One more recent example of this: a professor of Chinese uses the Chinese word 那个 (nage) in a lecture on Chinese, and is promptly suspended because somebody thought it sounded like the English N-word.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/08/professor-sus...

Another instance is the alleged ban on a Dutch person using the word "Die", which simply means "that" in Dutch [1].

However, I think, these two cases are different in nature from what is described in the column.

On one hand the real meaning is lost in translation which results in a misunderstanding. On the other hand we have a word used in a meta context. The second case is much more dangerous.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26062189

I would be willing to accept a huge discount in prestige to avoid an environment like that at USC, if I were choosing colleges again. If many people feel as I do, USC will either have to cancel its cultural revolution or fade into insignificance.

There's this famous scene in "The life of Brian" where they gather round to stone an old man to death because he said "Jehova". The judge, in speaking to the condemned, himself mentions the word "Jehova" and promptly gets stones thrown at him by all the wom---, uh, men in the audience.

This scene immediately comes to mind because in the film it is obviously ridiculous and everybody can see that. The judge had no other way to express himself without going through some weird verbal contortions. He could, I suppose, have said "Look, he said the J-word!" but that probably was too ridiculous a thought even for Monty Python. He wasn't using the word maliciously, he reported a fact, yet he was in the end seen to be no better than the convict himself.

I wonder if the person who reported the Times journalist to the editor-in-chief also said "Look, he said $badword", and was himself promptly fired.

My point is, every individual person who looks at that situation this way will probably find it comical or at least clearly not to be a firing offence. The Times itself has printed the word in question many times in its reporting, even in recent times. Do they now get to fire themselves, retroactively, as seems to be so en vogue these days? Of course not. Will they print apologies for printing $badword in their paper as recently as 2019? Unlikely.

It is also plainly obvious that "bans on words" that go so far as to be "bans on thoughts" can therefore never serve any good purpose and are a hallmark of totalitarianism.

So why does this keep happening? Why are people getting fired for Monty-Python-level "offences"? Has reality (once again) surpassed satire? Are people getting stupider, weirder, more irrational? Or is there something else at play here?

My point is, most individuals for themselves will recognise the behaviour here as "not horrible", not worthy of a career-death sentence, and judge accordingly, even if only preserve a modicum of nuance and differentiation in handing out sentences. Nobody will probably question the importance of having some steps available inbetween "You are innocent" and "You shall be put to death".

Nobody disputes that the reporter didn't use the word in any bad way; on the contrary, it was used to help and advise someone, a 12 year old student, on the matter: "Look here, young child, it's better if you don't say Jehova". Done. Stoned to death.

Even the editor-in-chief, Baquet, initially said the same in a staff memo: There was no bad intent, all is well. A sane, tempered reaction, level-headed analysis, case closed. Then a few days passed, some meetings happened, he changed his mind and the journalist got fired. Say what?

The more I think about it, the more confused I am, like I am missing a big piece of the puzzle here. Why does this keep happening? Why are people acting like they have been "neuralyzed", Men in Black-style? What an odd situation.

> Even the editor-in-chief, Baquet, initially said the same in a staff memo: There was no bad intent, all is well. A sane, tempered reaction, level-headed analysis, case closed. Then a few days passed, some meetings happened, he changed his mind and the journalist got fired. Say what?

What I find shocking is the number of Times employees who protested the initial decision -

> In response, more than 150 Times staffers signed a protest letter. A few days later, Baquet and managing editor Joe Kahn reached a different decision.

Wokeness is much closer to religion then it is to logic. This is why you can not make sense of it through the lens of rationality*. Part of being in a religion is doing things that to outsiders seem silly, but serve as a virtue signal to fellow acolytes. An example, there are certain magic words that you must either say or not say. (Lord's prayer is good, god-dammit is taboo) When practiced with restraint, virtue signaling is a normal and useful part of group social dynamics. The problem comes when virtue signaling gets out of control. This is called a purity spiral. The church of woke is currently experiencing a purity spiral. What makes this particular spiral novel is that you can watch it happening in real time on the internet. That and many of the woke do not recognize they are in a religion.

*Note that it can be a rational decision to adhere an irrational religion. Excommunication has consequences, in this case, the guy got fired.

Why does this keep happening? Because the howling mob demands it. Baquet was afraid of the 150 employees who signed the protest letter.

Now, those employees are (presumably) intelligent, well-educated adults. What's going on with them that they can't see any nuance in this situation? I suspect that they're afraid. They're committed to the progressive agenda, and they're seeing progress, and they're afraid that if they make any compromise, if they don't keep taking a hard stance, then their agenda will stall and society won't reach the wonderful future they think their agenda is taking us to.

The observant will note strong parallels to religious zealots. In fact, if you view this as a religious hysteria, it makes more sense. It happens to be a secular religion, but it's got all the elements - doctrine, a millennial future, good and evil, sin, repentance, conversion, and evangelists.

Its kinda "mob ruling by capitulation of the people in power". The people in power often would clearly detect that there is no bad intent, but they bow to the mobs shitstorm if it gets loud enough, because they know that otherwise their "lack of action" will not be seen as "no bad intent". It's the "silence is violence" or "if you are not for me you are against me" kinda ideology. Its the woke-tolerance, the "everything is fine except hurting someones feelings".

That's what you get if a generation thinks speech can be violence. Hurting someones feeling is the same as physically hurting someone and other stupid ideas that may sound reasonable if you never actually thought it trough for yourself.

Another thought, and yes, I am going full Godwin here, because I think it's an important intellectual leap to make: In many European countries, using Nazi symbols such as the swastika is a criminal offence, so you can't use the symbol in games, in advertising or as a bumper sticker. However, it is not a criminal offence to show the symbol in a history class; to display it in a museum; to show it in a PowerPoint presentation during a lecture on WWII at university, to print it in a newspaper showing a defaced building etc. It is, above all, not a crime to say "Hitler" or "swastika" out loud. There is no "He said the H word". Even though these are arguably the most universal signs of hate and murder, you are allowed to discuss them. "Lest we forget", I believe is the saying often used with this rationale: If you prohibited anybody from ever talking about it or mentioning it, it would be forgotten after one generation at the latest, and with it all the important lessons learned from that terrible period of human history.

"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" in Harry Potter is another example of a rhetorical device used to instill bloodcurdling fear and larger-than-life authority of a a Wizard-of-Oz-style villain. Note that this is a children's book. Every adult person should be able to see through that.

And so - I am sure, there are many other examples - I ask again: Why do such things keep happening? Why, when individuals are clearly able of rational thought, as the editor's initial reaction shows, does there seem to be a hive-mind or "invisible hand of the market", or whatever you call it, that seems to get large groups of people to come together and stone someone for saying "Jehova" because his wife's cooking was so excellent.

I ask this sincerely, even though I use comedic examples. For me, this is an existential question of one's own sanity, that I struggle to comprehend what really is going on here, and I would love to hear what others think about this.

Could a possible answer be, and I realize I might be getting controversial here, could it be that modern American society, lacking a nuanced way of looking at difficult historic matters - because it always seems to be either "Free Speech" or "Death" with no middle way - has chosen this visceral reaction because it never learned to deal with or discuss its history in a non-confrontational, level-headed manner? Clearly, using $badword in normal everyday conversation is unacceptable. So it follows from there - using this logic framework - that any use whatsoever is unacceptable? Just spitballing here, looking for answers. Could very well be that I am wrong. If so, please don't downvote me but instead explain. Thank you.

> "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" in Harry Potter is another example of a rhetorical device used to instill bloodcurdling fear and larger-than-life authority of a a Wizard-of-Oz-style villain. Note that this is a children's book. Every adult person should be able to see through that.

Moreover, that's a theme in the books. From the outset,Harry is one of the few (along with Dumbledore, the wise old sage) who are not afraid to say the name and consider such fear silly. He's also the only person who can stand up to Voldemort, and presumably those things are related. To him Voldemort is just a guy, not some kind of superhuman Satan, perhaps because he doesn't let himself get caught up the hysteria.

Beyond that, it's a common theme in mythology and stories that names have power, and uttering the name of a powerful fae or wizard might actually attract the notice of said powerful being. Which of course might bring ruin to you if they decide they don't like you using their name and decide to deal with you in person.

I think you're way off the mark with the bizarre pseudopsychology in the last paragraph. "Mob mentality" is a well-known phemonenon. People behave very differently when part of a group — especially when you feel like you have right on your side.

There are equivalents of North American word prohibition in Europe, as well. For example, many academics and NGOs would be uncomfortable with someone using the term "Gypsy" in some nuanced historical context, instead they would insist that "Roma" or "Roma and Sinti" be used at all times.

It keeps happening because people are stupid, especially children. This whole culture is being led by children on social media. Reddit is a bunch of teenagers, 4chan started the Trump and Q movements.

Now we are letting our speech be governed by kids who this they are being polite but are really a generation of self centered monsters.

We lost respect for our elders and worship at the feet of the teen instagram model. I think adult men are most immune to this but in my life I see 20-30 something women jumping on the bandwagon of calling themselves victims and identity politics.

The civil legal system has been destroyed by this mess and we are emptying out our institutions of any logical thought.

Corporate America is the last hold out for logic but even they are quickly succumbing to the idiocracy.

> We are living in a period of competing moral certitudes, of people who are awfully sure they’re right and fully prepared to be awful about it.

Well said, and absolutely right.

> Hence the culture of cancellations, firings, public humiliations and increasingly unforgiving judgments.

That's on one side. The other side is awful in a different way. Hence the attack on the Capitol.

The attack on the Capitol was denounced by "all sides". I'm sure you can find awful things on all sides but this aint one.