I suppose we should refrain from using the word "rapist" to refer to the act of rape for fear of offending rape victims; and refrain from using the term "sexual abuser" to protect anyone who is a victim of a sexual abuser. I wouldn't use the N word myself in any circumstance at this point. It just feels wrong. But losing your job over making a reference to it a big mistake.
I suppose we should refrain from using the word "rapist" to refer to the act of rape for fear of offending rape victims; and refrain from using the term "sexual abuser" to protect anyone who is a victim of a sexual abuser. I wouldn't use the N word myself in any circumstance at this point. It just feels wrong. But losing your job over making a reference to it a big mistake.
You write "The idea that it is inherent to black American culture to fly to pieces at hearing the N-word used in reference is implausible at best, and slanderous at worst." Why do you use the phrase "the N-word" instead of "nigger"? You seem to be ignoring your own very wise advice.
I remember watching "the view" when Whoopi Goldberg started pushing Barbara Walters around for quoting a news article about a large stone where someone had written the "N word", and I felt it was inappropriate and hostile. Ms. Walters defended herself by saying she was "quoting" the word, but soon backed down or off.
I listened to your show with Glenn Loury today and men being men, is I feel a important step to normalization of the human race, American style.
There is a reason that antisemites never call me a kike. Because I give that word no power and neither does any other Jew. I have been called Jew as a slur and I mind it not at all because that is what I am.
But I come from a culture that understands the power of words and teaches us at a very young age their special magic.
How do you keep thinking of things I never would have thought of? "...vague on the notion of meta..." -- what a superb phrase to describe the imputed dimness.
I've been wondering where this idea that words can cause harm and injury comes from. It seems to be an assumption behind a lot of current liberal ideas about inclusiveness and sensitivity in speech. I've taught college on and off for 30+ years, so I've witnessed the introduction of deliberate changes in vocabulary (e.g. feminist, etc) that are meant to raise awareness. But the idea of injury-causing language seems to me to be quite recent (about 10 years). What do you think are its roots? I don't mean in terms of psychology or child-rearing, but rather in terms of our ideas about language.
I remember my mother's admonition never to use that particular word in about 1960, not because it was "dangerous," but because it was hurtful. However, I still like your phrase "injury-causing," implying that the very combination of phonemes in the word has mystical power to damage. Isn't it a matter of degree, rather than a truly new phenomenon? In the case of racial epithets, I speculate that the hurtful quality emanates from the original usages of the respective terms by people whose intention was to insult, denigrate, dismiss, belittle, etc. Eventually, even the most innocent possible use of the word (as in reference) becomes associated with these despicable intentions.
There were a dozen or so students in my freshman English class—all white except two of us. Our professor was Helen Buttel, a white woman (Beaver had no Black faculty when I arrived). She’s in her 90s now. I called her the other week.
Smith: I just have to see if you remember anything about this at all. In my first paper for freshman English class, the assignment was to write about a taboo word. And I wrote about the word nigger—we now say “the N-word”—and so did the only other Black woman in the class.
Helen Buttel: I certainly do remember making that assignment and I certainly must have been amazed.
Smith: Why were you amazed?
Buttel: Well, it seemed like a sort of brave thing for a couple of Black students to bring this up—a pejorative word about your race—in a class where papers might be read aloud. It seemed like a very dramatic thing to me.
Smith: I remember you coming in when you were handing back the papers and saying, “Well, two people in the class have written about the same word, and they’ve written about it differently.”
The other Black girl and I, who at that point in the year had never spoken a word to each other, did not even look at each other when Dr. Buttel announced that we’d written about the same word with completely different interpretations. My classmate had written that the N-word was a word of affection; I had written that it was offensive and hurtful.
This fetish of making words unsayable or even unreferenceable seems to me a woke perversion of religious reverence. Religious Jews write G-d or say "HaShem" as a sign of respect, an acknowledgement that the all-powerful Creator must be acknowledged with extreme deference. This sort of deference, however, has an empowering effect rather than a debasing one. For believers, it provides a useful orientation of the individual in her world. Wokeism appears to be attempting to mimic that sort of empowerment by sacralizing certain words, but it misses the mark by choosing to revere historical trauma (about which, one might add, Jews know plenty). Falling to pieces at any mention of the n-word is not only a crude cudgel with which to beat scared (white) progressives, but also a disempowering lesson for any individual in the here and now: you will suffer, so gird yourself with dignity.
I don't think this is a Black thing. I am certain many Whites signed the letter to Baquet. This a woke thing and these people are trained (indoctrinated if you will) to behave this way in college.
I also think that some of the people who signed the letter are stupid, some are mean and some are insecure because they are black, and some are insecure because they are terrified of their co-workers.
I wonder if there's a bit of Pontius Pilate going on here where if enough staff demand that you go, then you must go. I believe that it's happened more than once now and it appears to have become a strategy.
It's worth mentioning, though unlikely to resonate, that when one is going on about "old white men or women" that one is engaging to some extent in ageism.
You raise a very interesting issue: should individuals of different generations be judged by identical standards when they were trained in dramatically different ways? This is perhaps related to the question of whether historical context is an important factor in our judgment of historical figures -- Jefferson for owning slaves or Jackson for killing Native Americans. I think it's an important factor, but that's as far as I'll go.
Great thoughts here John as usual. It strikes me that the flip side of undervaluing the intellectual capacity and emotional fortitude of blacks to detect nuance and deflect hateful language, is what you talked about in a previous post on the tumult at private schools and the difference it makes when the head of school is black. You write, "To wit: being black allows you to respond to this agitprop with basic sense, including affording these performance artists the fundamental respect of calling them on their bullshit."
So it would appear, in this case, black leaders are afforded the basic authority of their title in calling bullshit on woke excesses, while at the same time, no such respect or deference is given to the abstract collectivist debased image of the average black unable to detect the difference between referring to a slur and using it with malice. There, they can only be injured victims in need of paternalistic protection.
Moreover, the idea that any word stands above all other words in its power forgets what language is. In this case, it reaches totemic sacredness as the very incarnation of evil by it's mere incantation, it's symbol made flesh, smiting innocent lambs. I believe the ancients made cave drawings showing themselves as victorious in battle not as representational art but rather a way of actually influencing the material outcome of battles to come.
In any case, this world needs far more Bad Ass tropes and much less Magical Negro cinematic stock characters of all races if we are going to reframe the debate with less ethos and pathos and more logos.
It is nevertheless much more likely that Donald McNeil was another old white man, who was removed from his post, and someone looked for a reason to do so and found it. To me it seems that the NYT management is not only caving to the movement, but outright occupied by it and the prestigious and lucrative posts at the office are now to distribute among the members of the cult.
It is not really hard to imagine that McNeil pissed off someone, who is able to organize some mob justice. That anything of this has to do with sensibilities about topics of language and references to slur words is ridiculous. Kendi can say things that everbody except him gets cancelled, but McNeil, an old school reporter and trusted source ofinformation, cannot refer to a slur word without getting fired? No.
That was intentional and is part of a staff replacement policy, which gives woke millennials job opportunities.
At the heart of all true wisdom is an accurate accounting of human nature. John understands what makes people tick, and that's why his observations are not only knowledgeable, but wise. There is far too little wisdom in this world, and far too much "knowledge", especially when that knowledge is produced by "other ways of knowing".
I am recalling an incident in the late 1990s where a DC civil servant lost his job for being overheard using the word "niggardly" on a phone call. This was early in the tenure of Anthony Williams, who was trying to overcome a reputation for his overly white (i.e. middle class) mannerisms and the firing was seen as a way to preempt criticism that he wasn't "black enough" to succeed Marion Barry. The firing was acknowledged as a mistake. The employee was eventually re-hired and wrote an apology for not being sufficiently mindful of the implications of using innocuous words that sounds like slurs. No chance in hell he would have been re-hired in today's climate.
I suppose we should refrain from using the word "rapist" to refer to the act of rape for fear of offending rape victims; and refrain from using the term "sexual abuser" to protect anyone who is a victim of a sexual abuser. I wouldn't use the N word myself in any circumstance at this point. It just feels wrong. But losing your job over making a reference to it a big mistake.
I suppose we should refrain from using the word "rapist" to refer to the act of rape for fear of offending rape victims; and refrain from using the term "sexual abuser" to protect anyone who is a victim of a sexual abuser. I wouldn't use the N word myself in any circumstance at this point. It just feels wrong. But losing your job over making a reference to it a big mistake.
You write "The idea that it is inherent to black American culture to fly to pieces at hearing the N-word used in reference is implausible at best, and slanderous at worst." Why do you use the phrase "the N-word" instead of "nigger"? You seem to be ignoring your own very wise advice.
I remember watching "the view" when Whoopi Goldberg started pushing Barbara Walters around for quoting a news article about a large stone where someone had written the "N word", and I felt it was inappropriate and hostile. Ms. Walters defended herself by saying she was "quoting" the word, but soon backed down or off.
I listened to your show with Glenn Loury today and men being men, is I feel a important step to normalization of the human race, American style.
There is a reason that antisemites never call me a kike. Because I give that word no power and neither does any other Jew. I have been called Jew as a slur and I mind it not at all because that is what I am.
But I come from a culture that understands the power of words and teaches us at a very young age their special magic.
How do you keep thinking of things I never would have thought of? "...vague on the notion of meta..." -- what a superb phrase to describe the imputed dimness.
I've been wondering where this idea that words can cause harm and injury comes from. It seems to be an assumption behind a lot of current liberal ideas about inclusiveness and sensitivity in speech. I've taught college on and off for 30+ years, so I've witnessed the introduction of deliberate changes in vocabulary (e.g. feminist, etc) that are meant to raise awareness. But the idea of injury-causing language seems to me to be quite recent (about 10 years). What do you think are its roots? I don't mean in terms of psychology or child-rearing, but rather in terms of our ideas about language.
I remember my mother's admonition never to use that particular word in about 1960, not because it was "dangerous," but because it was hurtful. However, I still like your phrase "injury-causing," implying that the very combination of phonemes in the word has mystical power to damage. Isn't it a matter of degree, rather than a truly new phenomenon? In the case of racial epithets, I speculate that the hurtful quality emanates from the original usages of the respective terms by people whose intention was to insult, denigrate, dismiss, belittle, etc. Eventually, even the most innocent possible use of the word (as in reference) becomes associated with these despicable intentions.
Anna Deavere Smith on the n-word:
There were a dozen or so students in my freshman English class—all white except two of us. Our professor was Helen Buttel, a white woman (Beaver had no Black faculty when I arrived). She’s in her 90s now. I called her the other week.
Smith: I just have to see if you remember anything about this at all. In my first paper for freshman English class, the assignment was to write about a taboo word. And I wrote about the word nigger—we now say “the N-word”—and so did the only other Black woman in the class.
Helen Buttel: I certainly do remember making that assignment and I certainly must have been amazed.
Smith: Why were you amazed?
Buttel: Well, it seemed like a sort of brave thing for a couple of Black students to bring this up—a pejorative word about your race—in a class where papers might be read aloud. It seemed like a very dramatic thing to me.
Smith: I remember you coming in when you were handing back the papers and saying, “Well, two people in the class have written about the same word, and they’ve written about it differently.”
The other Black girl and I, who at that point in the year had never spoken a word to each other, did not even look at each other when Dr. Buttel announced that we’d written about the same word with completely different interpretations. My classmate had written that the N-word was a word of affection; I had written that it was offensive and hurtful.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/03/the-last-of-the-nice-negro-girls/617786/
This fetish of making words unsayable or even unreferenceable seems to me a woke perversion of religious reverence. Religious Jews write G-d or say "HaShem" as a sign of respect, an acknowledgement that the all-powerful Creator must be acknowledged with extreme deference. This sort of deference, however, has an empowering effect rather than a debasing one. For believers, it provides a useful orientation of the individual in her world. Wokeism appears to be attempting to mimic that sort of empowerment by sacralizing certain words, but it misses the mark by choosing to revere historical trauma (about which, one might add, Jews know plenty). Falling to pieces at any mention of the n-word is not only a crude cudgel with which to beat scared (white) progressives, but also a disempowering lesson for any individual in the here and now: you will suffer, so gird yourself with dignity.
I don't think this is a Black thing. I am certain many Whites signed the letter to Baquet. This a woke thing and these people are trained (indoctrinated if you will) to behave this way in college.
I also think that some of the people who signed the letter are stupid, some are mean and some are insecure because they are black, and some are insecure because they are terrified of their co-workers.
I wonder if there's a bit of Pontius Pilate going on here where if enough staff demand that you go, then you must go. I believe that it's happened more than once now and it appears to have become a strategy.
It's worth mentioning, though unlikely to resonate, that when one is going on about "old white men or women" that one is engaging to some extent in ageism.
You raise a very interesting issue: should individuals of different generations be judged by identical standards when they were trained in dramatically different ways? This is perhaps related to the question of whether historical context is an important factor in our judgment of historical figures -- Jefferson for owning slaves or Jackson for killing Native Americans. I think it's an important factor, but that's as far as I'll go.
Acceptable behavior two hundred years ago is not acceptable behavior now.
Two hundred years from now I would imagine that our behavior will be found unacceptable.
Great thoughts here John as usual. It strikes me that the flip side of undervaluing the intellectual capacity and emotional fortitude of blacks to detect nuance and deflect hateful language, is what you talked about in a previous post on the tumult at private schools and the difference it makes when the head of school is black. You write, "To wit: being black allows you to respond to this agitprop with basic sense, including affording these performance artists the fundamental respect of calling them on their bullshit."
So it would appear, in this case, black leaders are afforded the basic authority of their title in calling bullshit on woke excesses, while at the same time, no such respect or deference is given to the abstract collectivist debased image of the average black unable to detect the difference between referring to a slur and using it with malice. There, they can only be injured victims in need of paternalistic protection.
Moreover, the idea that any word stands above all other words in its power forgets what language is. In this case, it reaches totemic sacredness as the very incarnation of evil by it's mere incantation, it's symbol made flesh, smiting innocent lambs. I believe the ancients made cave drawings showing themselves as victorious in battle not as representational art but rather a way of actually influencing the material outcome of battles to come.
In any case, this world needs far more Bad Ass tropes and much less Magical Negro cinematic stock characters of all races if we are going to reframe the debate with less ethos and pathos and more logos.
Every time the Times does something like this it is painful and I don't want to read it any longer. They have gone just overboard.
It is nevertheless much more likely that Donald McNeil was another old white man, who was removed from his post, and someone looked for a reason to do so and found it. To me it seems that the NYT management is not only caving to the movement, but outright occupied by it and the prestigious and lucrative posts at the office are now to distribute among the members of the cult.
It is not really hard to imagine that McNeil pissed off someone, who is able to organize some mob justice. That anything of this has to do with sensibilities about topics of language and references to slur words is ridiculous. Kendi can say things that everbody except him gets cancelled, but McNeil, an old school reporter and trusted source ofinformation, cannot refer to a slur word without getting fired? No.
That was intentional and is part of a staff replacement policy, which gives woke millennials job opportunities.
At the heart of all true wisdom is an accurate accounting of human nature. John understands what makes people tick, and that's why his observations are not only knowledgeable, but wise. There is far too little wisdom in this world, and far too much "knowledge", especially when that knowledge is produced by "other ways of knowing".
I am recalling an incident in the late 1990s where a DC civil servant lost his job for being overheard using the word "niggardly" on a phone call. This was early in the tenure of Anthony Williams, who was trying to overcome a reputation for his overly white (i.e. middle class) mannerisms and the firing was seen as a way to preempt criticism that he wasn't "black enough" to succeed Marion Barry. The firing was acknowledged as a mistake. The employee was eventually re-hired and wrote an apology for not being sufficiently mindful of the implications of using innocuous words that sounds like slurs. No chance in hell he would have been re-hired in today's climate.