This is unintentionally revealing of the West’s changing linguistic taboos.
As I understand it, a thousand years ago the worst linguistic transgressions were religious, involving words like “God”, “Jesus” and “devil”. Then, in the premodern period, that became pretty innocuous and the taboo shifted to words concerning disgusting bodily functions, “shit”, “piss” and so on. And then in Victorian era it was sex, female virtue, prostitution, all of which remains at the heart of the slang action in the Romance languages. To protect sensitive souls, I will not spell them out.
And in today’s post-modern Anglosphere, all of that stuff is now utterly anodyne. The most terrifying words are now all about group identity. And of course here the taboo is now so absolute that the context doesn’t even matter, I would be banned for even typing the letters.
To invoke a deity, or bodily fluids, or sexual impropriety, was to sully oneself and society as a whole.
The idea that words are somehow as dangerous as physical weapons is peculiarly modern. As is the idea that it is worse to denigrate a group than an individual.
I must admit that I never get this recourse to the “bad faith” argument. I’m telling you how I see things. Why would I bother inventing something that I don’t even believe? Mystifying. If you see things differently, fine. I don’t believe I’ve said anything factually incorrect (again: why would I bother playing games?). None of this is hard science anyway, so others can judge the arguments on their merits through the prism of their own values.
And now I see that you’ve been downvoting my comments systematically. Personally I consider that to be the virtual equivalent of shouting someone down in a debate. So that’s enough for today. Good night.
Depends on the context.
Bad joke? Yes.
Racial slurs? No.
Bad joke with racial slurs? No.
This is unintentionally revealing of the West’s changing linguistic taboos.
As I understand it, a thousand years ago the worst linguistic transgressions were religious, involving words like “God”, “Jesus” and “devil”. Then, in the premodern period, that became pretty innocuous and the taboo shifted to words concerning disgusting bodily functions, “shit”, “piss” and so on. And then in Victorian era it was sex, female virtue, prostitution, all of which remains at the heart of the slang action in the Romance languages. To protect sensitive souls, I will not spell them out.
And in today’s post-modern Anglosphere, all of that stuff is now utterly anodyne. The most terrifying words are now all about group identity. And of course here the taboo is now so absolute that the context doesn’t even matter, I would be banned for even typing the letters.
Interesting.
The context doesn’t matter because the literal only reason to use the words is to cause harm.
Just the idea that words, alone, can cause harm is a modern notion.
No it isn’t. You’ve already acknowledged that many more words were historically viewed as damaging.
Acknowledging the harm of hate is more modern, but the evidence behind it is pretty much indisputable.
To invoke a deity, or bodily fluids, or sexual impropriety, was to sully oneself and society as a whole.
The idea that words are somehow as dangerous as physical weapons is peculiarly modern. As is the idea that it is worse to denigrate a group than an individual.
No, they literally believed that using the name of gods could get you struck down, cursed, etc. by those gods.
And nobody is claiming words are physical weapons.
Both sides of your argument are wild mischaracterizations of reality and neither could plausibly be done in good faith.
I must admit that I never get this recourse to the “bad faith” argument. I’m telling you how I see things. Why would I bother inventing something that I don’t even believe? Mystifying. If you see things differently, fine. I don’t believe I’ve said anything factually incorrect (again: why would I bother playing games?). None of this is hard science anyway, so others can judge the arguments on their merits through the prism of their own values.
And now I see that you’ve been downvoting my comments systematically. Personally I consider that to be the virtual equivalent of shouting someone down in a debate. So that’s enough for today. Good night.
Every single thing you’ve said is factually incorrect.
There is no debate about that fact that people historically thought gods would strike people down for words; it’s abundant historical record.
And nobody anywhere near this thread said anything anyone could possibly interpret to mean that words are the same as physical assault.
I will always downvote comments using ridiculous nonsense to justify slurs.