- First, some of the Social Justice Warriors who sometimes have valuable input (but not on this issue) here decided to attack the contention that Democrats, Progressives, and their allies comprise the only side of the political spectrum that openly favors word banning to suppress thought and speech, are “Orwellian” when they do this. They must have skipped this part of “1984”in Junior High:
’How is the Dictionary getting on?’ said Winston, raising his voice to overcome the noise.
‘Slowly,’ said Syme. ‘I’m on the adjectives. It’s fascinating.’
He had brightened up immediately at the mention of Newspeak. He pushed his pannikin aside, took up his hunk of bread in one delicate hand and his cheese in the other, and leaned across the table so as to be able to speak without shouting.
‘The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition,’ he said. ‘We’re getting the language into its final shape — the shape it’s going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we’ve finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We’re destroying words — scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We’re cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition won’t contain a single word that will become obsolete before the year 2050.’
I wonder if “alien” was one of those words?”
- England’s Department of Education has sent language guidelines to every school in the country instructing them to ban “sexist” language; phrases like “man up, cupcake”…‘Don’t be a girl’ …“boys telling girls to ‘make them a sandwich’…“calling boys ‘sissies’,” the English Newspeak additions were sent to all the schools “at the government’s request” according to the Sunday Times.
Just wait. Soon language constricting as part of political indoctrination will be cited in Democratic presidential debates as one of those wonderful things the U.S. should do because other “advanced nations” do it.
- The latest buzz-word, micro-agression, is clearly a tool of language suppression as well. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has set out to ban many words and phrases on campus. With the “Just Words Campaign,”, it aims to ban on campus a whole list of words and phrases including “illegal alien” —because it “fails to recognize the humanity of immigrants” (What a coincidence!)—-as wells “crazy,” “trash,” and “welfare queen.” UWM says that using the phrase “third world” to describe third world countries is a micro-aggression because it
“…reinforces hierarchical attitudes towards nations around the world, [and] establishes Westernized (industrialized) countries and cultures as the ‘standard’ upon which to measure national well-being or economic status.”
No, I think it’s time to establish a new standard by which a nation is judged as successful by having more people living without plumbing, dying of parasites, and contributing nothing to world culture since the Dark Ages.
- Some of the university’s rhetoric is funny; if you don’t see why, Hillary and Bernie have put implants in your skull while you were sleeping. “Lame,” for example, is a micro-aggression that “ridicules and ignores the lives of amputees.” Metaphors will be next on the banning list.
I use “lame”occasionally to describe a weak argument. I’m going to have to use it more.
- Here’s what gangsters call “the beauty part”: UWM also seeks to make it impossible to criticize these efforts for what they are by banning “politically correct” as a micro-aggression that “has become a way to deflect, [and say] that people are being too ‘sensitive’ and police language.”
Can’t have that! Fortunately, we still have “totalitarian.”
Or “Orwellian”…
_________________________________
Pointer: Instapundit
Sources: National Review, Campus Reform
Ethics Alarms 
I seriously doubt this ban against ‘lame’ will work when the gaming world is growing and uses it for unsatisfactory developments and perfromance. This cause is lame, there are enough major problems to work on than a nearly obsolete usage.
Gaming is neat, because it is almost a pure meritocracy. And that’s what the SJW’s actually hate: The fact that not everyone is the same, the fact that some people actually perform better than others, and because the internet is anonymous, they can’t even blame it on an -ism.
Can’t have that! Fortunately, we still have “totalitarian.”
Or “Orwellian”…
Not if Chris has a say in the matter.
Unfair. Chris is thinking and reasoning, and has made many excellent points.
Ill have to review his posts. Im only going on my exchanges with him.
Recall that he specifically stated he thought the term was misused or overapplied, and ought to be done away with if i remember correctly.
“Done away with” =/= banned, Joe. People should be free to say whatever they want without legal consequence. I oppose hate speech laws. But there have always been social consequences to certain types of speech.
Always. That hasn’t changed, and won’t change; all that has and will is what types of speech carry what types of social consequences.
““Done away with” =/= banned, Joe.”
What’s the difference?
I mean…. We have a movement of people that have two speeds: Ignore and Destroy. They will ignore you as long as you are either under the radar or perfect, but the moment you slip up and say something they don’t approve of they try to destroy you. Doxing, shaming, threats…. People lose jobs, relationship and health for using words “incorrectly”. If you want to “Do away with Bossy” or “Ban bossy” what does the difference look like to the average individual?
There is no difference. The only one he’s fooling, maybe, is himself.
Nah. What he’s saying is that DECENT people will quit using the word because it is so offensive to the poor, illegal aliens…oops, there I go again. So it won’t need to be banned just like the word ‘nigger’ is not actually banned…you’ll just get shot if you use it. Excuse me, I’m ducking and running.
“So it won’t need to be banned just like the word ‘nigger’ is not actually banned…you’ll just get shot if you use it. Excuse me, I’m ducking and running.”
I’m always amused when people complain hysterically that there are huge consequences to a thing that they’re doing, while at the same time proving that said consequences don’t actually exist.
And I am always amused when I deal with people who cannot recognize sarcasm when they see it.
I have to ask: Do you realize where you are? This is the internet, where people are for the most part anonymous (Full disclosure: My name isn’t REALLY Humble.). Do you really think there wouldn’t be social consequences for using the word ‘nigger’ in a social setting? Regardless of how it was used?
You oppose hate speech laws (I’m going to take you at your word), but have no problem with people being beaten into submission with every other tool at your disposal in order to control your enemies, and make no mistake, control is EXACTLY what the left is about. Ever notice how the liberal lexicon is expanding (microaggression, white privilege, and other ridiculous terms too numerous to list), while that of your enemies (anyone who harbors a nonconforming point of view) is being “done away with”? That’s a deadly control tool you people are wielding. Imagine you’re struck dumb, but in a way where language simply ceases to exist for you. Nothing has a name, and there is no inner dialogue to describe how or why anything works. Your universe would close in on you in a hurry, and you would find yourself entirely at the mercy of others. That’s what I see at work in the left. The irony, as you claim to be such champions of freedom of expression.You are control freaks, and I have very little doubt, based on what I’ve observed, that there is any tactic you wouldn’t utilize to render any and all dissent as social, political, economic, and perhaps even bodily suicide.
“beaten into submission”
Isn’t this the kind of hysterical, overly dramatic, self-victimizing rhetoric that conservatives complain about when liberals use it?
No one is beating you up. No one is perpetrating any kinds of violence on you. If you don’t wanna hear about “micro-aggressions” or “white privilege” it’s actually very easy to avoid those terms and those conversations (even though they’ve been around for decades).
Jeez louise.
An analogy, and an apt one. No, I wasn’t suggesting it’s gotten to physical violence; don’t be an ass. I am suggesting that you people are attempting to brow-beat and guilt-trip the rest of the world into submission with your cult of victimhood. Those of us who are grown up enough to see it for what it is aren’t who we’re primarily concerned with, though. The really offensive thing is the brainwashing of our children with this crap. I deeply resent it.
I’ve found on this topic that giving the theories as they’re being used legitimacy by approaching them with logic or reason unhelpful. What the SJW’s really can’t stand is mockery. Beat them with humor and kill them with kindness.
“The Atlantic” magazine ran a sobering piece on this pervasive trend and its effects on students’ cognitive thinking and emotions – dire consequences for education and mental health. See “The Coddling of the American Mind.” http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/. That issue also has a “funny” article on students’ inability to take a joke. See “That’s Not Funny.” September 2015 issue “Better Watch What You Say!”
Sounds like another great book, no doubt along a similar vein; “The Closing of the American Mind”
It’s always a pleasure when you weigh in, John.
Somebody needs to resurrect George Carlin. We need him now, more than ever.
You beat me to saying that!
Me too. But that was at least three banned-words blogs back. Can’t wait to hear what they want to censor next — I’ll be sure to add it or increase it to my vocabulary. Come to think of it, isn’t “welfare queens” reely reely gay?
“shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits”
I think we’re down to one from THIS list. When’s the last time you heard “Cunt” in anything, TV or movie?
Deadwood – not since then.
I LOVED Deadwood! Al Swearengen was a character for the ages.
There is as much proof that microaggression exists as there is proof that perfect cuboids exist.
Now, there is this other phrase “white privilege”. I suppose living in Oregon or Indiana in 1859 would have been white privilege. But this conversation I had on this Disqus thread will illustrate what some people today define as white privilege.
https://disqus.com/home/discussion/thedailybruin/submission_afrikan_student_union_should_focus_on_problems_within_black_community/#comment-2321839061
I replied:
His reply:
My reply:
In two comments he explains what the white privilege at issue was:
My two replies:
So now freedom is speech is considered white privilege.
I’ve railed against microagressions (thank you little red squiggle) for years. It’s such an obnoxious term. What’s especially tragic is that even if you accept that we needed a term for subconscious behavioral ticks that might cause someone discomfort, and I’m not necessarily against a label for subconscious behavioral ticks that might cause someone discomfort, because writing subconscious behavioral ticks that might cause someone discomfort is burdensome, as with so many other things, the regressive left has appropriated a theory that was meant as a scalpel and utilizes it as a cudgel.
Microagressions (thank you little red squiggle) were supposed to be a personal exercise in thought… Is it possible that spreading you thighs on a tube makes women uncomfortable? Maybe you should attempt to spread less. As opposed to someone else screaming at you “YOU ARE MANSPREADING SHITLORD.”
Even the idea of privilege as a theory isn’t completely objectionable, if we went through our day to day personally reflecting on things that we don’t have to deal with because they don’t apply to us, we might just build some empathy. That would be cool. Instead, people use it as silencing language. “SHUT UP AND CHECK YOUR PRIVILEGE, NECKBEARD!”
This is the ignore/destroy thing I was talking about earlier. If there was a third gear “discuss” and maybe a fourth gear “explain” we’d get so much further ahead, but that might require a fifth gear of “think”.
Ethnic privilege is a fact of life throughout all of human history. It was not until the enlightenment that people had the idea that the law should not provide ethnic privilege. And one does not even have to go back half a generation to find examples of successful Section 1983 lawsuits that alleged racial discrimination.
The person whom I quoted claimed that “disrespect & disregard for People of Color is tolerable”. Well, there are billions of people across the world. If even one of them tolerates “”disrespect & disregard for People of Color”, is that supposed to be white privilege. He also claims that there is some sort of privilege to disrespect others.
That can not possibly be white privilege.
They don’t even bother to disguise their agenda anymore. In short: Any right guaranteed by the Constitution is an aggression when claimed by white men, Christians, conservatives of any race, and white women who are not feminists.
Honorable, decent people reject their agenda.
Such people seem to be a distinct minority in this country these days by design.
You’ve struck on a point that has gotten me increasingly worried. They DON’T take many pains to disguise their depredations on the Constitution, the Bible or any other aspects of free American society. Not any more. That indicates to me that the Left considers itself within striking distance of implementing its 100 year agenda of power. If so, there will be hell to pay within the next year.
Well, I believe that George Orwell in *1984* was right on target when he introduced the term “newspeak” to described totalitarian thought control. Fortunately, I was of the generation that never accepted this bs. I will probably continue to engage in ‘miniaggressions’ and frankly dear progressives, I don’t give a damn.
I’ll be right there with you, Wayne. Imagine, being mugged, not by a black thug, but by an oppressed minority, responding to your white privilege, insulting him by walking down the street of HIS city. You know, the street your taxes paid for.
Or getting raped for that reason.
I think that there is an argument to be made that the political left read 1984 as an instruction book, much like despots read “The Prince”.
I wonder how much the social justice movement is rooted in “It’s wrong to judge others!”. That’s what most of the reasoning in the provided graphic reminds me of.
All of it, I think, and oblivious to the irony.
The definition of Thug is incorrect. That it could be construed as racially offensive isn’t at issue, it is that it is offensive to Hindus and Muslims from the Indian subcontinent. Thugs were robbers who infiltrated traveling groups, killed them, and stole their goods. They were wiped out by the British Imperial authorities.