Hello, everyone! Please don't be put off by the title--those words aren't really scary. Let's delve into them, shall we?
First of all, let me dispel a myth. Lots and lots of folks out there seem to think that there is some kind of "word police force" that will come and pummel you with socks filled with nickels if you dare to use a word they've decided is offensive. And furthermore (comes the cry) those words keep changing daily, so how's a person supposed to talk? You can't say anything anymore! (or so they say).
As far as I am aware, exactly ZERO people have been tossed in jail for saying "female" when they meant "woman," or "handicapped" or any other non-vulgar label they are using. That even applies to a word I won't type here but which begins with "n" and is a slur against Black folk. I am not aware of any law that has been passed, or any law that COULD be passed, making all uses of that word illegal. So let's calm down. No one is saying you can't speak.
By the way, free speech is of course not absolute. You can't incite a riot, for example. You can't divulge state secrets. You can't depict certain pornographic images. And so on. Free speech was NEVER completely free, so let's make sure that's clear.
Anyway, the idea that the LEFT (scare capitals included for free) is making up new words JUST so they can entrap sensible people and condemn them for wrongspeak is simply untrue. Ain't happening.
If your argument is, "I can't say what I want and avoid any social consequences," well, then, now I agree. You can't. You never could. Here's a little experiment for you: go sit in the home stands at Fenway Park behind the Sox dugout wearing a Yankees jersey. See how well that goes. Are you ALLOWED to do that, legally? Of course you are. Are you legally protected from being fired for doing that? Absolutely. But are you legally protected from other folks letting you know they disapprove? Of course not.
Ironically, many of those people who are clamoring for "free speech!" really want "freedom from social consequences!" which is in itself a form of censorship. In other words, they want to be able to say whatever they want but silence those who would speak out against them. That seems fully un-American to me.
And so we come to labels. Words change over time. Their meanings, spellings, pronunciations, and levels of social acceptance. Words mean different things in different contexts. Labels, especially for sensitive areas, are constantly re-evaluated for potential bias, conscious or not. Let's take a simple one: the outmoded word "Oriental." Time was that this word meant (more or less) what the word "Asian" means now. Why'd we change? What was wrong with "Oriental?" No one meant any harm by it, so how come everyone got all upset and demanded we use the new term, "Asian?" First, no one got all upset, and no one demanded anything. We just came to realize that "Oriental" had some problems. What are those problems? I'm glad you asked.* See, "Oriental" literally means "of or relating to the east," the same way "Occidental" means "of or relating to the west" (hence Occidental College, my alma mater, the sister school of Princeton and situated, you guessed it, on the West Coast).
Okay, so "Oriental" means "to the east." So what? Isn't Asia in the east?
Sure, if you take Europe as the center of the world. Asia isn't east in any absolute sense, of course--there is no place on the planet that is inherently "east." East and west are relative ideas. Only if you take Europe and make it the center of the world do you get "east" for Asia. So, to the Europeans, the Orient was anything east of it.
See? That wasn't so hard. We just noticed that "Oriental" had a distinct Eurocentric bent to it, and we fixed it by saying "Asian." Easy.
I think you'll find that most of the time, when we collectively decide that a label is problematic, we move on to a new one that isn't, or is less so (maybe we'll uncover problems later with the new label, but that's the nature of language).
"Neurodivergent" is one such label you may not have heard of.
I think it is fair to say that there is still rather a stigma attached to people who have what some would call mental illness. And that stigma is significantly stronger for mental illness, or neurodivergency, than it is for other disorders. As I am getting older, my near vision is weakening, and I find I need glasses for close work like reading. So I just put them on. I don't get funny looks, I don't get people denying me jobs, I don't get people clasping their children tightly when I walk past. It's a medical issue I have, and it's not going away, but no one gives it a second thought. But if someone has a mental illness, that's a whole new ball game. We sort of tend to believe folks with mental illnesses need to just "get over it" or we tell them to do yoga or smile more and it will all go away.
So, "neurodivergent." A term that will hopefully remove some of the stigma we have placed on what we used to call "mental illness." It's not just P.C.; it's a way of humanizing folks who might have some struggles. And who could reasonably be opposed to humanizing folks?
Be seeing you!
*Check out my podcast of the same name!
First of all, let me dispel a myth. Lots and lots of folks out there seem to think that there is some kind of "word police force" that will come and pummel you with socks filled with nickels if you dare to use a word they've decided is offensive. And furthermore (comes the cry) those words keep changing daily, so how's a person supposed to talk? You can't say anything anymore! (or so they say).
As far as I am aware, exactly ZERO people have been tossed in jail for saying "female" when they meant "woman," or "handicapped" or any other non-vulgar label they are using. That even applies to a word I won't type here but which begins with "n" and is a slur against Black folk. I am not aware of any law that has been passed, or any law that COULD be passed, making all uses of that word illegal. So let's calm down. No one is saying you can't speak.
By the way, free speech is of course not absolute. You can't incite a riot, for example. You can't divulge state secrets. You can't depict certain pornographic images. And so on. Free speech was NEVER completely free, so let's make sure that's clear.
Anyway, the idea that the LEFT (scare capitals included for free) is making up new words JUST so they can entrap sensible people and condemn them for wrongspeak is simply untrue. Ain't happening.
If your argument is, "I can't say what I want and avoid any social consequences," well, then, now I agree. You can't. You never could. Here's a little experiment for you: go sit in the home stands at Fenway Park behind the Sox dugout wearing a Yankees jersey. See how well that goes. Are you ALLOWED to do that, legally? Of course you are. Are you legally protected from being fired for doing that? Absolutely. But are you legally protected from other folks letting you know they disapprove? Of course not.
Ironically, many of those people who are clamoring for "free speech!" really want "freedom from social consequences!" which is in itself a form of censorship. In other words, they want to be able to say whatever they want but silence those who would speak out against them. That seems fully un-American to me.
And so we come to labels. Words change over time. Their meanings, spellings, pronunciations, and levels of social acceptance. Words mean different things in different contexts. Labels, especially for sensitive areas, are constantly re-evaluated for potential bias, conscious or not. Let's take a simple one: the outmoded word "Oriental." Time was that this word meant (more or less) what the word "Asian" means now. Why'd we change? What was wrong with "Oriental?" No one meant any harm by it, so how come everyone got all upset and demanded we use the new term, "Asian?" First, no one got all upset, and no one demanded anything. We just came to realize that "Oriental" had some problems. What are those problems? I'm glad you asked.* See, "Oriental" literally means "of or relating to the east," the same way "Occidental" means "of or relating to the west" (hence Occidental College, my alma mater, the sister school of Princeton and situated, you guessed it, on the West Coast).
Okay, so "Oriental" means "to the east." So what? Isn't Asia in the east?
Sure, if you take Europe as the center of the world. Asia isn't east in any absolute sense, of course--there is no place on the planet that is inherently "east." East and west are relative ideas. Only if you take Europe and make it the center of the world do you get "east" for Asia. So, to the Europeans, the Orient was anything east of it.
See? That wasn't so hard. We just noticed that "Oriental" had a distinct Eurocentric bent to it, and we fixed it by saying "Asian." Easy.
I think you'll find that most of the time, when we collectively decide that a label is problematic, we move on to a new one that isn't, or is less so (maybe we'll uncover problems later with the new label, but that's the nature of language).
"Neurodivergent" is one such label you may not have heard of.
I think it is fair to say that there is still rather a stigma attached to people who have what some would call mental illness. And that stigma is significantly stronger for mental illness, or neurodivergency, than it is for other disorders. As I am getting older, my near vision is weakening, and I find I need glasses for close work like reading. So I just put them on. I don't get funny looks, I don't get people denying me jobs, I don't get people clasping their children tightly when I walk past. It's a medical issue I have, and it's not going away, but no one gives it a second thought. But if someone has a mental illness, that's a whole new ball game. We sort of tend to believe folks with mental illnesses need to just "get over it" or we tell them to do yoga or smile more and it will all go away.
So, "neurodivergent." A term that will hopefully remove some of the stigma we have placed on what we used to call "mental illness." It's not just P.C.; it's a way of humanizing folks who might have some struggles. And who could reasonably be opposed to humanizing folks?
Be seeing you!
*Check out my podcast of the same name!
RSS Feed