I'm not so sure that has ever been true. Emotional bullying was always a thing, and it did hurt. I'm glad that we're now taking that more seriously.
But it's also true that my emotions are my responsibility, and my emotional reaction to words is unique to me. I cannot force everyone else to be responsible for how I feel about their words. And I cannot expect everyone else to anticipate how I might feel about what they want to say and modify their speech accordingly.
There's a balance in there. I suspect that this balance is what we call "good manners" or "politeness".
Or "empathy". And I think on an interpersonal level this is easy. You can't force anyone else to be responsible for how you feel about their words, that is true. But if you say to a colleague or a friend that "when you call me X, that makes me feel bad, could you call me Y instead?". Depending on the friend they might want to understand why this feels bad, but they would call you Y from then on. Easy peasy.
But on a collective level we aren't yet (if we'll ever be) as developed a civilization to have empathy on that level. So some people want to, with good intentions, extend their empathy to others and write code like this. But seconds later, the creative and determined individual called cVnt_h_ater have bypassed the code and can proudly wear his misogyny on his sleeve.
I agree. Which is why we have rules around politeness and manners, which roughly conform to same actions as actual empathy. Which makes sense - people don't always have the same level of empathy, there are lots of neurodivergent people who will never understand empathy but who can learn a set of rules that will allow them to avoid social problems.
Or at least, we used to. I feel like this respect for being nice to each other so we can all get along is on the wane.
Or it might be that I moved to Berlin, and Berliners are famous in Germany for being rude/abrupt, and Germans are famous globally for being direct ;)
In my mind, part of that is that the rules are getting stricter, so people respect those rules less. Over time, the needle has moved further towards the idea that anyone can be offended by anything anyone else says. Even if it's clear (to the average person) that the speaker meant no harm (or even intended a totally different meaning for the words), the fact that someone is offended means that the speaker is wrong. Professors get sanctioned for using a racist word in a discussion about racism (and sometimes that word in particular).
At some point, people start seeing those rules as ridiculous and no longer respect them (though they may still feel compelled to follow them, for fear of repercussions).
What do you mean by this? Are you talking about some contrived example where one person had their parents murdered by a maniac while shouting "bicycle" over and over which causes that word to be triggering ptsd for that individual. In that case that idea is correct since that, hypothetically, can happen for _any_ word yes. But how is that relevant to any of this?
1. A professor fired for using the N-word in a discussion about racial discrimination
2. A professor placed on leave for using a Chinese expression that sounded like the N-word
3. People that express the opinion that someone who has undergone a gender change operation is different from someone that was born that gender. Expressing an opinion that they're different in some ways; not mocking or insulting them.
4. A man saying "I'd fork that" about a software project and everything went sideways because someone else decided it was sexual and was offended by it.
On and on and on. It has gotten to the point that if someone THINKS you crossed an imaginary line, a line that keeps moving, then you can face severe personal and professional repercussions. I do not believe that this is good for us as a society. People are supposed to have differing opinions and then discuss those differences. People are supposed to be able to discuss things in general. People are supposed to be able to have a little fun.
Accidentally offending someone has turned into a horrible offense, and it's bad for our growth as a society.
If you didn't understand that this was what the GP meant you must have led an exceedingly sheltered online life until now. (Which, frankly, feels so unlikely that it feels nearer to hand that your comment was made in bad faith or, at best, unthinkingly.)
But cool story bro. Fight for your right to be a dick I guess.
>>> [@dehugger:] 3. The words you use for this are trans and cis. No one is going to get upset at someone for using them.
>> [Me:] The word the most rabid "PC warriors" use for this are "man" and "woman". If you dare say "Trans women are different from other women in that...", you can bet there's some looney who will jump down your throat [...]
> This hypothetical situation with the looney you made up is not very fleshed out.
Fleshed out enough for anyone reasonably intelligent to get the gist, I would have thought. What, exactly, did you not understand?
> The looney seem to be referring to an individual woman that is somehow out of frame in the story
What "story" -- my hypothetical? Since "the looney" is prominently mentioned in it, how can they be "out of frame"?!?
> and judging by the looneys remarks, the person who now is talking about trans women in general seem to have made previous remarks about the individual
No, absolutely not. Where on Earth did you get that from? My hypothetical was talking about trans women in general, period. There's no need to make up any complicated backstory, because what I said was all I wanted and needed to say: If you dare say, in a general discussion on the Internet, e.g, "Trans women are different from other women in that...", you can bet there's some looney who will jump down your throat BECAUSE you used the term "trans women"; to some people that, too, is anathema because it "singles out" trans women from other women. Some people are so blinded by PC that to them, acknowledging any difference is a sin.
> that was insensitive to that individuals desires to be referred to as a woman and not a trans woman. Which is kind of a dick move...
Yeah, in your weird made-up story that has nothing to do with anything. You are of course perfectly free to make up little fairy tales and publish them on the Internet, but not to impute them as back-stories to anything I (or anyone else) has said. Don't put your shit in my mouth.
> But cool story bro. Fight for your right to be a dick I guess.
If anyone is "being a dick" here, AFAICS it's you.
Purity spirals never end well. The most famous one ended up with people being burnt alive as witches.
But it is a purity spiral - if you don't intend to be considered "pure" then it doesn't matter and you can effectively ignore it. Though whether your employer agrees or not is a different matter.
I think this is depending on how you see it. The modern landscape with social media makes activists very effective in creating information campaigns that raises awareness of how to be polite in a modern world. Eg. nowadays personal pronouns are complicated business but finding out and respecting individuals chosen pronouns are considered polite. A successful change of culture that increases empathy and respect of fellow humans in general. But the downside is that the opinions of the people who don't want to be polite in this way are also amplified and they may want to resist and pushback that triggers them to be contrary and act with less empathy and politeness to make their point. The thing is, positive changes in culture usually last and backwards reactionary people die so that makes me kinda hopeful.
In one way, that is of course true, and people who just blithely ignore that, or even explicitly refuse to use the pronouns they're asked to, are of course arseholes.
But OTOH, it feels like it's getting more and more to keep track of -- at least if you also want to keep up the old norms of "good behaviour" we learned as kids. And perhaps that's precisely why some of us are feeling those old norms are falling by the wayside -- maybe people only have some set amount of attention to spend on this stuff, and if something new is added, something else gets crowded out?
If that's the case, do we know for sure that it's unequivocally a good thing? I'm not quite certain.
Why deny him this right? Isn't it convenient to let kids and mentally unhealthy people to identity themselves this obviously? It's always easier when you know what to expect.
There are absolutely people who will use this as a reason to put X on a billboard.
Basically, the pen is stronger than the sword, kind of morale.
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will hurt forever.
After Googling, I think I might have picked up this version from Tim Minchins song "prejudice" [1] although Google also come up with this clip where a senator also use the "break my heart" version, clearly when it was meant for him to say "never harm" [2]
Surrounded by people who used to say That rhyme about sticks and stones
As if broken bones
Hurt more than the names we got called
And we got called them all
Now it is more "sticks and stones will break your bones because your words have hurt me"
Even when the insults could be considered objectively offensive I'm still generally okay with it. I've been called names quite a bit in the workplace over the years and I'm okay with it if makes them happy. Being autistic I don't really care and neurotypical people seem to get enjoyment calling people names so it's win-win.
High EQ individuals have told me this is wrong and the appropriate reaction would be to take offence and try to make them feel bad, but I've argued this would just result in an objective reduction in happiness in the world so it wouldn't make sense. Plus, most of the time my colleagues have been nice to my face so it's not like it's ever got in the way of me doing my job.
I'm of two minds about this, because of the generality of this blanket statement. Why should we accept this as the norm? I would classify these people ("enjoy calling people names") as abusive, and think that classifying this behaviour as neurotypical effectively legitimizes it.
That said, nicknames are also an expression of affection and inclusivity, and derogatory nicknames are not necessarily meant as an insult. Still, they're just as easily used to demean, belittle or dehumanize the target, so it depends a lot on context. I understand what you mean, but I disagree with your general statement.
By the way in the middle school we used a derogatory for gay every day without even having any idea of what did it mean, all we knew was that was the worst word we knew. When others bullied me (always (or I just never cared and don't remember the verbal) physically, way harder to endure) I occasionally went mad and called them this word repeatedly.
https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/67623#eid46436...
Not sure how you win exactly, but others in a similar position but sensitive to name calling certainly don't.
As for name calling and slurs at work, I don't see a reason why these should ever be tolerated. Someone who cannot demonstrate a minimum of politeness towards their colleagues shouldn't be part of the team. To me this is a no-brainer.
Usernames are a bit different IMHO. In a general social network, offensive usernames give important clues that allow you to avoid all contact and block users before you even talk to them. So maybe banning them does more of a disservice than a service to other users.
The problem is when language changes for some but not all, so suddenly words that used to be perfectly normal are considered slurs: Those who learned and use them in the original non-offensive sense are suddenly, and in their own opinion unjustly, seen as bigoted.
You may be wrong, and these "High EQ individuals" right, in the sense that your acquiescence to this bullying behaviour might encourage the bullies to keep it up with others too. In that sense, your standing up against them would be not just for yourself but for all their potential future victims too, which would increase the future sum total of happiness in the world.
(I'm not saying it is necessarily so, but it may be.)
As the sibling comment eluded to, you definitely seem to be the "High EQ individual" in this story!
Words are not just symbols on paper, they are image triggers in your brain.
No, verbally threatening physical harm induces reasonable fear and affects your logical reasoning because now you have to consider real risk.
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" is something told to children in the playground who are too young to know better.
You might as well argue that there's no such thing as malware, because its entirely harmless until executed on a processor.
I mean I don't like the (self) censorship either and don't mind rude or mature words, since we're all mature here and calling a fucking asshole a f*ing a$$h0le is an insult to people's intellect.
But I think that was Roddenberry's point: we can only advance after excising that primitive baggage.