3 ms·
It was an interesting read, and I enjoyed learning more about the history of the term as it was used once upon a time. That's the thing though, "once upon a tim
by EA-3167 2y ago
It was an interesting read, and I enjoyed learning more about the history of the term as it was used once upon a time. That's the thing though, "once upon a time"... we're not colonial powers justifying our rule, we're just people adapting existing language and metaphors to modern problems.
That's the bottom line for me: language is a tool, it's descriptive and not prescriptive. I accept that the term "cargo cult" has a negative history, but it doesn't have a negative present, and the current use isn't in any way aimed at belittling distant tribes.
tl;dr We get to decide what words and phrases mean, and what utility they have, we don't have to be bound by the history of the thing.
- goofburglar2026 2y agoThe term itself is not self-explanatory, and requires delving into its backstory for it to mean something coherent -- doing so reiterates the racist caricature at the heart of the metaphor. There are many terms and expressions that have been (largely) dispensed with because of their objectionable history, and of course many that have not. Seems to me that this one should be.
- EA-3167 2y agoTell you what, if the descendants of the alleged victims of this "racism" make it known that they find this usage offensive, I for one will drop it. On the basis of a blog post from, and I'm not sure of any other way to put this, a middle-aged white man however... I'm not so inclined. This feels uncomfortably similar to the "Latinx" debacle, in which people outside of the allegedly affected class took it upon themselves to find something to be offended by, then "fix" something the people themselves didn't think was broken... and certainly didn't want their "fix". I think that's a good heuristic to apply.
- goofburglar2026 2y agoErr on the side of being racist until proven racist... Cool heuristic.
- EA-3167 2y agoYou're begging the question.