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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   16085 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022

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The function of these shibboleths is to act as weapons in the culture war. In early stages via identifying friend and foe, in later stages by keeping the plebes in check by forcing them to use one's own convoluted language - as per Havel, a humiliated person is less likely to rebel. As is the person who has been made an accomplice.

So of course person-first language only applies to friends, not foes. It's rapists and racists, not People Who Rape or Person of a Racist Persuasion.

And give it a couple years and the terms du jour will have fallen out of favor.

I'm reminded of the fad for "black bodies" a couple years ago, which remains one of the most dehumanizing things to come off of the euphemism treadmill, which usually just produces ungainly mouthfuls that no one is really asking for.

Yes, that's another aspect of it. It gives those in the know an advantage over the plebs. It is similar to fashion. If we once and for all decided which colours are hip and trendy and which aren't, even the most common rube could be fashionable and that would take away the fashionista's edge.

And just like we can't have fashionable rubes, we can't have moral commoners either. How would our priest caste lord over them?

It goes like this:

-> Invent new euphemism -> zealots use it to gain status among other zealots -> zealots use it to identify allies -> commoners are pressured into using it -> dissidents who won't use it are ostracised -> invent new euphemism.

Highly useful, that.

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