On 30 May, the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Hospital Medicine posted a tweet apologising for having published an article that used the word ‘tribalism’ to refer to disciplinary silos in medicine. A few weeks earlier, the journal’s Twitter account had posted a
I think the expression that the left eats its own is fitting. Since left-wing institutions are more willing to comply out of genuine feelings of guilt or out of fear of a fall in social standing, people can successfully apply these tactics. Among right-leaning and neutral parties, people will apologize when they do not think they did anything wrong and do not find the claims of harm as legitimate. In these cases, it is usually purely an issue of social standing.
It would seem that bad faith right-wingers could exploit this tendency to make left-wing individuals and institutions denigrate themselves and grovel. This strategy would be very Machiavellian and the right isn't as Machiavellian and shouldn't be. It should attempt to maintain purity about honesty.
Is it Machiavellianism, genuine concern, to gain social standing or to feel good about oneself being inadequate? It would be a combination depending on the person. There could Machiavellians feign outrage to further their cause and there could be Machiavellians who will feign outrage to gain social standing. If one did not believe they were doing something good by policing language, then they likely wouldn't feel good for correcting others. The average woke person probably actually thinks it's bad and wants using offensive language to stop. I don't want to be too uncharitable.
Jonathan Haidt's original moral foundations theory gave conservatives a more diverse set of moral foundations. (explanation here: https://parrhesia.substack.com/p/moral-foundations-theory). I am thinking that progressives are increasingly demonstrating the foundations of "purity" and "in-group/loyalty" while possibly couching it in harm. Many progressives seem to demonstrate something like anti-loyalty, by having loyalty to out groups. For example, a progressive white male denigrating white males and an American praising foreigners and attacking their own country. This is demonstrated by what you said:
> In fact, research shows that progressives often treat people unequally on the basis of group membership – that is, they tend to favour marginalised groups – whereas conservatives treat people more-or-less the same.
And it seems to me as though the woke critique of language is bordering on purity. I am thinking that they would suggest saying "tribe" is immoral even if no one feels harmed. Maybe even saying "tribal" in a negative sense if no one is around could be immoral in their eyes.
Since many conservatives and moderates are agreeable in nature, they do not want to cause people harm through their language and they do not want to lose social status. They modify their speech and the majority changes their speech. Now, the old terms are offensive and using them is a cause for harm. Sometimes there does not seem to be a good reason for these modifications other than potentially group signaling. Is BIPOC and AAPI really better? Does it prevent more harm? It seems like signaling to me. And once they become popular enough, using the old term will be counter-signaling so no one will do it. Who calls Asians "Orientals" except backward or ignorant people? Maybe not so many years from now we will be filling out forms with these terms on them.
These rules and the punishment for their violation is arbitrary and capricious. It is like a totalitarian country which has so many laws on the books that it couldn't enforce them. But when you get in the way of the political agenda, it will enforce them harshly.
I think the expression that the left eats its own is fitting. Since left-wing institutions are more willing to comply out of genuine feelings of guilt or out of fear of a fall in social standing, people can successfully apply these tactics. Among right-leaning and neutral parties, people will apologize when they do not think they did anything wrong and do not find the claims of harm as legitimate. In these cases, it is usually purely an issue of social standing.
It would seem that bad faith right-wingers could exploit this tendency to make left-wing individuals and institutions denigrate themselves and grovel. This strategy would be very Machiavellian and the right isn't as Machiavellian and shouldn't be. It should attempt to maintain purity about honesty.
Is it Machiavellianism, genuine concern, to gain social standing or to feel good about oneself being inadequate? It would be a combination depending on the person. There could Machiavellians feign outrage to further their cause and there could be Machiavellians who will feign outrage to gain social standing. If one did not believe they were doing something good by policing language, then they likely wouldn't feel good for correcting others. The average woke person probably actually thinks it's bad and wants using offensive language to stop. I don't want to be too uncharitable.
Jonathan Haidt's original moral foundations theory gave conservatives a more diverse set of moral foundations. (explanation here: https://parrhesia.substack.com/p/moral-foundations-theory). I am thinking that progressives are increasingly demonstrating the foundations of "purity" and "in-group/loyalty" while possibly couching it in harm. Many progressives seem to demonstrate something like anti-loyalty, by having loyalty to out groups. For example, a progressive white male denigrating white males and an American praising foreigners and attacking their own country. This is demonstrated by what you said:
> In fact, research shows that progressives often treat people unequally on the basis of group membership – that is, they tend to favour marginalised groups – whereas conservatives treat people more-or-less the same.
And it seems to me as though the woke critique of language is bordering on purity. I am thinking that they would suggest saying "tribe" is immoral even if no one feels harmed. Maybe even saying "tribal" in a negative sense if no one is around could be immoral in their eyes.
Since many conservatives and moderates are agreeable in nature, they do not want to cause people harm through their language and they do not want to lose social status. They modify their speech and the majority changes their speech. Now, the old terms are offensive and using them is a cause for harm. Sometimes there does not seem to be a good reason for these modifications other than potentially group signaling. Is BIPOC and AAPI really better? Does it prevent more harm? It seems like signaling to me. And once they become popular enough, using the old term will be counter-signaling so no one will do it. Who calls Asians "Orientals" except backward or ignorant people? Maybe not so many years from now we will be filling out forms with these terms on them.
These rules and the punishment for their violation is arbitrary and capricious. It is like a totalitarian country which has so many laws on the books that it couldn't enforce them. But when you get in the way of the political agenda, it will enforce them harshly.