Sometimes, there are no words.

_dahne_ writes a screed about how being "PC" has gone too far.

I don't even know what to say about this, other than someone needs to have their privilege checked. Badly. (Except, of course, that "Privilege, like 'troll' or 'fail' can now mean whatever we want it to mean, so my little statement there is apparently OPPRESHUN of her truth. Or something.)

I count sexism, ablism, heterocentrism, and I'm pretty sure racism in this one sentence alone:

The male side of fandom runs around calling each other niggerfaggots while the female side has earnest ten-page debates on whether calling something crazy is ablist.

(Emphasis hers)

Because the boys doing that is totes okay, y'all, and the girls should be doing the same thing. And men never, ever talk about whether what they're saying is hurtful to other people or not, 'cause that's girly stuff. (Hey, wankaboys, come and sit in the invisible corner with us bisexuals, English majors, and ampersands.)

And then there's this:

Like the idea of "tone argument." At its core, this makes sense; it's meant to address the idea that abused classes of people shouldn't have to be deferential to their abusers in order to be listened to.

In practice, what it means is, "I'm allowed to be an asshole as long as I'm really, really sure I'm right."

I just...I can't. I mean, the tools of the master will never tear down the master's house, but come on. By refusing to accept the tenets of the tone argument, we're bullying the people in power?

Whut?

And both examples are from the first seven paragraphs of her little screed. There's also kind of a priceless gem in there about Fandom_Wank being a "prime vector" for "too much" political correctness.

And I think the worst bit is (as far as I could tell before the comments were pushing me to the ragey point) she's not getting any disagreement.

I would love to be able to write a thoughtful rebuttal that might be as widespread in fandom as this one's (apparently) getting, but I'm afraid my brain keeps hanging up on What Is This I Don't Even.

ETA:

t_boy found swordygardner's response which is a breath of fresh air in amongst all that fail. ETA 2: In fact, pretty much all of page 2 of the comments (which is about the point she turned off anon commenting, I'll bet you), is pretty awesome.

(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

witty
2011-01-22 05:49 pm UTC (link)

Sorry, unclear on my part. I'm happy to argue all day! (Okay, I do have laundry to do eventually.)

I meant that to assert "if you can't talk right don't talk at all" is to assert that disagreement should be silenced. Which I do think is eh, a bit strong. I'm a big fan of disagreement, and don't care for the idea that it should be silenced.

referred, very specifically, to people who use words like "retarded", "lame", or "bitch" as put-downs.

I'm afraid this wasn't very specific. As you'll see upthread you said If you can't express your feelings or ideas without using words like "retarded", "lame", "bitch", etc., maybe it's time to sit down and let someone else talk. You failed to include that part about "as put-downs" explicitly, although you may think it an inmplication so obvious it doesn't need to be stated. I don't think it's that obvious, which is why I restated your argument in bald terms to see if that was what you're really saying.

Also, I don't agree that "dehumanizing language" or even slurs are objective, inarguable categories. Dehumanizing and casting aspersions can be done easily in polite terms, as any member of Congress can tell you; and words change meanings often, not just in different contexts and to different individuals but over time.

Given that it's the put-down you seem to feel strongly about, and given that a put-down may come in many flavors including flavors that include no starred vocabulary words, I don't think that focussing on the vocabulary words is the way to go, when telling people to sit down and let someone else talk. Focussing on their intent to use those words for meanness, much more important in my book.

I would generally agree with "If you are opening your mouth only to be mean, then don't open it." If that's what you meant by the above, then we aren't disagreeing at all!

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

alexa
2011-01-22 06:16 pm UTC (link)

I did think the implication was obvious, but that was an assumption on my part. I agree that a statement like "if you can't talk right don't talk at all" could be very problematic (and could easily be referring to, say, anyone who speaks with an accent or in a particular dialect, anyone without perfect grammar, anyone with a speech disorder, etc.). I apologize for being unclear.

What I meant to say is: if you can't express yourself without saying things like "that's so gay", "don't be retarded", "he/she's acting like a bitch", etc.--if you're using slurs or terms for a marginalized group in a way that implies those groups have something to be ashamed of, whether or not you mean it "like that"--then it's time to zip the lips and open a thesaurus. I'm all for disagreement, but it's possible to disagree with someone (politely or vehemently) without using ableist, racist, sexist, or transphobic language.

Dehumanizing and casting aspersions can be done easily in polite terms
That's definitely true. I didn't mean to imply that the use of certain "bad words" was the only problem here, 'cause that would be woefully oversimplifying the issue. I'm sorry I didn't word my comment more clearly.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

witty
2011-01-22 06:53 pm UTC (link)

My objection to "if you can't talk right don't talk at all" lies mostly in the realm of people who aren't hip to the current lingo, or who don't feel competent to become hip to same, but who in their clumsy ways are still trying to say things I agree with. (My parents, for instance.) It bothers me when incompetent speech is automatically assumed to be cruel speech.

I disagree with you in small ways about how language works, but it's the kind of hairsplitting that's not worth the typing in comparison to our general agreement.

Great, now I have to go do my laundry!!

(Reply to this)(Parent)

(Read comments) -