As a centrist whining about language policing, I'm genuinely baffled as to what this is supposed to mean. The thing that we are whining about, that is the language policing!
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I think it’s more a symptom of consultant brain and lack of connection with these voters on issues that mean something to them. Also why elites and media types are fighting about it and nobody encounters this IRL. We have had 2 kids last 5 years and today is first time I’ve heard chest feeding lol
They chose their battles wisely. they go after nonsense elevating that nonsense to a matter of national discourse. The reason is their cowardice. Talking about authoritarianism is more dangerous than the aesthetics of imaginary authoritarianism as is this language policing crap.
Like bro, you wanna say retarded and tranny go ahead. No one will throw you in jail. But they like thinking of themselves as brave intellectuals for writing a piece o crap article and then discussing it holding their chins and acting concerned. “THIS IS LITERALLY EAST GERMANY”
What they mean is that you are making a big to do about nothing. Your whine about 'language policing' is the same as Bill O'Reilly's whine about people saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas.
Reading comprehension can be challenging! It seems that Hobbes is saying "giving you a hard time" over "new lingo" is not "policing." Policing seems like an oversensitive way to characterize debate about terminology. I imagine acknowledging this might be difficult for those who whine for a living!
So the new lingo makes you feel self-conscious! That's human. The question of what's the matter with kids today is evergreen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wCXr_6wgns And debates about names and terminology are, alas, an inevitable feature of discursive traditions.
That being so, maybe you can set a good example for how you would like to see people participate in these debates by demonstrating maturity: perspective, curiosity, grace, good humor, etc. Thoughtful leadership, even. Might be more productive?
If I may be so rude, if your social skills are feeling a little rusty, consider a gig in the service economy as a learning opportunity. Learn how to creatively problem-solve in real-time in real-world interpersonal disputes! Equip yourself to handle social irritants with savoir faire.
If you don't feel up for working a shift as a say, Starbucks barista, then you likely could learn a thing or two about developing skills for grit and resilience from your average, much-mocked they/them.
I don't agree with Hobbes, but I think the point he's trying to make is that no one would have ever heard of these things if opponents didn't amplify them every time an example popped up. I've run into enough examples in my own life to not believe that.
I’ve worked in public education for over 15 years. I have never once been policed for not using Latinx. Instead, I have students politely, nervously ask me to address them by a preferred pronoun & if I forget, they eventually let it go. I don’t forget though because I’m not an asshole.
You realize that what you’re complaining about are the social consequences of free speech, right? Like no one disputes your ability to use outdated terms, but they do respond to offensive speech by taking offense. You and the right seem to struggle with this.
What it means is that this person sees lots of talk about this issue (the "whining" you refer to), but pretty much never encounters the actual issue you're talking about. He's calling it a mountain being made out of a molehill; something people decry a lot, that doesn't come up much in practice.
Furthermore, I think he implies (fairly, IMO) that some centrists are _trying_ to raise the profile of this supposed issue far above what is merited by any actual problem, that they want this non-problem to be seen by others as a much bigger problem.
Yes policing seems like a melodramatic description of this phenomenon. Campaigns to change terminology can be highly irritating, to be sure. But it is always good to describe phenomena in an accurate, level-headed way! Especially those that make us anxious. Helps us stay calm and act rationally.
Caputo beat me to this take, but one reason the AP/WH fight is so actually interesting is that MAGA has wanted this fight since the AP replaced “illegal immigrant” with “undocumented immigrant.”
Changed during second Obama term, one of many terms they see the media enforcing when normies don’t.
These things were never asked of normies you guys just think it was ubiquitous bc you work in one of the two industries (media and academia) where it was.
If you are a mechanic you have never been forced to go to a seminar on anti-racism.
is the ap choosing to use certain language really considered "language police"? i mean, it's not like they're making other people make the same language choices, are they? seems like the ones freaking out about this choice are the real "language police."
Where was this political assault on the AP style guide when I was in college; when it would have mattered? I’ll put semicolons wherever the hell I want to; this is America!
There is maybe more "Overton window policing" than language policing. Topics like trans girls in sports, reparations for slavery, processing of asylum seekers etc. have guardrails that provoke a lot of response if challenged.
Surely it's just that the actual "problem" is fairly small and affects very few people, and only in minor ways, but the disproportionate "centrist whining" has blown it up into a massive electoral issue
Conservatives are always most concerned with imaginary problems. What a dipshit fucking take. The only time this ever comes up is when some brain dead right winger complains loudly about it as if someone else brought it up. Go fuck yourself, dipshit.
This isn’t progressive only phenomenon though. Never has been. The gatekeepers of language before that were in the national security space during the bush years, and on the evangelical right circa Reagan. Most people didn’t have nearly as adverse a reaction to those.
I don’t remember a movement to go communist to spite the church lady or to join the Mujahideen over “freedom fries”. The right gets woke scolded and literally turns into Nazis and the centrists blame the left.
When they did the freedom fries silliness, there wasn’t any pseudo-authoritarian morality-coded effort to shove it down the throats of people who didn’t care about it. Progressives do that— they antagonize those who don’t care about their issues either way into opposing them.
Bullshit. Jingoistic faux-patriotism was so pervasive as a meme on the far right to center left that even the mildest criticism of America was met with an absurdly negative reaction. There might not have been lists, but there WAS intimidation.
What I'd like to understand is how do we keep modcents from fixating on these issues when some rando word fad emerges? When the academic reads something in a journal and it starts rattling around the Harvard/Yale modcent journalist chat groups, how do we head off the reactionary response?
In retrospect, social media itself is a big part of the problem. To succeed in contemporary publishing, writers need to be present on platforms that expose them to immense peer pressure, calls for dismissal, and incredibly rude behavior from anonymous very-online folks.
People hate you because you constantly spout contrarian, dipshit takes despite having no true belief system, not because you don't say the woke words. Hope this helps!
Spent a lot of time? This may have been felt disproportionately by centrists who spent the majority of their time online.
In real life in pretty progressive circles people pretty much made their own decisions about language... Didn't receive a lot of pushback for not using pronouns, etc.
Connecting any of the language "policing" to the Gulf of America thing is such a stretch it's hard to even see your logic.. (except maybe that both include words 🤷)
I worried progressives were laying the seeds of fascism when demanding that everyone internalize a long reading list of truly absurd instructions on how to act woke became a hand-waving three-word dismissal of 99% of the population. “Do the work” was an easy attitude to run against.
What a strange post. It is largely impenetrable, but seems to be loosely structured around "baffled" and "whining". Those words seem to be self-selected at any rate.
To me, ‘language policing’ is simply trying to address people in the way they would like to be addressed when in a work or social/work situation Not necessarily how they address themselves or members of their group in ‘private’ situations.
what actually happened was that some folks were just like "hey, maybe we shouldn't tolerate slurs" and then every dipshit with a blog or a podcast said leftists were doing 1984
He’s arguing that “language policing” isn’t something that people really experience that much in their day to day life. And a lot of times, some random org using “Latinx” or a nurse being told “hey— there are some trans men who like to use the term chest feeding” are falsely called that policing.
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Has there even been a single one?
You're a soft little bitch.
Changed during second Obama term, one of many terms they see the media enforcing when normies don’t.
If you are a mechanic you have never been forced to go to a seminar on anti-racism.
Trump now playing catchup with "Gulf of America."
https://www.slowboring.com/p/defund-the-language-police
So where is it?
1. language policing was a real and substantial thing beyond online areas.
2. You didn’t immediately take license to say “retard” when you thought you could like a naughty school boy in the dark corner of the playground.
In conclusion, fuckin’ blow me
trump admin wants to imprison 60 minutes reporters. you need to get some perspective asap, you're wildly out of touch.
In real life in pretty progressive circles people pretty much made their own decisions about language... Didn't receive a lot of pushback for not using pronouns, etc.
Anyone going to police me on that? Not if they have any sense.
The Biden administration didn't revoke Fox's press pass for not capitalizing "black"