The war on definitions

knowless · 2014-09-28T21:38:47+00:00

That's it, I'm starting a male only sorority.

cypherpunks · 2014-09-28T21:06:00+00:00

war (wôr): n. A state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties.

I have been annoyed for about two years by the continuous insistence of Richard Stallmann to correct people speaking to him on the use of words, to the point where sympathetic people were put off by his confrontational behavior. It seemed to be a tactical mistake, insisting on the correct use of words over attracting potential supporters.

I have changed my mind. If words are used in this twisted way, the same sentence will be understood differently by different groups of people. This leads to a breakdown of dialog and is a key mechanism to create the "us vs them" mentality so typical in politics. The abuse of language in politics has been observed many times, most prominently by George Orwell with his description of newspeak. It is not new and will never stop.

If you want to oppose this use of language, you should first learn to notice the abuse of words, then investigate their original meaning, decide which definition of the words seems reasonable to you, and stick to it. The "reasonable" step is off course subject to personal bias, but in general, it should be in line with etymology and accurately reflect the gut reaction and expectations people today will have when hearing the word. Rape is actually a difficult case, because the transition from molestation into rape is hard to pinpoint. Demanding that the definition is not sexist is realtively straightforward, though.

As a general tip to men's rights advocates, you should focus on abuses of the word "sexism". It's easy to define, easy to understand and broadly includes almost all situations where men's rights have been violated in particular. Arguing for a feminist definition of sexism is itself sexist, so the hypocrisy of anyone attempting to exclude cases where males are victims of sexism is laid bare immediately. The discussion is supposed to go like this: "I'm opposed to feminist policy x. You're against feminism? I'm opposed to sexism. But policy x is feminist and therefore anti-sexist. Ok, let's try to define sexism and see if policy x is sexist." By moving the topic from "feminism is good or bad" to "we all agree sexism is bad, is policy x sexist?", you move the debate back from us vs them, where numbers will count, to good vs bad, where arguments actually matter.

Now, can we please stop abusing the word "war"? "War" is the most abused word in the English language, yet it has such a strong initial meaning, that, unlike for example "liberal" or "conservative", all attempts to terminally dislodge it have been failures. "Kinetinc military action in Libya" is not a thing, and while "Humanitarian Intervention" shows some traction, ultimately there is still "War in Iraq". George Bush couldn't twist it and MuzakNinja won't either.

2014-09-28T20:16:22+00:00

This has been happening since the 70s, didn't you ever wonder why waitresses a day waiters became servers? Or what the award now goes to the best female actor? Or, ironically, why people stopped saying "dog", and why "bitch" became such a serious insult?

xNOM · 2014-09-29T01:39:52+00:00

there was nothing in the definition about fraternities being exclusive to men

What? From Wikipedia:

A fraternity (Latin frater : "brother") is a brotherhood

Just tell them that since it's ok for "fraternity" to not have a gender, that from now on the words "she" and "her" are no longer needed because "he" and "him" will henceforth be genderless.

ThePigmanAgain · 2014-09-29T01:48:43+00:00

Tell them that Webster's is a far better source than theirs, then show them this.

2014-09-29T12:36:40+00:00

language is changing all the time. always go back to the root

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fraternal

derived from frater - brother

you can say fraternity can mean any social organization - but the root word is from brother, and traditionally a fraternity is made up of men. no one can deny this, regardless of a secondary definition.

Crushgaunt · 2014-09-28T21:23:27+00:00

[permanently deleted]

MRSPArchiver · 2014-09-28T18:18:19+00:00

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ugly_duck · 2014-09-28T18:46:49+00:00

Isn't trying to include female-on-male aggression into the definition of rape being politically correct?

Title	The war on definitions
Author	MuzakNinja
Upvotes	23
Comments	39
Date	September 28, 2014 6:17 PM UTC (11 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/2hpref/the_war_on_definitions/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/the-war-on-definitions.995239 https://theredarchive.com/post/995239

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