Unalive, seggs, and many other words are being used in placement for the true words these stand for. Censorship is such a useless concept in my opinion and doesn’t allow for honest dialog about sensitive topics. I’m very anti hate speech but I also want to understand exactly what we discuss and allow fact to overrule Censorship, the need to comfort, and not offend. What do you think? I know that the concept of “unalive” was a way to cheat the system when it came to Censorship of death but do we even need this edit of these words or should we just be allowed to use them?
People have a tendency to multiply words for various reasons, good, bad or indifferent. Personally I prefer to use less common synonyms even if they might be unfamiliar to some, in situations where it’s critically important to convey a very nuanced meaning and I think my audience is up for it. But I’m the kind of person who does an in-place digital dictionary lookup if I am not familiar with or certain of a word. Not everyone is. Some people positively loathe words and are intimidated by reading. That is why you assume in self-defense that for any given email, most people only read the first and last sentence and assume what is in between the two. So you try to keep emails to 2 sentences 
That’s also within the typical email use-case – someone trying to plow through too many emails and get them out of their inbox or at least marked as “read”.
Now a word like “unalive” strikes me as a waste of effort. It doesn’t convey anything that “dead” doesn’t except, arguably, the fear and loathing. And once a person who hasn’t dealt with the fact of their own mortality, figures out that unalive = dead, they will soon enough attach the fear and loathing to the new word, anyway.
The need to “comfort rather than offend” is an interesting question. I come from midwestern fundamentalist stock, a double whammy in this regard. The operative aphorism is, “if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say it”. Or put another way, if I find something you say upsetting or challenging or threatening, it means you are bad, and can’t possibly mean anything else, such as, maybe I need to re-evaluate MY assumptions or priorities, or become more empathetic or less thin-skinned or make fewer galloping assumptions about Others, or whatever.
There are certain classes of people it’s functionally impossible NOT to offend, so I don’t put much effort into avoiding offending them. Fundamentalist Christians tend to be very much that way. Their tender sensibilities must be coddled at all times to the point of walking on eggshells – and fuck that, I ain’t doing it anymore. Their issues are their problem, not mine. That doesn’t mean I’ll be gratuitously crass or mean to them, but it does mean that I don’t lay awake nights rehearsing how to communicate with them. I say it like it is, and the chips fall where they may, for the most part.
On the other hand I am a non-threatening, innocuous cishet white guy with no tats or other scary signifiers, who could pass as one of them credibly, in social matters (I used to be one of them after all) … so … I’d have to work a bit at offending them. I admit to not bringing up my metaphysical (un)beliefs unless directly asked, and to not challenging every last thing that comes out of their mouths (it’s too exhausting). Particularly when I’m a guest in their home – it’s their home, so to a large extent, their rules. If they need to compulsively thank Jebus for the food before anyone touches it, I let them do that. Whatevs.
Like everything it’s a balance – in this case, between being real / genuine, clear, and honest, and being kind. Treating others like adults even when they demand to be treated like privileged children, can lead to said “children” throwing a tantrum – that would be their problem. Conversely, turning everything into a zero sum contest where I have to win every argument, would be MY problem.
I think it depends on some context.
I think some censorship around children is useful.
The words you mentioned i believe is just a part of sloppy policing of tiktok videos. They want to avoid videos that incite violence so use algorithms that punish or ban videos with certain words.
Theres racial words that are treated with way too much importance and offense in my opinion.
Specifically in the sense when youre not using these words to offend someone and youre literally just describing the word, its frowned upon to say the word youre describing. The obvuous one being the N word but theres others.
Although its a complicated topic, attitudes towards words move like an unstoppable tide.
Theres such a unanimous attitude towards some words, even if a person isnt individually offended by a word, they will still be on guard about someone whos willing to use some of these forbidden words.
Similar to the american prison code of a fight has to happen if youre called a bitch, even if someone isnt personally that offended by the word, in that culture it supposedly means a lot more in those circumstances.
All the social media demonization aside…
If I know that particular words offend a person / people with whom I’m conversing or when in a public setting, I usually censor myself. It doesn’t cost me a dime.
Words can be used as weapons and can injure. Perhaps a review of the reason one is using a particular word is in order. If the purpose to cause pain, then have at it I guess. If not, then perhaps self-censorship is just using manors.
2 Likes
It’s also just a matter of time before the new and synthetic and sterile words will also be considered to have a capability to offend, and they too will be censored. So then people will invent new words as replacements. And we’ve come full circle. Again.
4 Likes
I don’t disagree with a thing you said, but it’s a complex environment. There are words no one can use, words only certain people can use without offense, words that offend only in the wrong (potentially misunderstood) context, some people care about pronouns, some don’t. My neighbor will be very brusque even with total new acquaintances if you slip up and call him Dave instead of David. Etc.
I try my best to avoid words or symbols or actions that might upset someone because as you say, zero cost (not really, because you have to pay attention and track all the evolving public zeitgeist about a bunch of stuff, but, still, a fair enough point). But I also think there’s some responsibility on others to have grace as much as they want people to be tolerant toward them. It costs them “zero”, also, to assume any mistake is an honest one, absent real evidence to the contrary.
Fortunately that usually isn’t a problem in real life. It’s only on social media where I’ve ever seen it be an actual significant problem, due to what one wag some years back termed TIFS – Total Internet Fuckwad Syndrome. Take an ordinary person, give them a bullhorn and anonymity, and they get to take up offense at the slightest thing AND be a total asshole about it.
Sometimes people forget that they don’t have to have 110% of their social capital online.
1 Like
I’m not quite sure why you’re telling me this.
again, again, and again
As long as the sugar is lemon.
Agreed, self censorship I have no problem with, and of course language evolves all the time, and common usage determines meaning, no point getting irked about it, except when someone says transportation, and they mean transport, just kidding, but seriously are we shipping these to a penal colony? 
1 Like
Remember how not believing in a god is different than believing a god doesn’t exist? The same could be said about unalive. It doesn’t mean dead. It means not alive - like a rock.
Personally, I like having words that sort of mean the same thing because you can add a bit of nuance to your communication. It also makes things more interesting - a bit of variety. It’s just we have to be careful to say what we mean. It is easy to mislead by choosing certain words over others.
2 Likes
Again I would agree with this, and this word is defined as “lacking in vitality; not living or lively”, so nuanced context is always possible, the word is not that common, though it does seem synonymous with the phrase “look alive”, which is quite common.
I don’t think language should be sugarcoated at all. People who can’t handle hearing certain words or phrases need to accept the reality that the world isn’t always the comfy little bed that they want it to be.
Censoring words and speech is the equivalent of hiding under the bed or burying your head under the pillows. Just because you try your hardest to ignore and pretend that something isn’t, doesn’t mean it’s not there. This is why we have a generation of people who are triggered by everything and have conniption fits about everything. Get over it.
So let’s add extra distress by directing certain words at people who have been subjected to lifelong verbal abuse. Fuck ‘em, they should just, “get over it,” eh?
1 Like
Sure but what constitutes “sugarcoating” and “can’t handle” is rather subjective. Also as a person who has had various autistic and OCD persons in my family circle, “getting over” whatever is being avoided can be the work of many years, much experimentation with therapy and medication and exercise and boundaries and a bunch of other stuff. In the meantime, avoidance is a legit coping mechanism and even a stopgap superpower, arguably.
But with that caveat, people DO exist who have been coddled their entire lives and can’t see past what effects them personally, and are unable to have empathy for the plight of others. Like the lady in (IIRC) Missouri the other day who said “we all voted for Trump here but we didn’t vote for him to deport [our close friend who we all like, only people we don’t know and assume are criminals]”. Those people could benefit from a few more ice cold buckets of water to awaken them to a broader view of the world. They are not for the most part unable, they are victims of learned helplessness and general bigotry. THOSE folks I agree at least in principle, don’t spare them. Although if you dunk on them they mostly dig in their heels and become even more reactionary and recalcitrant because they will fight to the death to protect their carefully cultivated personal self image as virtuous and kind.
So I don’t know what the answer is. Probably not a one size fits all crusade of plain talk – more case by case, I’d guess.
1 Like
There is, of course, a vast canyon between respecting the sensibilities of people who have been regally shat upon for generations, and pandering to the synthetic indignation of the people who have been doing the shitting.
The former, yes, a certain amount of careful treading is warranted. The latter can kiss my arse.
1 Like
It’s the difference between someone choosing to take offence when no objective harm has occurred, and using language that attacks who a person is, it’s not always easy to pinpoint the line, but if, for example a deity is offended, I will only accept that news directly from that deity.
No, I don’t say “Fuck’em.” What I say is that people who face adverse circumstances can use those situations for personal empowerment. It gives them a chance to deal with and heal past traumas so they can move forward and not internalize everything. I worked alongside a psychiatric provider and a therapist for several years and I can tell you that the people who dealt with trauma and adverse circumstances the best were the ones who allowed themselves to be uncomfortable and address what they needed to head on. They certainly didn’t make progress by running away and avoiding every fucking facet of life that made them uncomfortable.
Life carries far greater dangers than words. If a person can’t handle being exposed to certain words or kinds of speech then I don’t know how the hell they will deal with the real issues out there.
The way I look at it is that the mind deals at a base level in symbols. Words are nothing if not symbols. So it is not that people get hung up on words so much as that words trigger associations to what you term “the real issues” – they become rough (and sometimes actual) equivalents to their minds. Taking the example of an ex soldier with PTSD, a particular sight, sound, or word(s) can put them into hyper-vigilance and make them relive various traumas, sometimes in ways that are harmful to themselves and/or others.
So in that case I’d think you’d need to regard a hypothetical trigger word or phrase as a proxy for the real issue and it might be VERY prudent for the person to avoid that trigger UNTIL they’ve dealt with the real issue. Which means that someone insisting on saying what they please regardless of the consequences for that person, would just be an asshole, at least outside a controlled clinical setting. And I very much doubt that’s where you really want to go with this.
As I and others have said, there’s a balance in these things. I think we’ve all agreed that choosing to take offense where there’s no objective harm or harmful intent is not the same as reacting to being attacked for attributes they can’t change (e.g., skin color, or where they were born). But even there, that some people can’t tell the difference can at times be due to psychological trauma that isn’t going to disappear at the snap of a finger, either. An example of that would be my trans granddaughter. She doesn’t allow her family to display pics of her pre-transition. That’s objectively unreasonable, but they go along with it for now because they understand what it symbolizes to her and she’s likely to grow out of it when she’s able and ready. That trigger could just as well have been word-symbols rather than photo-symbols. They play along out of compassion. I think that’s appropriate, at least to a point.
Is your expectation that I find this “study” of yours is compelling?
Or are you suggesting that an individual who “allowed themselves to be uncomfortable” in the safety of their therapist’s office is the same as a person getting bullied at work, on the street, or on the playground?
I agree that some folks do find empowerment after experiencing adversity. And some do not. My question is, why provide the platform for adversity in the first place?