Hi, I think you're being naive about language. I support completely and wholeheartedly all the causes you mention, but I do not agree that they have progressed through the censorship of words or language.
Orwell used the idea of Newspeak, a highly restricted form of language, because he thought that if you couldn't say a thing you couldn't think it. So by expunging words like 'freedom' from everbody's vocabulary the state thought people wouldn't be able to conceive of the idea, and that they could control people's thought. This is the same idea that causes people to use words like 'gender' instead of 'sex'. The particular case of 'sex' is the linguistic equivalent of the Victorians who supposedly covered the legs of their tables, so that men wouldn't be inflamed by lust at the thought of a 'leg'. Newspeak doesn't work because the idea that we can only think what we can say is wrong. You can see that at a very informal level in sayings like 'the Greeks have a word for it'. People have the idea, the thought, the notion in their head, but they can't find the words to express them. But one of the fundamental rights we have is the right to express our thoughts, subject to certain sensible constraints. What really happens when words are hounded is that they go underground. Racism, sexism etc. are all still there, whatever you may think, but they're not so open about it as they used to be. They're not going to tell you to your face that they won't hire you because you're a Muslim, or a woman, or disabled, because they know they're not allowed to say that. So you've made your enemy harder to see, and harder to fight, and still they haven't hired you. If you want to change that sort of thing you should be going after the racists, sexists and so on, not innocent words like 'sex'. You're misdirecting your energy. While we're on the subject of misdirected energy, this is the last I have to say on the matter. Bob Saturday, October 4, 2003, 5:22:57 PM, you wrote: > Or change their tools of abuse. Make it more difficult for them. > I personally believe changing parameters may make people think more and lower > misuse and abuse. I.E. Like updating history books to be more inclusive. I > think all that type of stuff works. I know when I was growing up feminists were > just about NOT in history books. You know, the movement that got women the > vote in the US. Another parameter that changed a bit. And those changes do not > happen all by themselves -- people have to push for them. And changed parameters > do affect people, ergo, change people. In fact, language is one of the basic > places to start in changing people's thinking. Like making > racist/ethnic/sexist/ageist jokes increasingly unpopular.
