Posted By Kathleen David on January 5, 2020
I am going to talk about language and the Internet today. This is my opinion and I know that your mileage may widely from mine. I am putting it behind a cut so that no one has to look at my words which might make them uncomfortable. There are no swear words used.
This took me three days to write as it is a very complicated topic for me.
There is an episode of the Disney series Recess where the kids use a word they made up rather than a swear word. The word they use is womp. It allows them to express their frustration and anger and even sadness without using language that is forbidden at their school. The adults of the school decide that womp must be some dirty word that they don’t know and forbid its use at the school. When challenged on what womp means, the adults can’t define it.
A living language like English is called a living language because the words and means of words can be really fluid. It is not a fix language. It has rules that are followed but even those have evolved over time.
When I was a kid gay meant happy. It’s even in the last line of the Flintstone theme song, “We’ll have a gay old time”. By the time I got to high school gay now meant homosexual the nice version of the word and fággøŧ or fág was an insult. When I first heard someone use fággøŧ, I wondered why they were calling someone a bundle of sticks tied together. Thank you, Mr. Shakespeare.
The other day Caroline said that one kid was using the r’ word and they got in trouble for it. “The r’ word?” I asked. Retarded was the word being used. When I was a child retard was a shorter form of mental retardation which replaced the word mongoloid which was used to describe people with down syndrome and those who had formally been called morons, idiots, and imbecilic. Then somewhere in the 1990s-2000s it became a forbidden word to the point that kids today don’t say it but use the letter instead. The current terms used seem to be special needs and intellectually disabled or developmentally disabled.
This is a prime example of the euphemism treadmill where a pejorative term is replaced by a more politically correct one that, over time, it becomes the pejorative and a new word is used.
Safe space is another one of those words. It started on campuses to give marginalized people a place to express themselves and talk about how they feel marginalized among a group of their peers. It allowed for groups to gather and discuss issues that were important to them and get feedback.
Now safe space has become a bit of a hot potato on the Internet. There are people who use it as an insult when a group of people exclude others to create a place on the Internet where they feel safe to discuss things. There are other people who use it as a way to isolate them from ideas and concepts that make them feel uncomfortable. I am waiting to see what the substitute is going to be. Another pejorative used to describe a safe space is hugbox.
I have a bit of a problem with the concept of safe space especially when used on the Internet and it can be a bit of a tightrope walk between what the original concept was and how is use used now.
I really don’t like the idea of exclusion of ideas. I have heard and read some things I do not believe in and, in fact, are the antithesis of what I do believe. It makes me think about what I do believe in and why I believe that. It confirms my belief rather than tearing it down. If I read something that changes how I think or believe, then there were some things that I believed which were wrong and now I have a new way of looking at it.
I do believe in personal space on the Internet. A good friend of mine Laura Antonio has declared that her Facebook page is her front porch, so her rules apply. She does not insist that the entire Internet conform to her believes. She does believe that she doesn’t have to read/deal with internet dreck in her Internet house. I believe the same thing. There are a few places on the Internet that I have created over time where I impose my will. I am all for discussion however when it reduces to name calling then it is no longer a discussion.
Now we come to a word I want to vanish from the Internet because it has gone so far from what it was originally used for. I do believe in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder formerly called combat stress reaction formally called shell-shocked formally called cowardice. I understand that certain situations and stressors can make this so much worse for the individual. I want to lose the word trigger from the Internet because it has lost all meaning.
Trigger seems to have become the word to use when one is uncomfortable with a situation or a word. Uncomfortable is not trauma. Uncomfortable is life.
Trauma is the experience of severe psychological distress following any terrible or life-threatening event according to Psychology today. Getting the incorrect latte at Starbucks is not traumatic. Surviving a car crash is.
I especially do not like the word ‘trigger’ when it is used to shut down honest discussion and debate. Or when used as a substitute for uncomfortable.
Example, this happened to a friend of mine who is white and male and straight. He was talking to a co-worker female in the staff room about the new gym membership offerings which became part of the company’s health policy. They were debating the pros and cons of several gyms that were in the area or near where each of them lived. A couple of people wandering in and got coffee or their lunch while they were talking.
Two days later he received a summons from Human Resources. Apparently one of the people wandering in was ‘triggered’ by the discussion she heard about gym memberships. She felt like they were shaming her because she is overweight on purpose. So, she filed a complaint. HR had called him in because they had to hear his side of the story and inform him that there had been a complaint filed against him. He was flabbergasted. He told HR that yes, he had been discussing the new gym membership benefit while eating lunch with his fellow employee. He had no memory of the individual who filed the complaint even being in the room at any point. They told him that they figured that was probably what happened. He came to find out later that this individual is a frequent flyer with HR because they get ‘triggered’ by things all the time.
This is different from the son of a mother I know who has a service dog after returning home from Afganistan. He was injured in a Military Vehicle when it ran over a mine and then the vehicle was fired on. He made it out. Most of his buddies didn’t. It took him a long time to return to his new normal but certain things like fireworks can throw him back to that day. The dog helps him realize that he is here and not there. Fireworks are a trigger and cause him real phycological problems rather than him being uncomfortable because of a conversation he over-heard.
Language changes and how we use words change. Something that was innocuous in the 1920s is now frowned upon in the 2020s and the reverse is true was well.
I do believe that people should have the ability to find a space for themselves where they feel comfortable on the Internet. I do not believe that the entire world should have to bow to something that makes one individual uncomfortable.
I am grateful for words in all their meanings.
Category: Uncategorized |
No Comments »
Tags:
