and that's precisely my point. It's not cut and dry, it's a matter that looks differently to different people who are looking back at it from different perspectives. It defies neat objective categorization, which is why counting 'civilian casualties' in one big lump, not differentiating by intent, is a useful thing to do.
- jyounker 3y ago
  Because it's a euphemism for "killing innocent people".
  - bigDinosaur 3y ago
    Again, euphemisms have always and will always exist, they are not the same as newspeak which again had the goal of making certain concepts literally unthinkable. Also you're missing an important part of 'collateral' which is that the deaths were unintentional (whether or not someone cares is another matter - but by definition it means the collateral damage was not the goal).
dijit 3y ago
I think the more heinous "conservative" (as you put it) changes are related to physical conditions and the euphemism treadmill. George Carlins "soft language" specifically spells out an example; shell-shock, battle fatigue -> Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I think making a term so long that it becomes an acronym is definitely part of this. The most up-to-the-minute example I can think of is "CSAM" which removes all pain of the victims. For those not in the know "kiddie porn" as it was once known was rebranded to "child rape images", then "child abuse images" now finally "child sexual abuse images" which is now so long that it is oft abbreviated CSAM. You are right though, there's a lot of newspeak, my (least) favourite example is "pro-life" which is a glorious bit of double-think.
- derefr 3y ago
  > George Carlins "soft language" specifically spells out an example; shell-shock, battle fatigue -> Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I’ve always thought that this was a bad example of the euphemism treadmill, because each step is clearly an attempt to be more general than the last. The name makes it clear that this isn’t just a disorder you’ll find in soldiers at constant fear of being shelled at any moment (shell shock); nor even of soldiers who’ve seen the horrors of battle generally (battle fatigue); but rather that anyone who has been through any kind of chronic, fearful stress under the constant expectation that some traumatizing event might happen at any moment, is liable to end up experiencing these symptoms. Or, to put it more viscerally: doctors would be wary of diagnosing a victim of domestic abuse with “shell shock.” But “PTSD” — not just as a symptom profile, but also as a name for that symptom profile, and a set of social connotations around that name — clearly fits. > CSAM This is actually an example of a completely different effect: it’s a cultural shibboleth. Police want to use automatic word filters to discover and surface conversations between pedophiles, while not triggering those filters with their own conversations about the pedophiles’ activities. So they have invented a word that is equivalent to the generic term in meaning, but part of “policing language.” (And, as a special trick, it’s a term with no potential for a treadmill effect, as pedophiles would be loath to use a term that frames them as perpetrators of abuse.)
  - kbenson 3y ago

bigDinosaur 3y ago

How is 'collateral damage' newspeak? It's a useful concept even if you want to avoid it at all costs, but beyond that euphemisms have existed forever and are not the same as newspeak (which wanted to make something literally unthinkable, not merely euphemistic).

lc9er 3y ago
It's soft language for 'civilian casualties', even though it can include other things like property destruction.
- SenAnder 3y ago
  Which term would you use to distinguish between deliberate and accidental civilian casualties?
  - Swizec 3y ago
    Does the father whose daughter didn’t come home from school care if the “civilian casualty” was deliberate or accidental? “Stop killing kids” sounds much more impactful than “establish rules of engagement to minimize collateral damage”. Language matters. Similarly: Does the worker without a job care whether they were fired, laid off, or affected by a reduction in force? Probably not. But “affected by a reduction in force” sure makes it easier for leadership to press the button.
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    The difference between deliberate and accidental civilian casualties is not clear cut. For instance, what do you call it when you intend to attack the enemies soldiers with a bunch of bombs but you know a certain percentage will fall on civilians and you accept that inevitability and proceed anyway? Is that deliberate? Not quite, because it wasn't your intention. Was it an accident? Not really, because you knew it was going to happen and did it anyway. Or what do you call it when you are deliberately targeting some civilians (factory workers perhaps) but you know they share their homes with children? Do all of the civilians killed count as deliberate, or only some portion of them? Also, how do you determine intent? Suppose the official paperwork says "we're going to target this residential neighborhood because they have military-relevant cottage industry blended in with the population", but the men actually carrying out these orders are saying and thinking "burn them all, this is payback." Do you go by the intents stated on official records, or do the intents and feelings not committed to official records change the matter? It's the kind of thing that ends up getting debated by historians for decades.
    - SenAnder 3y ago
      You're right, incidental and primary are better words to use than accidental and deliberate. But every term has grey areas, and people trying to spin truth to make themselves look good. That doesn't make the term meaningless or "soft".
    - memefrog 3y ago
      [dead]
    - mcpackieh 3y ago
      Response to memefrog's [dead] comment: > It's not deliberate, which is the question that matters. I don't agree that deliberate or not deliberate is all that matters or the end of the discussion. In criminal law if you do something that could reasonably be expected to kill somebody without really desiring that outcome, you might still be guilty or murder or at least manslaughter. For instance if you drive your motorcycle at 200 MPH and crash into a family killing them, the fact that you lacked a specific desire to kill those people counts for something but it's not the end of the discussion. > "[targeting the civilian workforce] isn't a thing." You've obviously read my comment as commentary on the Israel/Palestine situation. Actually the incident I had in mind when I was writing that comment was the firebombing of Tokyo. If you go through official US documents about that, you'll find the justification that Tokyo had extensive cottage/light industry mixed in with their residential neighborhoods. Destroying that industry and workforce was in fact one of the official intents for firebombing Tokyo. However many of the bomber crews (who were all men, but I'm generally not one for gender-inclusive terminology anyway so you're not catching me in some hypocrisy here, lmao) were likely motivated by revenge for Pearl Harbor / etc and celebrated the civilian death toll. Not all of them I'm sure, but certainly some of them. Anyway, I'm not here to pass judgement on whether the firebombing of Tokyo was or wasn't a war-crime, or whether or not the US was deliberately trying to kill Japanese kids. It has been debated for decades and that's precisely my point. It's not cut and dry, it's a matter that looks differently to different people who are looking back at it from different perspectives. It defies neat objective categorization, which is why counting 'civilian casualties' in one big lump, not differentiating by intent, is a useful thing to do.
jyounker 3y ago
Because it's a euphemism for "killing innocent people".
- bigDinosaur 3y ago
  Again, euphemisms have always and will always exist, they are not the same as newspeak which again had the goal of making certain concepts literally unthinkable. Also you're missing an important part of 'collateral' which is that the deaths were unintentional (whether or not someone cares is another matter - but by definition it means the collateral damage was not the goal).

dijit 3y ago

I think the more heinous "conservative" (as you put it) changes are related to physical conditions and the euphemism treadmill. George Carlins "soft language" specifically spells out an example; shell-shock, battle fatigue -> Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I think making a term so long that it becomes an acronym is definitely part of this. The most up-to-the-minute example I can think of is "CSAM" which removes all pain of the victims. For those not in the know "kiddie porn" as it was once known was rebranded to "child rape images", then "child abuse images" now finally "child sexual abuse images" which is now so long that it is oft abbreviated CSAM. You are right though, there's a lot of newspeak, my (least) favourite example is "pro-life" which is a glorious bit of double-think.

derefr 3y ago
> George Carlins "soft language" specifically spells out an example; shell-shock, battle fatigue -> Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I’ve always thought that this was a bad example of the euphemism treadmill, because each step is clearly an attempt to be more general than the last. The name makes it clear that this isn’t just a disorder you’ll find in soldiers at constant fear of being shelled at any moment (shell shock); nor even of soldiers who’ve seen the horrors of battle generally (battle fatigue); but rather that anyone who has been through any kind of chronic, fearful stress under the constant expectation that some traumatizing event might happen at any moment, is liable to end up experiencing these symptoms. Or, to put it more viscerally: doctors would be wary of diagnosing a victim of domestic abuse with “shell shock.” But “PTSD” — not just as a symptom profile, but also as a name for that symptom profile, and a set of social connotations around that name — clearly fits. > CSAM This is actually an example of a completely different effect: it’s a cultural shibboleth. Police want to use automatic word filters to discover and surface conversations between pedophiles, while not triggering those filters with their own conversations about the pedophiles’ activities. So they have invented a word that is equivalent to the generic term in meaning, but part of “policing language.” (And, as a special trick, it’s a term with no potential for a treadmill effect, as pedophiles would be loath to use a term that frames them as perpetrators of abuse.)
- kbenson 3y ago