[codyb]

I've heard an uptick in derogatory terms being thrown around recently and while unsurprising, it sure is sad.

Recent events...

- Went to a concert, an underage kid with a fake ID couldn't get a beer, turned to me and goes "Isn't this guy a f----"

Uh... well, he may be making your night less enjoyable, but I don't see why gay people have to catch strays cause of it...

"I don't think I'd call anyone that" was my response, and "it's okay to be gay" was a follow up

- My boss said something was retarded. I'm a bit wishy washy on the r-word myself as, while I'm friends with people with Down Syndrome and other maladies, it never occurred to me to relate the word to them (especially since they're generally really very nice people)

It's similar to how I never associated the word spaz with... I dunno what it is... multiple sclerosis or whatever, apparently that's a very common association in the UK, but I'd never heard of it (the association)

But now I've stopped using it entirely, although in this case I did not correct my boss (who I respect as a person and enjoy working for very much)

- One of my other friends called something "gay" recently

"Don't call things gay bro" was my response. As my mom explained to me in sixth grade "even though you don't really even have an idea what it means to be gay, when you say that negative things are gay, you're implying that being gay is negative, but gay people just are themselves and don't deserve that"

I became the "don't say gay kid" at school after that and I'm damned proud of it

All these losers trying to turn back the times to put gay people back in the closet give me "peaked in middle school" vibes, and it's sad to see that it's also slowly becoming normalized with people who I don't even think have that inclination or care to say prejudiced shit again too

[mrec]

> I never associated the word spaz with... I dunno what it is... multiple sclerosis or whatever

Usually cerebral palsy, I think, or (less commonly) epilepsy. I'm not sure it's still that common in the UK; I don't think I've heard it in the wild since the 80s [1], though some of that may just reflect the people I talk to as I get older.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joey_Deacon#Blue_Peter_and_cul...

[codyb]

Yea that's it... definitely wasn't on our minds when we were 14 in middle school in America lol

[happymellon]

> It's similar to how I never associated the word spaz with... I dunno what it is... multiple sclerosis or whatever, apparently that's a very common association in the UK, but I'd never heard of it (the association)

It is a shortening of spastic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scope_(charity)

[BLKNSLVR]

Something I've noticed under Trump is how a country's leadership does actually affect the behavior of the people under that leadership.

Trump's openly crude behavior is normalizing such behavior amongst the impressionable.

And society will be worse for it for a long time to come.

[patmorgan23]

Yeah people in positions of power and leaders model what acceptable behavior is for the rest of the group.

[UncleMeat]

Yep. One of the things that is appealing about Trump to his voters is that he gives them license to be mean in public.

[Dig1t]

Language police are extremely uncool; going around telling people which words they are allowed to use mostly just hurts your own cause. It has the exact same effect that an old Christian woman scolding kids not to use swear words has. Eventually people realize that your magic words give them power and it becomes cool and useful to start using them in the exact opposite way you want them to.

The only way for you to achieve the goal of making sure nobody’s feelings are hurt by words is to take away the power of the words. You only give the words MORE power by reacting to them.

[jayrot]

There are no "language police".

I think about this quote from Ricky Gervais a lot. He's had more than a few controversies, which you may or may not agree with but I think his take here is apt.

"Please stop saying 'You can't joke about anything anymore'. You can. You can joke about whatever the fuck you like. And some people won't like it and they will tell you they don't like it. And then it's up to you whether you give a fuck or not. And so on. It's a good system."

[Dig1t]

OP said:

>I became the "don't say gay kid" at school after that

Making a point of trying to control which words other kids are using counts as policing language in my opinion.

[xphos]

If you want to make fun of bartender who is strict their, a prude calling them a homosexual is just a non sequitur not an insult. Its not policing language its someone calling you out and saying your a fuckwit for being unable to inteligentlly insult someone or describe a sitution. That's way I don't like insulting people by calling them gay its just not saying what i want to convey maybe thats the "don't say gay kid" but i think its just indicitive that the people who say that didn't get the point of what was being said to begin with. Aka up your insult game there are ton of insults that are way weightier than calling someone a homosexual.

[lovich]

I’m sorry we’re not allowed to tell people they’re a stupid piece of shit or even that you disagree with their hateful rhetoric. Only the people saying the worst things should be protected and have free speech, we should limit our speech out of respect for theirs

[sgnelson]

Not that I really care, but I've got to ask the question:

Is telling people that they can't tell other people which words they use a form of language policing?

(In a thread concerning Plato, I thought this question needed to be asked.)

[Dig1t]

I'm not telling anyone they can't clutch their pearls and tell other people what to do. All I'm saying is that you will never win the cultural battle that way. Building a culture that does things like getting people fired from their jobs for using magic words, even if there is obviously no intentional malice in those words, is a great way to lose elections.

[striking]

OP is not looking to get people fired for using particular words. OP doesn't appear to be fighting any sort of political battle. OP is telling people to be nice, and that's as much his right as it is yours to use the wrong words.

And I don't think elections or "the culture" should have anything to do with it. If that's how we made every decision, life would only improve for whoever exists in the overall majority. What if we each chose to have some integrity and do the right thing, even when there's nothing measuring it? It wouldn't kill us, I don't think.

[striking]

That's only true of people who overreact or use offense as an excuse to let off some righteous anger. Most people don't react that way, even if that is what you'll most often see surfaced on social media because it's the most exciting and engaging sort of reaction. Most people will just tell you it's not a good thing to say and let you quietly reflect on it, or just exit the conversation.

[Dig1t]

tbh politely saying it bothers you is totally fine. That's not my argument.

All I'm saying is that making it your personal mission to make sure nobody uses the words in any context has lead us to where we are now, where we have a big backlash and young people are using gay and retarded more than they ever would have if we maybe just chilled out a little bit with the language policing.

We have taken this magic word mindset so far that we created a broad set of words that were so taboo you could get fired for using them in ANY context, even if you are talking about the word itself (like the case with the Papa Johns guy). And we had institutions like Stanford coming up with inane things like the "Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative" where they wanted to police words like "crazy" and "dumb".

[codyb]

Huge eyeroll.

Who said anything about scolding anyone lol. I responded very calmly.

I'm sorry, but you'll never win me over that the world be a better place if only we could bring back overtly prejudiced speech.

Actions have consequences. You can say whatever the hell you want, but doesn't mean you deserve respect, or not to be corrected, or not to face the consequences of saying overtly bigoted words.

The fact is... calling negative things gay implies being gay is bad, and therefore we should stop calling negative things gay if we want to support all the good people in the LGBTQ community.

[Dig1t]

OP’s words exactly:

>I became the "don't say gay kid" at school after that

Making a point of trying to shame other people for using words you don’t like is a losing game in the long run.

The “actions have consequences” argument is what lead us to where we are now where you can see an obvious backlash.

Heck the papa John’s pizza guy got fired for using a magic word in an obviously non-derogatory way, and it was the same “actions have consequences” mentality even though basically nobody would be genuinely offended by his usage of it.

If you continue to make a big deal out of every usage of gay and retarded those words will only grow in power and popularity because you are showing someone that they have the power to get you to freak out if they use them.

You can see the opposite effect with traditional swear words, which are so used in popular media that they have lost almost all of their power.

[mjmsmith]

Do you think that racial slurs will lose their power if people stop objecting to their use?

[codyb]

Ah yes... sixth graders and human adults have so much in common.

In fact, the culture at the school changed, and people stopped saying gay so much. It was very cool.

You should try standing up for something you believe in sometime, maybe you'd like it.

[nemo]

Out of curiosity, what about calling someone a racist, a fascist, a Nazi, a bigot, etc.? Are those all fine too and better to just put out there so no one is, I guess, disempowered? Should we let everyone throw around racist and hateful slurs casually, and also label people using them with the traditional labels for those who engage in that kind of behavior?

[Dig1t]

Those words you listed are an example of exactly what I’m talking about. Words like Nazi, bigot, etc have lost most of their power now because they have been used so much. 5-10 years ago those labels could ruin your life and people in the US would trip over themselves to prove how those labels didn’t apply to them. Now a great number of young people don’t care at all about being labeled as those things, and being labeled as one of those things is much less likely to ruin one’s life/career.

[nemo]

That is some impressively convoluted doublethink. Good luck straightening your head out someday.

[BLKNSLVR]

I've only realized this somewhat recently, and it happens passively, but the way people use some of these magic words helps me to categorize the person who said it.

Sure, use whatever derogatory or offensive words you want, I don't really mind, but I am damn sure going to judge you based on it.

I don't tend to be the "don't use that word" type of person though. But I'm absolutely the "get the fuck out of this 'will make me dumber' conversation" type of person.

[Dig1t]

I tend to agree, the words someone chooses tell you about the kind of person they are. Context is usually obvious, you can tell if someone is trying to be edgy, if someone normally uses the word in their vocabulary with their friends, or if they are genuinely using it in a hateful way.

The genuine hateful usage is the actually bad thing that people want to stop, but many people mistakenly think they are fighting hatred by policing other people’s vocabulary.

[codyb]

Genuinely hateful usage is of course important to stop but let's not pretend that hearing negative things called something you are all day isn't damaging to people.

The idea that gay people walk around and hear "Oh that's gay as hell!" whenever someone stubs their toe, or loses in a game or whatever and don't have that affect them is silly and it clearly progresses into a culture where people don't feel comfortable being themselves.

It's a good thing that since I've grown up we don't say "oh you're not acting black enough", or "oh that's so Jewish", or any other variation of things that may not seem harmful at the time but end up perpetuating a "right" and a "wrong" whether intentional or not.