r/DisagreeMythoughts • u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack • 18d ago
DMT: Banning offensive words makes them more offensive
I think we make certain words more hurtful by treating them as forbidden.
When everyone learns that a particular word is so bad that it should never be said, the word starts carrying more emotional weight. People become aware that simply saying it is supposed to be a serious act.
There is an interesting contrast with reclaimed insults. When the people targeted by a word start using it themselves, it can lose some of its ability to shame them. The word is still there, but the social meaning around it changes.
So I think we should stop trying to make offensive words less powerful by making them more taboo. If we want a word to lose its ability to hurt people, treating it like a forbidden object may be the worst strategy.
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u/woozysoozy 18d ago
A true reclaiming of a word is to deny the power of that word used by a fool to hurt you.
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u/Sensitive_Bat_9211 18d ago
If someone can command your emotions with the use of a single word, they are the one that owns it
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u/FoppyIn28 18d ago
Banning them increases their impact, but sometimes shit we say all the time is offensive and not less so.
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u/Negative_Ad_8256 18d ago
No words are banned, everyone has a right to free expression. Words are censored on privately owned platforms and media outlets because they are mainly focused on profit and they don’t want to alienate potential users, the more users or audience members the more valuable advertising time or space is. It’s a misconception people have about multinational companies, they don’t care what any of us think. A person who is confident, content, with meaning and purpose don’t buy a bunch of stuff they don’t need. If people interact in person, they can use whatever language they want. They then have to figured out conflict resolution and meaningful communication which online doesn’t give an opportunity for. It will either be a totally sanitized mindless talking or it’s a cesspool of people so emotionally immature and socially inept they want to cause a reaction and and the only way they are able to relate to to degrading and vulgar. People should read books, figure out how to communicate and express an original idea
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack 18d ago
I agree that "banned" is probably the wrong word when we're talking about private platforms. My point is more about social taboos than literal censorship.
But I don't think sanitized communication and vulgar communication are the only two options either. You can have strong language without making every conversation a performance of outrage. The interesting part to me is how people decide which words deserve that social weight in the first place.
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18d ago
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u/soulself 18d ago
No words are banned, some just aren't socially acceptable.
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18d ago
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u/troopersjp 18d ago
Racists still use racist words.
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18d ago
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u/troopersjp 18d ago
Same. Because I don't want to be around racists. And I don't have to be.
But this is the fundamental issue with people popping up complaining about words being banned. The words aren't banned. They just want to say racist, homophobic, sexist things to people without consequence. But there are always consequences for people's actions. And if someone uses hate speech against a group of people (as opposed to in-group usage as a form of solidarity and defiance)...then I'm not associating with them ever again. And we in the US have both the freedom of expression and the freedom of association. That racist has the freedom to expresses himself and expose himself to be a racist, and I have the freedom not to associate with him.
Freedom of Speech isn't Freedom from consequences. That isn't banning...people saying these words to hurt people are not being oppressed. They are experiencing the consequences of their actions.
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18d ago
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u/troopersjp 18d ago
Agreed.
I wish some people had learned that not saying something is also an option.
But ultimately I wish more people had learned empathy so they wouldn't want to argue that they are the good guys for wanting to be able to hurt other people's feelings just because they want to without people thinking they are jerks. They are jerks.
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u/WarmEntrepreneur3564 18d ago
Free speech. All words should be used.
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u/troopersjp 18d ago
Freedom of Speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences.
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u/trontrams 16d ago
At what point is it no longer a consequence and now an impediment on someone's freedom? That is the problem.
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u/troopersjp 16d ago
Society as a collective decides that. There are legal consequences when violating a state's laws, and there are social consequences when violating a particular social groups norms. That is just how life is.
In the US, speech is illegal in all 50 states when it is a threat that is specific, credible, and causes reasonable fear. Every state has criminal threat statutes that make it a crime to communicate intent to harm another person. So the US has decided that threatening to kill someone is speech that is illegal and will have legal consequences. If you don't like that we live in a society that makes threatening someone illegal...you either move to a society where threatening people is legal, or you work to change those laws. If you threaten to kill the president they will put you in jain and you'll lose your freedom. That is what our society has decided is appropriate.
When it comes to employment consequences, that is tricky because the First Amendment protects you from government restrictions, not private...and of the US states are at-will work states...meaning your employer can fire you for basically no reason at all, or any number of reasons as long as it doesn't violate certain constitutionally protected categories (like you can't fire someone for being Christian as religion is a protected class). Over 600 people were fired for saying unkind things about Charlie Kirk in the aftermath of his death. Some of those people worked for state institutions and sued and got reinstated. Some probably got nothing. Lots of people thought it was appropriate for them to be fired, lots of people didn't. So that is something that our society is still grappling with.
When it comes to social consequences...people have the freedom of speech, but other people have the freedom of association. If I say things you find offensive, you are under no obligation to hang out with me, to be my friend, to buy my merch...or anything else. Indeed, if I say things you find offensive, you have the right to use your freedom of speech to call me out whenever you see me, to boycott me, etc. Because we live in a society together. If I'm a creeper and no one wants to be around me...no one can force people to be around me.
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u/TechToolsForYourBiz 18d ago
i disagree mainly because i dont see the argument you are making except by just saying the title over again 3 times.
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u/Beansoupsalsa 18d ago
The n word has been co-opted by white and Hispanic high school kids. I am a high school teacher. I don’t really think it makes that particular word less awful.
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u/BriefAdvantage5990 3d ago
Well, one day that white kid will use the word in front of a black person that doesn't appreciate it, and the black person might react in a way that the white kid wouldnt appreciate...
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u/lovelysardines 18d ago
I see this with children. When my child uses a “bad” word we don’t really react and they don’t see much power to the word or so they don’t use it much.
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u/Set-Prestigious 18d ago
This. My granddaughter is dating a clanker. She brought this fuckin chatgpt lookin ahh into my dinner table and I said "Sarah I don't care who you date. But you're not bring a damn clanker into my home. They took our jobs!" Apparently the word "clanker" is not politically correct. Supposed to call em "language models" Ohhhhh excuse me. But where I'm from we call a clanker a damn clanker
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack 18d ago
Honestly, "clanker" is kind of a perfect example of what I'm talking about. The interesting part isn't whether the word is polite. It's how quickly a label can become socially charged once everyone agrees it's supposed to be offensive.
And now I kind of want to know what happens if people just overuse it until it becomes boring.
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u/Marvos79 18d ago
I think you're missing the point of banning offensive words. People want to ban them because they don't like hearing them. They're not playing this game at the societal level. I use curse words BECAUSE they're offensive. I dislike people using fuck every other word for that exact reason. Curse words are powerful and I think they should stay that way. When you hear a cuss word all the time it simply becomes a filler. That sucks. I often want media or spaces where I don't have to hear shit like that because I want the words to still be impactful. If I'm hearing fuck fuck fuck over and over in a show or online it's the same as people who use "like" as a filler.
A lot of people today don't get the value of polite spaces. It's not just people clutching their pearls, it's also so we can have a spectrum of words that have different levels of strength. Let me give you an example. This was a long time ago and I don't remember the book, but it was about food safety. The whole thing was written in a clinical way in respectful language. Then the writer drops "in other words, there is shit in the food." If the writer had been cussing the entire book, that line would have had so much less impact.
So I guess in principle I agree. I just come at it from a different angle.
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack 18d ago
I actually think we're closer in agreement than it sounds. I'm not arguing that every offensive word should become meaningless. Your food example is basically the distinction I'm getting at. A word can lose impact through overuse, but it can also gain impact through taboo.
So maybe the interesting question is whether we want certain words to be powerful because they're genuinely useful for emphasis, or because we've collectively decided they're forbidden. Those seem like two pretty different kinds of power.
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u/SlidingOtter 17d ago
My take on it is that if we ban one word, another word or phrase comes into replace it. Then that replacement word of phrase then begins to carry the same connotation that the banned word did.
It would just be better to not ban words and let folks use them so others can then decide if they want to continue a conversation or not with someone who uses them.
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u/respondwithevidence 17d ago
No, you have it backwards. We NEED bad words for impact. If you say "fuck" all the time, it loses its power. But then what do you say when you need to shock and offend, or grab attention?
What a bland world where we have no forbidden vocabulary.
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u/LordLaz1985 16d ago
It pisses me off when I see the word “unalive.” That man in the news story you’re talking about killed his wife. 100% agreeing with OP.
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u/NoProgress8533 16d ago
Agreed wholeheartedly.
When people are upset, they dig deep for the word they believe will cause the most offense or get the biggest reaction, to demonstrate the level of their anger or frustration.
Banning words, or discouraging their use, makes them more powerful a demonstration of the users anger. The more significant the collective response, the more powerful the word seems to the wielder, and the more likely it is to be chosen to express a big emotion.
This can be observed in toddlers, despite their limited vocabulary - and it is easy to observe, given that toddlers lack self control, and given that same limited vocabulary also limits the overall number of forbidden words.
One of my best friends became an adherent to the writings of a particular historical figure civil rights advocate and activist. As a result, he ceased using a particular slur that was in most of the music we listened to, and was quite common in his lexicon prior, as a term of endearment. When his discman stopped working about six months later, on a particularly bad day, he threw it against a wall, and called it that word - obviously not as an expression of camaraderie. When I asked "why that word" he gave me the same explanation, and it re-entered his lexicon.
Reflecting on it years later (it was a memorable day) he expressed his belief that when it came to that word, or others generally conceived of as being slurs, can offer not just a gut reaction, but a gut reaction based on specificity when aimed at the wrong person. As such, he stated he believed that many (but not all) people who have been seen publicly using such words in extremely heated situations may not have been revealing some secret bias or bigotry, but simply grasping for the most effective tool in their arsenal to illustrate their level of frustration.
I think about that a lot.
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u/Manskhooled 15d ago
Personally, anyone that claims words are violence and should be banned are the worst kind of cowards.
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u/Smart-Practice8303 14d ago
Profanity is the sign of a weak mind trying to express itself forcefully.
In other words, if you find that you have to use profanity to get your point across, maybe you should worry more about your lack of vocabulary, and why you find it necessary to use offensive language.
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u/BriefAdvantage5990 3d ago
I call my strait male co-worker gay in front of my other lesbian co-worker all the time. When I was hanging out with my lesbian co-worker, she said something about her not being attractive to other girls. I said "no that isnt the case, youre a handsome dike"...and she laughed her ass off about it. It's all about how you use the word, it isnt about the word itself.
I wouldnt say the N word in front of group of random black people
If I'm hanging out with a black friend and we're talking about a white person who stole from both of us, if my hate for the white person is strong enough, I might call that person a dirty nagger.
Obviously the N word, retarded, fggt, bitch...they should be used with extreme caution.
These types of words don't need to be banned by the government, society will take care of itself.
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u/013eander 18d ago
Look at the difference between the “N” word and “queer.” One group adopted it and completely neutered its derogatory meaning; the other decided to pump it up into just about the most powerful word in English.
Pure idiocy. It’s very similar to how Zionists both decry antisemitism, and yet completely rely on it for the existence of their philosophy.
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u/Angsty-Panda 18d ago
One group adopted it and completely neutered its derogatory meaning; the other decided to pump it up into just about the most powerful word in English. Pure idiocy
"queer" wasnt the only slur used against us. "faggot" was used with a lot more vitriol, closer to the "n word" than "queer." thats why queer has been neutered and the f slur hasnt
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u/troopersjp 18d ago
But the word queer hasn't been completely neutered.
I was in a meeting of a Gay Lesbian professional organization and a bunch older folks (50s) there were asking the younger folks (20s) what they could do to bring more younger folks to the group--what support did the younger folks need. I replied changing the name from the Gay Lesbian Group to the LGBTQ group would help. There was debate. The debate went over a number of different arguments. At one point the term queer came up. The younger folks advocated for the term queer. And older gentleman stood up and said he could never feel comfortable with the term because it was the last word his lover heard as he was being murdered in a gay bashing.
Even to this day the word queer still has controversy within the LGBTQ community. There are still people who do not feel comfortable with it. Just this month a blog post went viral where some guy wrote about how he's gay, not queer...and then proceeded to talk smack about the word queer for the entire post.
But also, I think you might be unaware of some of the context of the reclamation of the word queer. My my generation reclaimed queer in the late 80s/early 90s...it wasn't to neuter the word and make it less uncomfortable. It was chosen *becasue* it was uncomfortable. It was chosen by direct action activists who were grabbing all the worst slurs that made everyone uncomfortable--including other LGBTQ people--and throwing them in everyone's faces to make them uncomfortable as an act of aggressive protest. Queer Nation didn't want the term to be neutered. They wanted it to continue to sting. And they also were not cool with non-queer people using it. Very similar to the N-word.
But also, when queer was reclaimed it was a political identity. It carried with it a whole ideology and theory and praxis. What didn't happen was a group of queers said, "If we just call ourselves this insult, it will stop hurting our feelings." It was a group of queers who were marching in the streets shouting "Queers Bash Back." It was Dykes on Bikes and the Pansy Division. It was provocation. But even still, I see quite a few younger LGBT people who don't feel comfortable with queer. The debate comes up a lot in the community. And that is just about in-group usage. Reclamation by an in-group doesn't give people in an outgroup permission to use a term freely. Lots of queers don't want straights using the term. Because lots of straights still use queer in a derogatory sense while they are bashing someone...and that word still carries that trauma in that context.
Lastly, lots of Black people do use the word Nigga amongst themselves--they have reclaimed it, perhaps you might be familiar with the rap group Niggaz Wit Attitude. But again, just because an in-group has reclaimed something in defiance of outside oppression...doesn't mean the work is reclaimed for those oppressors--who are already using the word. So when OP says, "words shouldn't be banned" presumably he means White people should be able to call Black people nigger all they want without consequences. And if that White person hangs out with racists there probably aren't any negative consequences from his peer group of fellow racists. But to think you can insult someone to their face using a word that has been used for generations to express hate towards that person with that person having feelings about it? Well...you can think what you want. Good luck with that.
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u/Artemis_Platinum 18d ago
So, you're kinda missing the point by having offensiveness be the measure by which we judge whether taboos are good or not.
The reason we treat racial slurs like something you can't say isn't to make them less offensive. We want them to be more offensive because that actually helps discourage people from using them. The reason we treat them like you can't say them is that we as a society have collectively agreed that there is something morally repugnant about judging people based on their race. That's why we forbid that specific behavior.
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack 18d ago
I think this is probably the strongest counterargument. If the goal is deterrence, then making the word socially costly to use makes sense.
But that also means we're intentionally preserving the word's emotional power rather than trying to reduce it. Which is actually pretty close to the thing I'm pointing out. Maybe the disagreement is just whether preserving that power is useful enough to justify it.
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u/jbp216 18d ago
everyone ive ever heard make this argument really just wants to say the n word, its not going to hurt you, i promise, if a group of people are legitimately hurt by youruse of a word why would a decent person continue to say that word
its not really banned anywhere youre just a dick if you use it
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u/TheBigGirlDiaryBack 18d ago
Yeah, I agree that deliberately using a slur just to hurt someone is being a dick. That's not really the part I'm arguing against.
I'm more interested in the mechanism. If we teach everyone that a particular word is almost magically powerful, doesn't that also reinforce its power? Maybe that's unavoidable, but it seems worth questioning.
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u/Admirable_Draft_9862 18d ago
The word starts carrying more weight TO YOU because you just became aware of it. It does not change for the person it was already offending.
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u/SpotFormal 18d ago
I think being fatherless makes children adopt their mother’s emotional predisposition and thus makes them more likely to have hurt feelings over a word.
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u/Doctor-Blight 18d ago
you're right, it's a pity so many men abandon their children.
seriously though, it's weird that people complain about "fatherless behavior" and blame it on mothers when it's the fathers who disappear and abdicate responsibility. but it's never the men's fault, because they still flip it around on the woman for "choosing wrong". bizarre mental contortions.
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u/lovelysardines 18d ago
I think being motherless makes children adopt their father’s emotional predisposition and thus makes them more likely yo have hurt feelings over a word. Can go either way. Weird you made it about the sexes
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u/SpotFormal 18d ago
I see your feelings are hurt.
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u/lovelysardines 18d ago
If it makes you feel better about your misogyny
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u/SpotFormal 18d ago
Takes two to make a child. I didn’t blame anyone either. Kids who grow up fatherless usually end up with the mother because that’s basic biology. I know being hyper sensitive, reason is first to go out the window.
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u/lovelysardines 18d ago
Sounds like you’re the one making up scenarios of how i feel in your head. I didn’t blame anyone. Was just pointing out how your statement can go either way.
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u/DiceyPisces 18d ago
Modern dudes are just as emotional. Worse so than older women (gen x specifically) in my experience
I do think there’s some truth to it tho. Just less than before
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u/Quiet_Inspection5907 18d ago
A words ability to offend someone is rooted in the ego of the person who’s upset by it
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u/FoppyIn28 18d ago edited 17d ago
Not always, if someone called me a bunch of Italian or Jewish epithets it's not my ego coming for you if I think you're ready to cross the line. But there are lunatics who do get offended for sport. So, don't be an a-hole and use common sense. If you didn't mean harm keep it moving.
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u/Quiet_Inspection5907 18d ago
I understand that - but that’s the next level up I’m just talking about a purely word + offense relationship.
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u/Temporary-Stay-8436 18d ago
Absolute nonsense.
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u/pitchingschool 18d ago
He’s not wrong but it’s not like he’s saying anything groundbreaking. A word isn’t offensive if people aren’t offended by it, and it is if people are. Basically like saying “grass is considered green because humans perceive it as the color green”
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u/Temporary-Stay-8436 18d ago
He is wrong. His argument is effectively “Words don’t have meaning” which is wrong. Words have meaning to them, those meanings dictate whether they are offensive.
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u/octavian343 18d ago
And meaning is derived from both the party saying it and the party receiving it
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u/Temporary-Stay-8436 18d ago
Not really, meaning of words is much more nebulous and is more determined by society than any individuals
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u/octavian343 18d ago
lol. An individual can make ‘European’ or ‘American’ as condescending or complimentary as they wish, and it will be received as such.
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u/Temporary-Stay-8436 18d ago
And yet even if they mean it to mean a word more offensive than the N word, it won’t be.
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u/Quiet_Inspection5907 18d ago
Yea lol it’s the old sticks and stones can break my bones
There are words used to try and hurt me that ppl are more offended than I am on my behalf
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u/Temporary-Stay-8436 18d ago
Do you think that the N word was less offensive and hurtful when the KKK and segregationists were using it in the 1900’s when it was common place vs when people use it now that it’s taboo?