Language (1 Viewer)

[Farb]

In another thread, it was brought to my attention that we am not allowed to use certain centuries old definitions because they have been 'updated'. That discussion was about the definition of 'racism'. I asked who controls the 'words' and who exactly gets to update the meaning of those commonly used words.

I saw this yesterday and thought this would be a discussion to attempt to have.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...e-terms-like-birthing-parents-human-milk.html

https://news.yahoo.com/democrats-replace-women-birthing-people-033500864.html

IMO this is a move to be 'inclusive' to trans people at the sake of women (we are discussing birthing humans after all).

The recent call to change the word for a person who comes into a country illegally from Alien to undocumented. Why? What possible purpose does it serve?

Even 'white supremacy' doesn't mean 'white supremacy'.

I am sure we are all somewhat familiar with Orwell and 1984. So i thought this would be a good place to post and discuss the language that we are seeing right in front of us. If we can't even share a language with common definitions, how do we expect to share a government?

 

[Farb]

https://www.dailywire.com/news/univ...cal-prof-apologizes-for-saying-pregnant-women

Why would a professor feel the need to apologize for the term 'pregnant women' instead of 'pregnant people'?

 

[RobF]

https://www.dailywire.com/news/univ...cal-prof-apologizes-for-saying-pregnant-women

Why would a professor feel the need to apologize for the term 'pregnant women' instead of 'pregnant people'?

What you've got there is a 'news' article, based on a substack 'report', which is based on the alleged account of an anonymous student supposedly attending one of the five medical schools in the UC system.

Both the article and report are badly written, and omit crucial, basic, things like investigating whether it's true and accurate, presenting context, and seeking comment from the institution. That kind of thing. You know. Journalism.

They also fail at the basic task of not getting basic things wrong. Like the way your article states that in hospitals in the UK, they'll now use the word “chestfeeding” instead of “breastfeeding” and “birthing parent” instead of “pregnant woman.” This is false. Here's the actual policy that's referring to: https://www.bsuh.nhs.uk/maternity/w...-inclusive-language-in-perinatal-services.pdf and as it states, "The vast majority of midwifery service users are women and we already have language in place they are comfortable with. This is not changing and we will continue to call them pregnant women and talk about breast feeding."

What you're doing is the same thing you keep doing; falling for shock 'journalism' that, at best, takes a small nugget of reality and blows it wildly out of context, and assuming completely unverifiable accounts are presenting truth when all too frequently, they are not.

That said. The question you ask isn't actually unreasonable - and the substack article linked to from the dailywire article, amidst all the wild rhetoric and completely unverifiable assertions, ironically gives a (real!) example of why it matters, the case of a transgender man who presented with adominal pain, but was pregnant. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1811491

As the full article states (you may not have access):

In Sam’s evaluation, the triage nurse did not fully absorb the fact that he did not fit clearly into a binary classification system with mutually exclusive male and female categories. Though she had respectful intentions and nominally acknowledged the possibility of pregnancy by ordering a serum hCG test, she did not incorporate that possibility into the differential diagnosis in a way that would affect ensuing classifications and triage decision making. Despite communicating that he was transgender, Sam was not evaluated using pregnancy algorithms. Having no clear classificatory framework for making sense of a patient like Sam, the nurse deployed implicit assumptions about who can be pregnant, attributed his high blood pressure to untreated chronic hypertension, and classified his case as nonurgent.​

​

Of course, they appear to have not actually read, or understood, the case study, and consequently draw completely the wrong conclusion from it. Rather than recognising that the incident occurred because of the implicit assumptions people can make based on how someone presents, they irrationally assert that it occurred due to 'the refusal to acknowledge sex', which, given that the patient not only informed the medical staff he was transgender, but also informed them that he'd "taken a home pregnancy test that morning and got a positive result", is very clearly wrong.

And so the answer to your question, such as it is, is that people might use inclusive language to avoid excluding people who need to be included.

 

[Paul]

Depends on if you are referring to a true socialist or a democratic socialist.
Is she a Fidel Castrol/Cuba socialist, absolutely not. Is she more like Canada/france/Norway, etc socialist, i think that is what she wants to be.
Do you acknowledge there is a difference in Socialism and a Social Democracy?

I do not ascribe to the many less virulent different definitions of socialism. These definitions are defined to attract converts.

SOCIALISM: a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. Since the community needs leadership the system is ran by an authoritarian government. It is impossible to have socialism without an authoritarian system.

What you guys call democratic socialism is the Nordic model.

The three Scandinavian countries are constitutional monarchies while Finland and Iceland have been republics since the 20th century. Currently, the Nordic countries are described as being highly democratic and all have a unicameral form of governance and use proportional representation in their electoral systems. Although there are significant differences among the Nordic countries,[8] they all have some common traits. These include support for a universalist welfare state aimed specifically at enhancing individual autonomy and promoting social mobility; a corporatist system involving a tripartite arrangement where representatives of labour and employers negotiate wages and labour market policy mediated by the government;[9] and a commitment to private ownership within a market-based mixed economy. WIKI

The message to take home about the Nordic countries is that they are based on capitalism to provide the wealth needed for a welfare state.

The message of socialism is very compelling and attractive, no one denies that. Furthermore, capitalism tends to be unfair and at times ruthless. The only problem is that socialism requires an authoritarian system. To soften the blow those on the left use the term democratic socialist, but in reality that term is an oxymoron.

 

[MT15]

https://www.dailywire.com/news/univ...cal-prof-apologizes-for-saying-pregnant-women

Why would a professor feel the need to apologize for the term 'pregnant women' instead of 'pregnant people'?

Why would you feel the need to read this stuff and worse yet, believe it? Is this your daily fix of outrage over imaginary happenings? You need a better hobby.

 

[Bigdaddysaints]

so now communism and socialism are different, before they were the same. do you even remember what you post.sometimes?

 

[SaulGoodmanEsq]

Why would you feel the need to read this stuff and worse yet, believe it? Is this your daily fix of outrage over imaginary happenings? You need a better hobby.

It's nothing new. People like Ben Shapiro make a living selling 'outrage porn.' It's funny because if I started linking stuff from Young Turks or a similar left wing website, Farb would scoff at it. Yet we are to take hackery from the Daily Wire as informative content. It's not. It's just low hanging fruit. But apparently some people can't gorge enough on it. It's a lot harder to debate substantive issues.

 

[Paul]

so now communism and socialism are different, before they were the same. do you even remember what you post.sometimes?

Don't play naive.
I said that fascism and communism had some similarities.
Thanks

 

[Farb]

What you've got there is a 'news' article, based on a substack 'report', which is based on the alleged account of an anonymous student supposedly attending one of the five medical schools in the UC system.

Both the article and report are badly written, and omit crucial, basic, things like investigating whether it's true and accurate, presenting context, and seeking comment from the institution. That kind of thing. You know. Journalism.

They also fail at the basic task of not getting basic things wrong. Like the way your article states that in hospitals in the UK, they'll now use the word “chestfeeding” instead of “breastfeeding” and “birthing parent” instead of “pregnant woman.” This is false. Here's the actual policy that's referring to: https://www.bsuh.nhs.uk/maternity/w...-inclusive-language-in-perinatal-services.pdf and as it states, "The vast majority of midwifery service users are women and we already have language in place they are comfortable with. This is not changing and we will continue to call them pregnant women and talk about breast feeding."

What you're doing is the same thing you keep doing; falling for shock 'journalism' that, at best, takes a small nugget of reality and blows it wildly out of context, and assuming completely unverifiable accounts are presenting truth when all too frequently, they are not.

That said. The question you ask isn't actually unreasonable - and the substack article linked to from the dailywire article, amidst all the wild rhetoric and completely unverifiable assertions, ironically gives a (real!) example of why it matters, the case of a transgender man who presented with adominal pain, but was pregnant. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1811491

As the full article states (you may not have access):

In Sam’s evaluation, the triage nurse did not fully absorb the fact that he did not fit clearly into a binary classification system with mutually exclusive male and female categories. Though she had respectful intentions and nominally acknowledged the possibility of pregnancy by ordering a serum hCG test, she did not incorporate that possibility into the differential diagnosis in a way that would affect ensuing classifications and triage decision making. Despite communicating that he was transgender, Sam was not evaluated using pregnancy algorithms. Having no clear classificatory framework for making sense of a patient like Sam, the nurse deployed implicit assumptions about who can be pregnant, attributed his high blood pressure to untreated chronic hypertension, and classified his case as nonurgent.​

​

Of course, they appear to have not actually read, or understood, the case study, and consequently draw completely the wrong conclusion from it. Rather than recognising that the incident occurred because of the implicit assumptions people can make based on how someone presents, they irrationally assert that it occurred due to 'the refusal to acknowledge sex', which, given that the patient not only informed the medical staff he was transgender, but also informed them that he'd "taken a home pregnancy test that morning and got a positive result", is very clearly wrong.

And so the answer to your question, such as it is, is that people might use inclusive language to avoid excluding people who need to be included.

I get it now. Change normal language for 99.9% of the people on earth for a few that are women and believe they are men can risk not feeling uncomfortable? Men cannot have babies. Biology kind of figured that out for us. So, I stand by that a groveling apology for using the term 'pregnant women' when describing a woman that has another human growing in her belly?

Not sure I care how or where the article came from, it fit in this thread nicely. I enjoy the dialogue.

 

[Farb]

Why would you feel the need to read this stuff and worse yet, believe it? Is this your daily fix of outrage over imaginary happenings? You need a better hobby.

Because if I didn't, you and I would not have these little struggle sessions. I can't quit you.

 

[RobF]

I get it now. Change normal language for 99.9% of the people on earth for a few that are women and believe they are men can risk not feeling uncomfortable? Men cannot have babies. Biology kind of figured that out for us. So, I stand by that a groveling apology for using the term 'pregnant women' when describing a woman that has another human growing in her belly?

Saying "I get it now" and then immediately showing you don't is a bold approach.

1) It's typically expanding the language to include others in appropriate contexts, not changing it, as already described above.
2) People who present as men and are treated as men can have babies, as the linked case study described.
3) Treating those people as people who can't have babies can result in tragedy, as the linked case study describes.
4) Hence using broader terms in the appropriate context - medical, speaking in general terms - to help prevent that happening.
5) Pregnant women are still described as pregnant women.

 

[MT15]

Because if I didn't, you and I would not have these little struggle sessions. I can't quit you.

Okay, that was funny. Maybe some of the old Farb is still in there.

 

[Paul]

Saying "I get it now" and then immediately showing you don't is a bold approach.

1) It's typically expanding the language to include others in appropriate contexts, not changing it, as already described above.
2) People who present as men and are treated as men can have babies, as the linked case study described.
3) Treating those people as people who can't have babies can result in tragedy, as the linked case study describes.
4) Hence using broader terms in the appropriate context - medical, speaking in general terms - to help prevent that happening.
5) Pregnant women are still described as pregnant women.

A pregnant man is an oxymoron.

 

[brandon]

A pregnant man is an oxymoron.

Only if you refuse to call a transgender man a man. And I believe it was @Farb who so eloquently said:

I will call you Sir Tranny of Trannyvale if you asked, I don't care.

 

[dtc]

I don’t believe I said taking over. I said the ideas they espouse are currently being debated, and they are are proud of the elected gains they are making.

I admit I don’t trust democratic socialist policies, small gains I think are a Trojan horse to their bolder plans. That’s why I went to the socialist website to get myself educated on how they see the future.
The majority of Your “card carrying GOP” I.e. yertle the turtle etals, will bend over and spread their cheeks as long as they get a seat at the table. Then come running to their constituency every election year to get re elected, with their hard earned money.

Well, I don't trust "conservative" policies because all they are is BS culture war nonsense meant to do nothing more than to enrage the uneducated and continue to keep them voting for policies which are almost completely designed to beneift only the very richest among us.

And, it's all a slippery slope to fascism and a theocratic, white-Christian nation and an absolute dereliction of our Constitutional society.

 

[dtc]

I do not ascribe to the many less virulent different definitions of socialism. These definitions are defined to attract converts.

SOCIALISM: a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. Since the community needs leadership the system is ran by an authoritarian government. It is impossible to have socialism without an authoritarian system.

What you guys call democratic socialism is the Nordic model.

The three Scandinavian countries are constitutional monarchies while Finland and Iceland have been republics since the 20th century. Currently, the Nordic countries are described as being highly democratic and all have a unicameral form of governance and use proportional representation in their electoral systems. Although there are significant differences among the Nordic countries,[8] they all have some common traits. These include support for a universalist welfare state aimed specifically at enhancing individual autonomy and promoting social mobility; a corporatist system involving a tripartite arrangement where representatives of labour and employers negotiate wages and labour market policy mediated by the government;[9] and a commitment to private ownership within a market-based mixed economy. WIKI

The message to take home about the Nordic countries is that they are based on capitalism to provide the wealth needed for a welfare state.

The message of socialism is very compelling and attractive, no one denies that. Furthermore, capitalism tends to be unfair and at times ruthless. The only problem is that socialism requires an authoritarian system. To soften the blow those on the left use the term democratic socialist, but in reality that term is an oxymoron.

So, all of that stuff you typed tells me you think Sweden and Norway are run by evil, authoritarian fascist governments, right?

 

[Paul]

So, all of that stuff you typed tells me you think Sweden and Norway are run by evil, authoritarian fascist governments, right?

Nope! You win the price for the worst straw man in the forum.
The Nordic nations are capitalist. They use the wealth created by capitalism to pay for a nice net of social programs.

 

[dtc]

Nope! You win the price for the worst straw man in the forum.
The Nordic nations are capitalist. They use the wealth created by capitalism to pay for a nice net of social programs.

They are democratic socialism in the flesh. They use socialism to provide the net. They are exactly what the current leftists in the US are aspiring to and with good measure although that's not exactly what I'd like to happen.

The government controls the obvious monopolies and highly regulates the economy. High taxes come with luxurious social services, but make no mistake it's the living incarnation of what you guys keep whining about as what AOC and Bernie would slippery slide us into with a weatlh tax on billionaires.

 

[RebSaint]

As if "Nordic nations" are unique in having "capitalism." What unmitigated garbage.