6 ms·

This seems to miss one of the key roles euphemism plays (and why it courts controversy) it is interventionist and draws attention to a pattern of thought in ord

This seems to miss one of the key roles euphemism plays (and why it courts controversy) it is interventionist and draws attention to a pattern of thought in order to get you to think differently about it. Part of the role a phrase like “differently abled” plays is to estrange your base assumptions about disability and to signal the existence of and your membership in a group of people concerned to change the conditions around disability (note that this is not the same as signaling “virtue” although it may do that as well—what I’m talking about is the construction and renewal of group identity around a social project). Accordingly, you need new words whenever the old ones become standard, since at that point they no longer serve the estranging/interventionist role.

lynx23 2y ago
What you describe is pretty much straight virtue-signaling. And as a disabled person, I can tell you, I need nothing of it. Especially this "your membership in a group of people concerned to change" part, which is virtue-signalling at its best. I have NEVER met someone using alternative language like "differently abled" who actually did something substiantial for the community or for a particular person. Almost all cases have a touch of patronisation. I need nothing of it. If you cant call me disabled, you are part of the problem, not the solution.
- smegsicle 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - lynx23 2y ago
    Suffering... I could tell you something about suffering, but I leave it at that. Lets suffice that I find it pretty funny that you, a non-disabled person, tries to tell me that the way I prefer being called is "old-fashioned" and "bigoted", therefore invalidating my own preference. I let this stand as it is. Readers can decide who is bigoted here. Besides, its nothing new that non-disabled people tell the disabled how things are supposed to work. Thats called patronisation. And you are a great example of people I really dont want to be around.
    - pmichaud 2y ago
      I _think_ (hope?) that the person you're replying to was being sarcastic.
      - lynx23 2y ago
        I am afraid it wasn't.
      - drdaeman 2y ago
        In our postabsurd times, I think it's a good netiquette to put explicit "/s".
  - jowdones 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - pkal 2y ago
    I didn't know that that was the definition of "polyamorous"? To me this was always a meaningless word, a label for a labels sake, but I didn't realise that it was also a euphemism.
- Grustaf 2y ago
  I remember a few years ago someone posted a link here to a guy that had built a clever off-road wheelchair so that people with disabilities could enjoy hiking, and some people got upset with him because he used the wrong euphemisms.
  - GJim 2y ago
    Its a curious form of signalling that appears common amongst the American users of this site; I recall one such poster getting upset over the word 'Chinaman'. Something this Englishman, sharing an office with two Irishman, a Frenchman and a Dane, found rather bizarre, particularly as the chap complaining was not Chinese themselves! Such virtue signalling is at its worst when used to pile-on a speaker or post for uttering some perceived slight, or daring to suggest an unpopular idea or political view. It is bad for open discourse, even open society, and needs to stop.
    - istultus 2y ago
      As someone who isn't American but grew up in California in the 90s, I find myself often explaining American public behavior to others who are baffled by it. As I see it, the US - the first place with a supposed egalitarian bent on the cosmopolitan society - created a system whereby people from all backgrounds and ethnicites could interact in the public sphere without tripping each other's emotional wires - that is the basis for Political Correctness. Keep your baggage at home, and out in the real world and in the market you can interact with everyone as equals (so, Mike Munger's "the answer is trasaction costs!"). The system worked pretty well for a time (fine, it's called the 90s). The problem is that the edifice kept on being built up, as more voices raised more touchy subjects that needed to be sanitized in public, enough that it began to bother people. I think that as alternative means of communication allowed people to more be "themselves" in the digital, if not real, public domain, the discrepancy between public discourse and private thought became more glaring. Now, for every system, there are those who naturally like to uphold norms, and these are the ones you say are "virtue signalling" - I think they're just norm upholders. But for the rest of us, it takes only one euphemism that hits us the wrong way to get us questioning the whole over-built edifice. The fact that one political side arbitrarily took it up as a cause, of course, made the other side all the more dogmatic in its application. So it will be eventually torn down and replaced by something identical and the cycle will continue anew. ~fin~
- cauch 2y ago
  The comment you reply to does a good job describing one goal of this usage. You can see virtue signaling in this behavior, and there may be a part of it, but that is not the only reason it is used and it's dicey to jump to the conclusion that virtue signaling can only be the main goal. The fact that you don't see these others goals or refuse to believe that they may be the main reason does not change the reality of the existence of these goals. It's like people who are saying "if you say you prefer Linux over Windows, it's only because you are jealous of Windows popularity and want to feel different". Maybe it is, maybe it is not. But they just refuse to even consider that maybe the other person is not acting by jealousy. > I have NEVER met someone using alternative language like "differently abled" who actually did something substiantial for the community or for a particular person. Almost all cases have a touch of patronisation. That sentence sounds very strange to me: why on earth someone using alternative language like "differently abled" would suddenly be required to do something that you don't even blink an eye for people who don't use that language? It feels like the virtue signaling resides in your eyes only: you are seeing someone saying X, you _invent_ that it is because they want to be seen as a knight helping the disabled people, and then you show that there is an incompatibility because they don't really act like a knight helping the disabled people. But what if people using this language don't do it to be seen as a knight helping the disabled people. Then there is absolutely no incompatibility at all. The fact that this incompatibility exists is even a clue that maybe this behavior has nothing to do with virtue signaling. > And as a disabled person, I can tell you, I need nothing of it. I think that the goal as described by the previous comment has nothing to do with you. The goal is to reshape the way of thinking "there is a hierarchy of 'good situation' with abled people on top" into "there are differences, with sometimes good situation and sometimes bad situation, but it's more complicated than that and simplifying the picture as a simple hierarchy is incorrect". The goal is not to please you, the goal is to avoid having a way of thinking that does not correspond to the reality. It's the same reason why some people stop saying buzzwords like "artificial intelligence" when referring to a smartish complex algorithm composed of if conditions and no machine learning at all. They are not doing that to be fair to algorithm, they do that because there is a gain for them and for the society to not maintain misconceptions.
  - lynx23 2y ago
- drdaeman 2y ago
  First of all, I could have interpreted this incorrectly, and if I did so - I apologize. However, I think the parent tried (and seemingly failed) to convey the idea that the use of certain euphemism is intended to affect public opinion among the outsiders rather than the minority group in question. In other words, it's not for disabled (or any other group) but the rest of the society, meant to change public opinion through removal (by avoiding use of terms that evoke those associations) of harmful stereotypes, thus the weird language. The meaningful purpose of virtue signalling is not to comfort oneself into how nice human one is, but to establish a societal norm by sending this "we're all considering ourselves decent folks here and we aren't looking down on $group, right y'all?" peer-pressurizing social message. Which is, of course, fake, but the idea is that given enough time it ends up becoming true. Generations change, young people don't have inherent biases, so they end up ingesting whatever is around them, which is the reason, I guess. Again, this is just my understanding of it trying to rationalize the idea (my logic is "it can't be just something stupid, right, someone must've thought it through?"), so I could be totally making things up. Of course, I can't say this is all working as intended. Surely, not well, given how it feels offensive to the actual $group (like the example of calling a person disabled in this thread; or I've yet to see a Latin person who wouldn't frown at "latinx" linguistic nonsense, etc.), so it doesn't look like a great idea overall. I have been privileged enough to only be discriminated based on my nationality and ethnic group (rather than more permanent things), so I have limited experience here. Just trying to figure it out and make an opinion of it.
akomtu 2y ago
Euphemism is a funny cloak for something you don't like, something you'd rather not mention at all. Those who use euphemisms are often allergic to plain speech, as it shows everything as it really is, not as how they'd like to see it. Edit. Dolores Umbridge from HP is a brilliant caricature on them.
- burnished 2y ago
  This opinion of yours is a bit shit. Euphemism is a barrier that can give you welcome distance when you need to discuss or reference something unbearable. I also want to point out the inherent absurdity of referencing an admitted caricature as if it was somehow demonstrative, especially considering the cartoonish villainy of the caricature.
jonahx 2y ago
This explanation strikes me as euphemistic. Though it has some insight as well: "(and why it courts controversy) it is interventionist". > Part of the role a phrase like “differently abled” plays is to estrange your base assumptions about disability and to signal the existence of and your membership in a group of people concerned to change the conditions around disability Less euphemistically, you want to make other people think and act differently. And if disingenuous language policing or the threat of condemnation by said "group of people" gets the job done, that's just fine.
- burnished 2y ago
  They state that directly - reread the bit where they mention the role the phrase 'differently abled' plays. They use no euphemisms. What you're doing is asinine because it attempts to cast the familiar as alien and ironically is an example of the behavior you describe - you're being disingenuous and trying to 'make other people think and act differently'. I don't know how else to say this: someone trying to change your mind is not an attack. People disliking you because you behave like shit is not a conspiracy.
everdrive 2y ago
>Part of the role a phrase like “differently abled” plays is to estrange your base assumptions about disability and to signal the existence of and your membership in a group of people concerned to change the conditions around disability This is part of why this political language is so abrasive. Who are you (the "general you," not "you the person who posted this comment") to tell me what my current assumptions about the group are? It's incredibly presumptive and sanctimonious.
awkward 2y ago
The article definitely elides that the words didn't become loaded on their own, but there were deliberate projects and fights to load words like "welfare" with baggage. While "differently abled" is the result of disability activists gaining new ground, many of the other renamings listed represent retreats from contested territory.
- alpinisme 2y ago
  I’m also skeptical that all of the things the article lumps under the umbrella “euphemism” are really the same thing or best described by that word. But to your point “retreats from contested territory” are probably the best examples of where that label would be appropriate

lynx23 2y ago

What you describe is pretty much straight virtue-signaling. And as a disabled person, I can tell you, I need nothing of it. Especially this "your membership in a group of people concerned to change" part, which is virtue-signalling at its best. I have NEVER met someone using alternative language like "differently abled" who actually did something substiantial for the community or for a particular person. Almost all cases have a touch of patronisation. I need nothing of it. If you cant call me disabled, you are part of the problem, not the solution.

smegsicle 2y ago
[flagged]
- lynx23 2y ago
  Suffering... I could tell you something about suffering, but I leave it at that. Lets suffice that I find it pretty funny that you, a non-disabled person, tries to tell me that the way I prefer being called is "old-fashioned" and "bigoted", therefore invalidating my own preference. I let this stand as it is. Readers can decide who is bigoted here. Besides, its nothing new that non-disabled people tell the disabled how things are supposed to work. Thats called patronisation. And you are a great example of people I really dont want to be around.
  - pmichaud 2y ago
    I _think_ (hope?) that the person you're replying to was being sarcastic.
    - lynx23 2y ago
      I am afraid it wasn't.
    - drdaeman 2y ago
      In our postabsurd times, I think it's a good netiquette to put explicit "/s".
- jowdones 2y ago
  [flagged]
- pkal 2y ago
  I didn't know that that was the definition of "polyamorous"? To me this was always a meaningless word, a label for a labels sake, but I didn't realise that it was also a euphemism.
Grustaf 2y ago
I remember a few years ago someone posted a link here to a guy that had built a clever off-road wheelchair so that people with disabilities could enjoy hiking, and some people got upset with him because he used the wrong euphemisms.
- GJim 2y ago
  Its a curious form of signalling that appears common amongst the American users of this site; I recall one such poster getting upset over the word 'Chinaman'. Something this Englishman, sharing an office with two Irishman, a Frenchman and a Dane, found rather bizarre, particularly as the chap complaining was not Chinese themselves! Such virtue signalling is at its worst when used to pile-on a speaker or post for uttering some perceived slight, or daring to suggest an unpopular idea or political view. It is bad for open discourse, even open society, and needs to stop.
  - istultus 2y ago
    As someone who isn't American but grew up in California in the 90s, I find myself often explaining American public behavior to others who are baffled by it. As I see it, the US - the first place with a supposed egalitarian bent on the cosmopolitan society - created a system whereby people from all backgrounds and ethnicites could interact in the public sphere without tripping each other's emotional wires - that is the basis for Political Correctness. Keep your baggage at home, and out in the real world and in the market you can interact with everyone as equals (so, Mike Munger's "the answer is trasaction costs!"). The system worked pretty well for a time (fine, it's called the 90s). The problem is that the edifice kept on being built up, as more voices raised more touchy subjects that needed to be sanitized in public, enough that it began to bother people. I think that as alternative means of communication allowed people to more be "themselves" in the digital, if not real, public domain, the discrepancy between public discourse and private thought became more glaring. Now, for every system, there are those who naturally like to uphold norms, and these are the ones you say are "virtue signalling" - I think they're just norm upholders. But for the rest of us, it takes only one euphemism that hits us the wrong way to get us questioning the whole over-built edifice. The fact that one political side arbitrarily took it up as a cause, of course, made the other side all the more dogmatic in its application. So it will be eventually torn down and replaced by something identical and the cycle will continue anew. ~fin~
cauch 2y ago
The comment you reply to does a good job describing one goal of this usage. You can see virtue signaling in this behavior, and there may be a part of it, but that is not the only reason it is used and it's dicey to jump to the conclusion that virtue signaling can only be the main goal. The fact that you don't see these others goals or refuse to believe that they may be the main reason does not change the reality of the existence of these goals. It's like people who are saying "if you say you prefer Linux over Windows, it's only because you are jealous of Windows popularity and want to feel different". Maybe it is, maybe it is not. But they just refuse to even consider that maybe the other person is not acting by jealousy. > I have NEVER met someone using alternative language like "differently abled" who actually did something substiantial for the community or for a particular person. Almost all cases have a touch of patronisation. That sentence sounds very strange to me: why on earth someone using alternative language like "differently abled" would suddenly be required to do something that you don't even blink an eye for people who don't use that language? It feels like the virtue signaling resides in your eyes only: you are seeing someone saying X, you _invent_ that it is because they want to be seen as a knight helping the disabled people, and then you show that there is an incompatibility because they don't really act like a knight helping the disabled people. But what if people using this language don't do it to be seen as a knight helping the disabled people. Then there is absolutely no incompatibility at all. The fact that this incompatibility exists is even a clue that maybe this behavior has nothing to do with virtue signaling. > And as a disabled person, I can tell you, I need nothing of it. I think that the goal as described by the previous comment has nothing to do with you. The goal is to reshape the way of thinking "there is a hierarchy of 'good situation' with abled people on top" into "there are differences, with sometimes good situation and sometimes bad situation, but it's more complicated than that and simplifying the picture as a simple hierarchy is incorrect". The goal is not to please you, the goal is to avoid having a way of thinking that does not correspond to the reality. It's the same reason why some people stop saying buzzwords like "artificial intelligence" when referring to a smartish complex algorithm composed of if conditions and no machine learning at all. They are not doing that to be fair to algorithm, they do that because there is a gain for them and for the society to not maintain misconceptions.
- lynx23 2y ago
drdaeman 2y ago
First of all, I could have interpreted this incorrectly, and if I did so - I apologize. However, I think the parent tried (and seemingly failed) to convey the idea that the use of certain euphemism is intended to affect public opinion among the outsiders rather than the minority group in question. In other words, it's not for disabled (or any other group) but the rest of the society, meant to change public opinion through removal (by avoiding use of terms that evoke those associations) of harmful stereotypes, thus the weird language. The meaningful purpose of virtue signalling is not to comfort oneself into how nice human one is, but to establish a societal norm by sending this "we're all considering ourselves decent folks here and we aren't looking down on $group, right y'all?" peer-pressurizing social message. Which is, of course, fake, but the idea is that given enough time it ends up becoming true. Generations change, young people don't have inherent biases, so they end up ingesting whatever is around them, which is the reason, I guess. Again, this is just my understanding of it trying to rationalize the idea (my logic is "it can't be just something stupid, right, someone must've thought it through?"), so I could be totally making things up. Of course, I can't say this is all working as intended. Surely, not well, given how it feels offensive to the actual $group (like the example of calling a person disabled in this thread; or I've yet to see a Latin person who wouldn't frown at "latinx" linguistic nonsense, etc.), so it doesn't look like a great idea overall. I have been privileged enough to only be discriminated based on my nationality and ethnic group (rather than more permanent things), so I have limited experience here. Just trying to figure it out and make an opinion of it.

akomtu 2y ago

Euphemism is a funny cloak for something you don't like, something you'd rather not mention at all. Those who use euphemisms are often allergic to plain speech, as it shows everything as it really is, not as how they'd like to see it. Edit. Dolores Umbridge from HP is a brilliant caricature on them.

burnished 2y ago
This opinion of yours is a bit shit. Euphemism is a barrier that can give you welcome distance when you need to discuss or reference something unbearable. I also want to point out the inherent absurdity of referencing an admitted caricature as if it was somehow demonstrative, especially considering the cartoonish villainy of the caricature.

jonahx 2y ago

This explanation strikes me as euphemistic. Though it has some insight as well: "(and why it courts controversy) it is interventionist". > Part of the role a phrase like “differently abled” plays is to estrange your base assumptions about disability and to signal the existence of and your membership in a group of people concerned to change the conditions around disability Less euphemistically, you want to make other people think and act differently. And if disingenuous language policing or the threat of condemnation by said "group of people" gets the job done, that's just fine.

burnished 2y ago
They state that directly - reread the bit where they mention the role the phrase 'differently abled' plays. They use no euphemisms. What you're doing is asinine because it attempts to cast the familiar as alien and ironically is an example of the behavior you describe - you're being disingenuous and trying to 'make other people think and act differently'. I don't know how else to say this: someone trying to change your mind is not an attack. People disliking you because you behave like shit is not a conspiracy.

everdrive 2y ago

>Part of the role a phrase like “differently abled” plays is to estrange your base assumptions about disability and to signal the existence of and your membership in a group of people concerned to change the conditions around disability This is part of why this political language is so abrasive. Who are you (the "general you," not "you the person who posted this comment") to tell me what my current assumptions about the group are? It's incredibly presumptive and sanctimonious.

awkward 2y ago

The article definitely elides that the words didn't become loaded on their own, but there were deliberate projects and fights to load words like "welfare" with baggage. While "differently abled" is the result of disability activists gaining new ground, many of the other renamings listed represent retreats from contested territory.

alpinisme 2y ago
I’m also skeptical that all of the things the article lumps under the umbrella “euphemism” are really the same thing or best described by that word. But to your point “retreats from contested territory” are probably the best examples of where that label would be appropriate