RC
RC's JournalDemocratic Underground is becoming 'Class Stratified'.
(hoz dat for PC wording?) The popular people are using General Discussion as their upper crust Lounge, situated at ground level, Just off Main Street. Their bouncers§ (Hosts)are stationed at the door.
While the regular peons still have to use the old Lounge, a few blocks away, down in the basement, in a 'less desirable' neighborhood. As long as things in the old Lounge don't get too loud and disturb the cliques and other gangs living nearby, everything is fine.
§The mechanism used are the Host and Alert systems. (check the Hosts lists) As in the real world, the more egocentric* rise to the top, in positions of power and end up running things. The more tolerant (read Liberal) among us get marginalized, as the star struck groupies vie for attention and their places in line, following the lead of those they adore.
*Egocentrics regard themselves and their own opinions or interests as being the most important or valid. Self-relevant information is seen to be more important in shaping one’s judgments than do thoughts about others and other-relevant information (Windschitl, Rose, Stalkfleet & Smith, 2008). Egocentric people are unable to fully understand or to cope with other people's opinions and the fact that reality can be different from what they are ready to accept.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egocentrism
No, it is the mind set/attitude of the person using the language.
That is what makes DU suck. If the person in question had a better appreciation for others, instead of this foul mind-set, he would not had created the controversy he did.
Even then, if the language used is innocuous, the person using it can still come across as intimidating and arrogant. That can make DU suck also.
It really the mind-set of the language user.
In my part of the world, not only is it extremely rare for someone to use actual sexist,
homophobic, racist any other slurs in public, but is is also extremely rare in my world for anyone to bully people and decide for them what IS supposedly sexist, homophobic, racist, or whatever, just on the self-appointed persons say so. Just because you or some like mind says it is, does not necessarily make it so.
Being PC is less about being nice to others, or stopping bigotry, sexism's and such, than it is about bullying and intimidating others into the PC's current group think du jour. By the arbitrarily, ever shifting, 'banning' of certain words, regardless of context or legitimate, alternative usages. Or even common sense, as when one word is banned, but its exact synonyms are still allowed. The inconsistencies are legend.
The problems behind the bigotry are still there. The mind set driving the bigotry is still there. The bigot, the bully is still there. Only now, the words used have been sanitized, mostly anyway to the current PC standard, but the problem itself has been pushed a little more out of sight, where they will be less likely to be rectified. How does 'choosing' different words correct the mind-set of bigots/bullies anyway?
Why don't you work on the real problems. Words are not the problem. Banning them will not fix anything. It is the mind set of the person behind the racism, sexism, bigot, bully, etc. The person using the words. Even the Political Correct Police fit right in with here with what they say they are trying to eliminate.
I see the PC word banning as being no different than any other zealot seeking control over others, through a forced dumbing down of the language.
The intolerance displayed in the use of certain words, regardless of context, is closer to 3rd Way or right of center style control of others, than any actual empathy toward the plight of those being 'protected'.
What actually is missing on being PC, is recognizing the real problems and being nice to others. That is all that is needed.
Object to the mind-set, not the words used. That's what I do.
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Gender: MaleHometown: North Dakota
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