“Forbidden-word” lists are a symptom of administrative bloat
jamesgmartin.center
jamesgmartin.center
It seems to consistently result in visible productions of over reactions that are disconnected from reality.
For example deaf and blind people that I know of prefer to be called deaf or blind.
Brown bagging in my life time has always referred to making one’s own lunch and taking it to work or school in a paper brown bag.
Black box refers to an electrical literal black box which one is unable to see its implementation details without opening it.
The thinking of individuals who produce these works seems to seep into everything they perceive, and so ironically they shouldn’t be producing these lists.
Red, in my experience in most people’s minds, does not refer to Indians predominantly.
BIPOC seems to elevate “capital B” black people and “indigenous” people over others. This seems to be the current initialism in-vogue but I find it inappropriate.
I would err on creating too short of a list over an ever expanding one.
But I digress. That’s not the point of the article. Ideally we don’t have these at all. Not because of administrative bloat being something to avoid but because hopefully you learn how to speak to people with nuance as a result of living life and talking to people with different backgrounds and working continually on your own simple ethical decisions.
As a final comment, much of the social discussions we have in the states are really limited to US centric social perspectives.
People don’t talk like this in many other countries. There’s some irony in being so concerned about how one communicates with other communities that one doesn’t see how myopic this is on an international scale. It’s so American.
That "concern" in modern United States is literally the end of your professional life! So these self-appointed thought and speech police have, and will employ without a second-thought just for twitter points, through social media, a way to amplify their power to the extent that they can do something previously impossible and end your career over a (possibly imagined) thought "crime" or speech "crime". So from that perspective, all the walking on eggshells and concern about this is absolutely real not just a socially imagined construct or idea.
So when pictures surface of someone that the in crowd doesn't like is an old Halloween costume, they all play it up as if the person's a monster. Realistically, few if anyone actually care deep down, and so when the same thing happens to someone currently in favor, it's easy to let it slide.
The problem isn't that justin Trudeau (who I despise incidentally) got a pass for dressing up in a costume (which obviously wasn't remotely offensive in the context it was in), it's that other people's careers have been destroyed for the same thing.
Just like e.g. Bill Clinton "not inhaling" - nobody gives a shit if he smoked pot. But simultaneously thousands of people, mostly who are "undesirables" in the eyes of law enforcement for one reason or another get incarcerated for it.
Nah man that's just straight up blackface minstrel, extremely racist and bad. Sorry, you're confusing it with the other time he wore blackface.
Some folks were just too valuable to marginalize. Some aren't. But that's pretty true of any space humans operate in, whether the bad stuff is Halloween costume choices or bad hygiene.
If there are a hundred Justin Trudeaus to choose from, the one that was racist gets left by the wayside (I think this is what scares people about this sort of thing... They realize they aren't special enough to step out of line).
You don't see as much of this in other industries where most companies are busy making actual money (or they will get out-competed by companies who care about their bottom-line more than virtue-signalling).
Those who can't teach, teach Gym.
Those who can't teach Gym, make lists of forbidden words.
Actually as I'm writing this I still draw a blank what it's actually meant to be. But Americans love their acronyms.
This is something.
Therefore, we must do this.
or as a black friend of mine is fond of saying about such signaling acts, “the powers that be will go to great lengths to be seen to be doing something while maintaining the status quo”
My point is that there is already a "forbidden-word" list that everyone can easily agree with - which include things such as racial/discriminatory slurs. Then why is it such a stretch to understand that some words actually do hurt people? (I mean I know why - it involves conscious mental work, and human brain is optimised for shortcuts.)
One might be dissatisfied with some words in "the list", but what I see here is the rejection of the very idea that such lists have value. People who are affected by those words should ultimately be the deciders on the usage of those words, not people who have privilege.
While it may feel like it's "only something", it's still better than what was before - namely, nothing.
I don't have any opinion on whether it made it meaningful to add race there, that way
yes, agreed
The NY Times put a moratorium on anti-Asian aggression by Black Americans during the early days of COVID.
Yet they made an exception for a White on Asian, but all that did was mask the actual problem in society.
Growing up as an immigrant, the racism in non-White American circles is also very real but never spoken of.
Immigrants are typically a minority, so if they were discriminating or being aggressive towards the majority then it'd be considered "punching up".
A better analogy would be the smaller kid finding yet another, even smaller kid to beat down.
Then avoiding any mention of the smaller bully, because they were being bullied by someone larger. Nothing positive or nuanced about this position.
Tarball? “abusive relationship”? “war room”?
This is way beyond the obvious racial discrimination and micro agressions.
What are my kids going to deal with when they get into Uni?
So I guess you just have to hope problems like inequality resolve themselves. Fingers crossed eh!
It does not sound crazy to me.
In my experience, the "Don't help poor people" and "Don't be racist when supporting people" are not the same group.
Visibility = Number of people impacted * level of impact
Getting a high level of impact is hard. A company word list stacks the other side of the equation. That visibility gives people a feeling of impact and something to point out, to convince themselves they're doing good in the world, while at the same time they're funding the politician that is gerrymandering to reduce the voting impact of black people, for example.
The risk of abuse is significant as is the chilling effect on speech.
Making forbidden word lists and convincing your company to adopt them.
Also, I will note that in both of your examples it wasn't free speech but specific actions taken by a person.
(I'm someone who has lived through at least two cycles of "Stuff we all used to say we don't say anymore." Language moves. Things "everyone" accepts are fine until they aren't. Do you still use bare pointers in C++ or do you use options and smart pointers?).
Oh, by all means, continue with your attempts at gaslighting by dismissing this as a normal evolution of language.
Language does move alright, but apparently, we have a bunch of self-appointed activists who think they can dictate the direction it moves for everyone else. And how do we know they're clueless? Well, for one, they keep pushing things like "Latinx" nonsense, even though actual Latino Americans have made it clear they don't want it.
By what process do you think we got to the place where the words that are on most text chat channels' banned or auto-flag-for-moderation lists got to be on those lists? It was by a group of people (which started small) explaining why those words weren't okay, over and over again, until people agreed.
My personal opinion is that 2/3 of the words in your list could probably stand to be jettisoned from regular usage (I haven't heard a compelling explanation for the remaining third but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise).
If a word/phrase has evolved toward a positive definition, then its abnormal and regressive and wrong to try to bring back the negative definition and force people to stop using it. Why do they do it? For just the twitter points?
When you say 'a goal is achieved', are you trivializing the accomplishment by using a word from sports? When I think someone who leads is doing a good job, am I trivializing lead poisoning?
Just asking for proof would have sufficed to prompt a response on the subject matter, it's the examples that make me question your good faith. Alas, I'll take your last sentence at face value.
I must admit I'm not strong on that trivialization position. The "thinking about" part is more what I'm aiming at when I say it actually had an effect (maybe even the intended one).
As for trivialization: not a linguist, so I can't cite sources here. The mechanism I think is called semantic satiation. It's employed for nefarious reasons too, in the form of "buzzword fatigue" or "buzzword burnout" and I'd argue if this wouldn't be effective, it wouldn't be part of political parties' playbooks. Other examples: Apart from holocaust trivialization (which is actually a felony in my country), another attempt to avoid a similar effect that I find interesting is the protection of the symbols of the Red Cross.
I could be convinced to restrict freedom to prevent harm, but doing so just to have a positive impact goes against me on principle. I get the sense that this is a common principle because all of these lists specifically discuss harms, but it may just be an American thing. So I'm going to talk about trivialization, but it's fine with me if you'd rather argue against this paragraph (or ignore me entirely).
The closest I can find to semantic satiation having significant effects beyond the short term is in helping stutterers, where the meaning of the words would be irrelevant. I may not be using the right search terms though.
An important distinction re: political parties is that they are using the relevant meanings. A master git branch, as far as I'm aware, does not refer to someone controlling someone else but is used in the sense of a master recording. In any event, US Republicans talk about CRT and US Democrats talk about fascism, both ad infinitum. Neither side is trying to normalize or trivialize their attack words, so that's a point against 'if it didn't work, it wouldn't be in their playbook'.
The rest of the world, especially us who speak english as a second, third or fourth language, has no such cultural weight behind the word. It's just a word among others we had to learn, we didn't learn the culture behind it.
It reminds me of the movie 300, where all Xerxes demands is that you kneel.
I find your comment fairly tone deaf and reeking of unwarranted victimism.
The problem of course is that many people couldn't stand to work in such an organization, and there's definitely suffering involved unless you are a certain type that loves that kind of work.
... wait.
Straight out of 1984.
Could be just me though
Did you read the lists in question?
At the end of the day, we really want to be holding people accountable on the meaning of what they write or say, not making lists of words that probably don't actually offend anybody but that someone thinks could possibly offend someone else somewhere at some point in time, maybe.
To be clear, this neans you also think banned word lists consisting only of racial slurs are bad?
The argument would go something like this: you can ban use of racial slurs without specifically making a list of them that are banned, as such a list both opens the door to further banned words and also comes with a maintenance cost, where it has to be changed. As an example "person of colour" is currently an acceptable term but when I was a kid I think people would have associated that term with "coloured" and find it insulting, so if you have a specific list you have to manage cases like this.
Secondly banning racial slurs altogether ignores that there are legitimate contexts in which they should be used (directly quoting something someone has said, discussing old media in which that sort of language is used, etc.), and these contexts are very different from referring to an individual or a group using those slurs. A list of banned words means those words can't be used even in those contexts, as opposed to just not using them as a pejorative or insult.
Reality is that life kind of sucks for people who take care of or interact with the mentally ill, and it definitely sucks more for the mentally ill themselves… No amount of progressive hand-wringing or administrative Band-aids is going to change that.
Banning the word crazy is silly, ineffective, patronizing nonsense that does nothing to help the mentally ill whatsoever, not even changing the perception around them nor making them feel better.
Plenty of people who suffer from a mental illness do well in life, but you’re right that they often have a harder time. So then why should we actively make their life even harder by attaching a stigma and dehumanizing them? I don’t think that’s progressive as much as just humanitarian.
Imagine a hypothetical scenario: two of your coworkers are in an office and one tells the other something shocking. The second says, “Wow, that’s crazy!” Do you think that’s a micro aggression, or worse, a slur?
Second scenario: you’re talking to a coworker and they say “Bob has been off recently. Some of the stuff he says is so insane. Yesterday he completely embarrassed us in that meeting!” Do you think this is any less hurtful to Bob because your coworker said “insane” instead of “crazy”?
My answers are “no” and “no”, and it seems pretty obvious why. In the first scenario there’s no intention to harm someone and even if harm is done, it’s extremely small. In the second scenario, your coworker is going to say something bad about Bob and it doesn’t matter how tightly you control the corporate Newspeak, he is going to express his opinion.
Grow a spine and realize the world isn’t for or against you, it just is.
master
blacklist/whitelist
crazy/idiotic/stupid
"skin a cat"
"black market"
"black box testing" / "white box testing"
"three amigos"
"war games"
?
These are the kinds of words people are talking about, not historical slurs.
I work for a very large company. These words are in a list of words we're "not allowed" to use. There are even more ridiculous ones (e.g. can't use "normal" to describe things)
What's the problem with "war games"?
the reasoning for "three amigos" is that it is "racially loaded language"
[edit] I won't even dignify the stupidity of conflating the Spanish language with a race - then its use with racism - with a response, except to say that such a view could only arise among the privileged children of racists in a very small part of the United States.
not that. Anything done above the lowest common denominator is ableist, according to one frame. And according to the other frame (expressed constantly here), everyone earns everything by their own merit alone, and it's always been so.
The flaw in both of these frames is their focus on language, as if language alone can make things what they are. It's a mistake that older people can always see in young people, that I couldn't see in myself but I can see in my younger self now; the idea that you will remake the world by changing the definitions.
edit: the answer https://superuser.com/a/1572156
git config --global init.defaultBranch main
I often use the push instructions that a new empty github project prompts, and do it frequently enough that I want my system defaults to match those instructions.
Its not important to me to know that my system could overwrite those instructions successfully because "master" or whatever my local branch is called can be written into the command line. Its not important to me that "main" is a contrived replacement for "master".
They took no offense at the term “master,” but were extremely frustrated by how copying and pasting commands from git tutorials would often not work. As a simple example,
$ git clone git@github.com:username/test.git
Cloning into 'test'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 3, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (3/3), done.
remote: Total 3 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
Receiving objects: 100% (3/3), done.
$ cd test
$ touch foo
$ git add foo
$ git commit -m "my commit"
[main f00f00d] my commit
1 file changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
create mode 100644 foo
$ git push origin master # as a tutorial might advise
error: src refspec master does not match any
error: failed to push some refs to 'github.com:username/test.git'
In 10 years, it’s likely that there will still be some repos with the principal branch called “master” and some with it called “main,” so confusion will still exist. But even if all repos and tutorials were magically switched over to “main” in 10 years’ time, the net result would be several years’ worth of newbie developers experiencing a slew of microannoyances, with zero upside. There is no evidence that a branch called “master” caused widespread harm, but there is plenty of evidence that further complicating an already complex system was harmful to some degree.
You could just as well argue that the changed name of the default branch is one of very many things that make git difficult for beginners to learn and having bumped into it early taught a valuable lesson that branch names in git are arbitrary.
Something that took me a longer than I care to admit to figure out.
Agreed. Seeing this in the tutorial (if it hasn't already been updated as such) would be great:
> Branch names are arbitrary, but for convenience a default of 'main' is provided. There's nothing special about 'main'.
Of course I'd double check they really are arbitrary for all contexts before adding the above since I'm not 100% confident it's true.
The name 'origin' for the remote repository that you originally cloned from is likewise arbitrary. There is nothing magical about `git push origin master`. You could name your remote "my_github_account" and do `git push my_github_account trunk`.
This knowledge becomes essential if you're synch'ing with several remote repos. OTOH, knowing that these are arbitrary names and not part of the command make it more obvious that it's _possible_ to have multiple remotes in the first place.
But it comes at the cost of making life more difficult for authors of tutorials designed to get people to memorize difficult git commands without understand what they do.
This would sort itself out pretty quickly, though. Different aspects of git's usage are constantly changing and any tutorial that doesn't keep up to date would be irrelevant sooner or later.
It is so bizarre how many people draw the line at master/slave - it's just another convention, why on earth are they desperate to write these two specific words above all else? Why is "don't use verbs in your REST routes" ok but "don't use master/slave" a cause to get on your soapbox and cry about human rights being impeded?
[edit] while you downvote this, consider that my grandparents family were literal slave workers prior to being shot, and no, I don't think we should BAN THE TERM. Only insufferable racist snobs think that calling a computer a "master" or a "slave" makes normal people think of HUMAN SLAVES AND MASTERS. And even if they do think of human slaves and masters, then hopefully no normal person would think of some racist thing after that. And if they did, then that is a racist problem, not the words. Do you understand? Do you understand that my grandparents didn't survive to live in a world where words are banned because some idiot draws a connotation from them and assumes that other people will as well, or just to exercise power over other individuals? Like, fuck you!
The reason people draw the line here is because to many people these words CLEARLY have nothing to do with race and "oppression". They never have. And yet now somehow YOU made them "dirty".
It is a common occurrence where a group of activists deem something as forbidden, create a commotion around it that intimidates those who comply solely out of fear, ultimately leading to that something being considered "bad" because only those who don't mind disregarding social norms continue to use it. This is not a natural process but a hostile takeover.
But I agree - you stumbling around in clown shoes, failing to understand the issue you're hopping mad about is a great summary.
This used to be called a "slave mentality". It's a pretty useful expression these days.
The overproduction of elites.
A fairly clear threat to any society is masses of un(der)employed young males. People with capability+ambition but no outlet.
So what about all those surplus advanced degrees ? What if they start an evil organisation along the lines of SPECTRE ?
It’s indeed quite tiresome.
There are slurs for immigrants too
The last Republican president had a word he liked to use to describe the countries these immigrants come from
I mean treat them on equal terms. You just demonsrated that they’re viewed as second-class .
I also struggle to see the harm of such lists personally.
It accuses People of things that have never crossed their minds.
When I do a BlackBox testing never have I or those that I know Associated the "Black" of the Box with the skin of people (for good or bad). When we talk about Blacklist/WhiteList there is no Connection with skin colour. Black and white have those connotations not because they are associated with Skin color but because Black/white is more often culturally associated with dark/light(unknown/known).
You are saying to me that My human Instinct to not like the Darkness are because I have associated them with Dark Skin People? When I cried as a baby because I was afraid of the Dark, I was afraid of the Dark Skin People although I Didn't know yet what color was or what people are?
You are saying to me that all my Cultural background has no value because someone somewhere might read it wrong? That I am incapable of having a judgment or instinct without it being just that without further sinister meanings?
Is that what these movements are saying? these movements are doing more to imprint this racial divide on the minds of this generation that anything they are are trying to protect from.
Saying "Poor" is offensive and non inclusive? Saying "my self-reported income was in the lowest income bracket" is way more offensive. What does it really say? What does self-reported have to do with the my financial status? Is It my fault that I am Poor? If I self-Report more Am I not poor anymore?
And countless other examples....
I also personally struggle to see the harm caused by such lists.
I think it's a pretty poor form of argument to immediately impugn the motivations of the people you disagree with. It's also quite frankly a little comical to suppose that ambitious university administrators would decide this was how to direct their ambition.
One thing that really struck me about this article is that it points to policies, and language lists, but there's one thing that's missing. Any actual details about anything at all that's bad. Like, ok, this policy exists where you can report a book for being offensive and they'll consider your complaint. That sounds... fine? If you want to follow that up and say "Hey look! Here are the books they banned!" I'm interested, but that policy just sounds... fine. What's the actual problem here?
I think the problem here is the right wing intellectual sees a harmful word list and thinks "Oh my god they're stifling academic inquisition"- but as the author points out, these word lists don't operate actually within the academic setting. What is actually happening is school administrators don't want you referring to another student in the university cafe as "sugar tits".
Almost no one is offended by words on the Stanford list, yet it exists and can be used against you when you don’t speak the way they want.
I think a core disagreement here is people on the right say "These academic institutions are being politicized" but that's not true, the institutions were always political, it's just that previously they were political in a way that favoured rich straight white men and now an effort is being made to counteract that.
Just an observation. I can't say if this or these lists is good or bad at the moment. Anyone can still offend or exclude anyone and cause a great burn, including hinting at ethnicity and ancestry and whatever, with perfectly allowed words...
> The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.
Which in this example if even more true, as many of the HR/administration staff are openly revolutionaries and activists.
Conservatives have been attacking institutions of higher education for decades. There is nothing new here. Why is it on the front page of HN?
But to anyone else: just check out some other articles on the linked site to understand who is writing this. Ask yourself why them, and why you don't see others have the same opinion.
Ad-hominem!
This site can be perfectly neutral and balanced while containing titles like:
- Wokeness Is Creeping into Continuing Legal Education
- Buckle Up, All Ye Unvaccinated!
That words don’t have meanings to be used to engage ideas, but are simply signifiers of which political tribe you belong to.
Your claims about me and my language are also not correct. I am not engaging in tribalism. I am pointing it out.
That’s the very essence of tribalism.
They're accusing everyone left of them as teaching "a doctrine", and they're accusing administration of unilaterally making mandates, but then clarifying that affinity groups were consulted.
This is the type of article where they pretend to care about free speech. They tend to keep those separate from when they try to influence legislation on what can and can't be taught.
"transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely" was like three days ago
Also it doesn't prevent problems like racism, it just hides them behind fake politeness.
Citation needed. Also untrue, i've witnessed these people consulted first-hand.
I agree offensive language should be avoided, and I couldn't care less what a git branch is called. But I think it is more offensive to affected people to play these linguistic games instead of taking measures that actually make a difference. Universities investing billions into real estate funds shouldn't lecture others about what wording is offensive to homeless people.
> "enslaved person" instead of "slave".
Both 'homeless person' and 'slave' make the negative sound like a permanent unchangable state of affairs... as if that is that persons identity.
But 'unhoused person' and 'enslaved person' make the negative sound like a very changeable state of affairs you have power over.
> But I think it is more offensive to affected people to play these linguistic games instead of taking measures that actually make a difference.
They aren't linguistic games. It's the same reason you tell your kid "you'll get them next time" instead of "you are a loser" if you value their mental health.
The second one is technically true, but you know there is danger they'll feel like being a loser is their identity if they hear that too much.
No they don't. There was an entire civil war that established that regarding slavery. People go from homeless to not homeless all the time.
These are very much linguistic games being played and the stakes are the careers of people that make the grevious mistake of not adhering to the made up rules.
... How so?
Imagine these two sentences:
"The slave poured wine from an amphora"
and
"The waiter poured wine from an amphora"
... These are the same sentence aside from the word used to describe the one doing the pouring. The word, in this context, describes a current mode of existing for the person doing the pouring but I cannot see at all why "slave" as a word implies an inherent/permanent state of affairs in a way that "waiter" doesn't.
"John was a slave in 113BC" vs. "John was a metalwoker in 113BC"...
Seriously please explain to me where on earth you are getting an implication it's permanent, I am so confused
EDIT: I do kinda get the "is their identity part", but no more than referring to someone by their occupation or by their hobby (i.e "David is a bird watcher") does
Normal Person: I think we should be able to say poor and homelessness.
Leftist: oh you think it's ok to say the n word! You probably think the Nazis were right too.
Normal Person: I don't want schools lying to me about my kids gender and don't think kids should be at sexually suggestive drag shows.
Leftist: oh you don't think trans people have the right to exist. You probably think the Nazis were right too.
Just the mental gymnastics required are astounding and no matter what you do there is always a gotcha. It's exhausting.
https://studentaffairs.unc.edu/student-affairs-staff-portal/...