![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
#299 - And another pissy post for tonight...
...because I can't take it out on the person I'd like to take it out on, because it would result in some collateral damage that I don't really want to deal with at the moment. And I'm frustrated, once again, that my own reclusiveness has tied my hands behind my back and strung me up in the air.
Anyway.
"Words only have as much power as you give them."
Can I please see this claim die in a Mystic Cage, too?
Linguistically, yes, this is true. Words are artificial human constructs with arbitrarily assigned meanings (...is that redundant?). The reason that certain words are "bad" or "forbidden" are because humans imposed some sort of negative cultural connotation on those words.
Socially, however, this claim doesn't hold up in the same way, for a number of reasons. If individuals decide, on their own, to make this claim a personal mantra that they live by, that's fine. It can be a liberating way of dealing with life.
But. An offender should never say this to someone they've offended. Because if they do, then it merely becomes an excuse for the offender's bad behavior. It's one of the most passive-aggressive ways of saying "you're just too sensitive (so get a thicker skin and put up with it, you weakling)", and thus is another way of just blaming the victim for their own misfortunes.
Relatedly, being asked not to use a certain word that is commonly accepted as being offensive in someone's presence is not "censorship", you fucking failbag of failscum. It's called "basic human decency". Learn it. No, I don't care that you're [insert member of oppressed group here] too and the word doesn't offend you. Your experience =/= everyone else's. How fucking hard is that to understand?
***
Aaaand I actually had a huge semi-academic screed written up here about the history and nature of insults and swears and how they tie into each other, but it's getting late and the post isn't saying what I want it to say, so it's staying offline until I can edit it into something understandable and readable. Until then, I have to sleep because I have another Borders performance tomorrow - my last one for the next two months. Lauren and Melissa are tagging along and sleeping over at my house, and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lysis_to_kill will be attending the performance, so hopefully I won't be rageyragerage by then.
-Reileen
if you knew it was wrong, why did you do it?
Anyway.
"Words only have as much power as you give them."
Can I please see this claim die in a Mystic Cage, too?
Linguistically, yes, this is true. Words are artificial human constructs with arbitrarily assigned meanings (...is that redundant?). The reason that certain words are "bad" or "forbidden" are because humans imposed some sort of negative cultural connotation on those words.
Socially, however, this claim doesn't hold up in the same way, for a number of reasons. If individuals decide, on their own, to make this claim a personal mantra that they live by, that's fine. It can be a liberating way of dealing with life.
But. An offender should never say this to someone they've offended. Because if they do, then it merely becomes an excuse for the offender's bad behavior. It's one of the most passive-aggressive ways of saying "you're just too sensitive (so get a thicker skin and put up with it, you weakling)", and thus is another way of just blaming the victim for their own misfortunes.
Relatedly, being asked not to use a certain word that is commonly accepted as being offensive in someone's presence is not "censorship", you fucking failbag of failscum. It's called "basic human decency". Learn it. No, I don't care that you're [insert member of oppressed group here] too and the word doesn't offend you. Your experience =/= everyone else's. How fucking hard is that to understand?
***
Aaaand I actually had a huge semi-academic screed written up here about the history and nature of insults and swears and how they tie into each other, but it's getting late and the post isn't saying what I want it to say, so it's staying offline until I can edit it into something understandable and readable. Until then, I have to sleep because I have another Borders performance tomorrow - my last one for the next two months. Lauren and Melissa are tagging along and sleeping over at my house, and
lysis_to_kill will be attending the performance, so hopefully I won't be rageyragerage by then.-Reileen
if you knew it was wrong, why did you do it?
Thoughts
*adds to personal list of epic insults, up there with "you sorry sack of mediocrity" *
Vocabulary can be a delicate issue. Technically it's not censorship unless someone is forcibly prevented or officially sanctioned for saying/writing something forbidden -- but informal demands can still be frustrating and oppressive, just as vulgarity can be for someone who doesn't use it. You can either adapt to each other's tastes, or stay apart.
I have a couple of close friends who really, really do not like crude language. Since I want them to be comfortable on my blog, I voluntarily tone that down a bit. (I don't swear frequently, but if I drop an egg on the floor, I'm gonna say "FUCK IT!") If I'm in the mood to express myself in words of four letters, or there's a particularly apt article full of same, I use the "bleu" tag. For me this is a reasonable balance between personal expression and care for friends.
Re: Thoughts
*bows* I have to say, while I am perfectly content with my expertise in four-letter-fu, sometimes it's also just as satisfying to make up insults that don't use such words. People can get really creative! (I see a lot of them on Fandom Wank. One that comes to mind is "spleenweasel".)
Technically it's not censorship unless someone is forcibly prevented or officially sanctioned for saying/writing something forbidden -- but informal demands can still be frustrating and oppressive, just as vulgarity can be for someone who doesn't use it.
In the situation I'm referring to, it's two LJ friends who have known each other for four years. One of the friends, K., has had a ban on her journal of the words "fag" and "faggot" (I'm not sure for how long exactly, but it's been a while), because as a queer person who has experienced low-level homophobia in real life (though not directed at her), she really has bad reactions to the word. With regards to the word, though, I don't think she screens the comment or bans the person or anything like that - she just tells the person that she's not comfortable with that word and could they please not use it on her own LJ, at least? The other person, S., is also queer, but has no problems with using the words and frequently throws them around just as a general way of addressing people, or - and I think this comes from the 4chan boards - as another way of referring to fans or fannish activity. Based on how these things usually go, I'm assuming it was initially used in a derogatory context and is now being co-opted by people as a neutral or a mildly self-derogatory way of referring to themselves. (There are a lot of simultaneously interesting and infuriating issues going on here, but I'll attempt to address some of that once I get my "semi-academic screed" fit for public consumption.)
Anyway, what was I saying? Right. S., in a comment on K.'s LJ, uses the word "faggot" in a mostly neutral manner - I can't remember the exact wording at the moment and I don't want to look it up because it's going to piss me off again. K. politely reminds S. that that particular word is off-limits on her LJ. S. makes a passive-aggressive public LJ entry about how words only have as much power as you give them, etc., etc. K. tries to explain in the comments that it's only one word she's asking this friend not to use, and the ban only applies to her own LJ and not to S.'s LJ or any other place that S. is at, and that even though the word has no effect on the S. it is really hurtful for K. So S. basically says, well, fine, I get what you're saying, but words still only have as much power as you give them.
At which point I was starting to fume, and I was going to post a reply to S. pointing out how absolutely callous she was being, but the problem is that I don't post on S.'s LJ that often, and I do post on K.'s LJ, so if I commented then it might look like K. was siccing me on S. and it would make K. look bad.
Anyway, that was kind of TL;DR about the situation, but there you go.
I have a couple of close friends who really, really do not like crude language. Since I want them to be comfortable on my blog, I voluntarily tone that down a bit.
My RL friends on LJ and my online LJ friends are okay with me swearing, so my LJ profile has a warning on the abundance of colorful words in this blog. But if I were over on someone else's space and they asked me to tone down my language (assuming that I hadn't just called them out on sexism/racism/insert -ism here and they were just using the Tone Argument on me), I would.
Re: Thoughts
Such is considered an art form in our household. "Oh for the love of little blue fishies!" is a favorite, and "She's not the sharpest marble in the stack," along with the more colorful "He has his head up a camel's ass."
As for the example that inspired your post ... eee, talk about riding the Drama Llama! People should be more respectful of each other. Everybody has touchy spots that should be avoided if you know them.
no subject
no subject
I shall see you tonight, at 7pm. Woot. I'm not sure how long I can stay, since my brother is my ride ... but I'll be there for awhile! Can't wait to see you do your thang!!!
And, some rageness might be good in a performance, no? Angsty emoness, if done right, is awesome. Just don't do it a la Fall Out Boy or Avirl or whatever else band is popular with the kids now a days ... XD