> Some of these terms were even popularized by the same movement with similar motivations and reasoning in the past few years. How many of the "Consider using" suggestions will be considered "harmful language to be eradicated" in another few years? Feels like we're getting to a place where even a person who is honestly and carefully choosing their words to be non-offensive will be chastised because they missed the memo this year.
Yeah, many of these feel extremely "fashionable" to me, in the sense that there was already a term intended to be thoughtful and compassionate, and the latest "preferred alternative" is driven by the latest academic framework to achieve popularity rather than any change in values or the preferences of the people being addressed.
In addition to "survivor", as you highlighted, I know and know of people who would certainly prefer "sex worker" to "prostitute" but would roll their eyes at "person who engages in sex work" - and point out that it actually carries more of an assumption of stigma, since nobody would say "person who engages in office work".
In a much less extreme way, this sometimes reminds me of the cultural revolution where what was fully accepted as being non-bourgeois and non-capitalistic would then be banned the next year for being ignorant of class struggle. The reasoning seems to me to be the same, it's signalling of a subgroup's belief running amok where people end up competing as to who can be the more culturally sensitive person by denigrating terms that were previously seen as culturally sensitive.
At first, the initiative can easily be seen as good, after all who wouldn't want to give more consideration to disenfranchised people by making such a small effort to alter one's language but pushing this to extreme is more than a little problematic.
It's fascinating to see but it's very sad that an institution of higher learning is pushing this and ignoring logic, common sense and restraint.
What amazes me about this whole thing is how anyone can fail to see to the parallels with the cultural revolution, right on down to the ritualistic self-criticism you're required to perform when you sin against the orthodoxy.
Will it really take 10 years before everyone wakes up in a collective stupor and says, "well, that really went off the rails. How about we move on?"
In another world, I feel that being thoughtful about how we use language in this way could be a good thing. I might say something, and my counterpart could point out the history of the word and why it might be hurtful to someone, and I would walk away more aware and be more considerate in the future.
Sadly, the reality seems to be that the bleeding edge of sensitive language is more often wielded combatively to try to discredit someone.
Yeah, many of these feel extremely "fashionable" to me, in the sense that there was already a term intended to be thoughtful and compassionate, and the latest "preferred alternative" is driven by the latest academic framework to achieve popularity rather than any change in values or the preferences of the people being addressed.
In addition to "survivor", as you highlighted, I know and know of people who would certainly prefer "sex worker" to "prostitute" but would roll their eyes at "person who engages in sex work" - and point out that it actually carries more of an assumption of stigma, since nobody would say "person who engages in office work".