Re:Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon
by gavanwoolery on Friday July 13, 2012 @05:49AM
(#4239072)
I would be honored if "doing a gavan" or "woolerying" became terms. ;) But seriously, the only way to right a word of its negative context is to start using it in a positive fashion, that way no one can use it abusively. Retarded was actually not first used as an insult, but just a term meaning slow...people decided to make it an insult. Two of my friends who are gay call each other "faggots" - which is probably the best thing you can do to remove the negative connotation of the word. Black people have successfully done this, with the N word, which they have made exclusive to their community. Really, words are just words. If someone calls another "retarded" it depends more on their tone of conversation than the word itself.
Re:Sexism red/yellow cards at Defcon
by jessedhillon on Friday July 13, 2012 @06:02AM
(#4239100)
Those are all three bad examples though. Call any black person "nigger", any gay man "faggot", or speak to a special ed teacher about his "retarded" students and on the whole all will be offended.
The fact that retarded was a clinical term is irrelevant, similarly I think "nigger" derived from some matter-of-fact observation. This is really just another manifestation of your idea that root causes matter. They don't -- not as much as impacts do, both legally and for many people morally as well. Also, again, reciprocity is not a requisite here -- there is no fair use policy for offensive words or behavior.
Whenever someone says "if they can use it so can I", I have to wonder "why would you want to?" Why would you ever want to refer to gay people as "fags" or black people as "niggers", even if they do call each other in such a way.
Suppose anytime someone was a jerk in public, took up an extreme and unsubstantiated view, and held closely to it despite multiple appeals to show him the obvious errors in his reasoning -- suppose we call that "Doing a Gavan" or "Woolerying" (although the latter would be unfair to your parents and family.)
Now, if this became really popular, then people who you would never in your life meet would start using it. You'd turn on the TV and people would be like "Oy! Check this Gavan out," and "Looks like he's pulling a Gavan wink". That would be quite annoying, to say the least. And this is in a case where you arguably did something to deserve it!
Now consider that you were born a certain way, and people use that word which describes you and your condition, as a pejorative. How would you feel living in a world where, by the mere fact of your birth, you and people like you are the object of jokes and insults.
I would not consider it going overboard to say that we as a society should make an effort to prevent this from happening.
(Also, it's strange that you don't oppose PC language on the basis that it attempts to alter a natural behavior. Natural behaviors are natural and nothing can be done about them, right?)