acathode wrote:Al Stefanelli wrote:I just have issues when people use the wrong words.
Who doesn't? Especially when it's words that carry extremely strong connotations that are being flippantly misused. It's frustrating, for so many reasons.
There's the sheer dishonesty, labeling someone as a misogynist for simply disagreeing and disliking them, is more or less outright lying, and it pisses people off a great deal to get falsely accused of being what is in essence the worst scum there is. It's like being labeled a Nazi just because you don't agree with some of Israels current actions...
Then there's the damage they do to the language, by overusing and abusing very powerful terms, they are lessing the meaning of the terms, ultimately destroying it completely. 5 years down the line, what word will Ophelia use to describe real misogyny, ie. honest woman hating, if she ever faces it? No one will care if she yells "MISOGYNY!", because that's just someone disagreeing with her yet again.
Then there's the insult to the people in the world who actually faces real misogyny, real stalkers, real sexism, and real harassments. Claiming that you're the victim of misogyny and sexism because people use the word "cunt" is a insult to the people who've faced real misogyny and sexism. Trying to claim that you are a stalker victim because someone reads your twitter, facebook and blog is a insult to the people who've gotten their lives ruined by real stalkers... and so on.
I see many parallels to the way Ophelia and the FC use "misogyny", with the way "racism" has been used in the last 10-20 years in Swedish politics. Basically, any public discussion about immigration is impossible here, because people will scream "RACISM!!" on top of their lungs before the discussion even starts, and any attempt by people not in favor of current immigration policies to still continue the debate is simply meet with more "RACISMS!!!!!" accusation.
Obviously, while there undoubtedly exist some genuine racists among the people who disagree with current policy, the vast majority are not actual racists, but instead people who, for example, just question the economic feasibility for a country of our size to accept a huge number of illiterate, uneducated immigrants. It's an argument you'd think you'd be able to put forth, but no, if you do, you're a racist, because you speak like them, and uses the same kind of arguments as they do! (notice the circular reasoning?)
Getting labeled a racist, when you clearly aren't, is frustrating, and it pisses people off, A LOT. After a while though, people stop caring, and the word "racist" loses it's meaning. When it's flippantly thrown around and everyone who disagrees just the slightest is a racist, it just becomes a bad joke. The only ones who will actually care, is the people who still are shouting "RACIST!!", who just can't understand why it's not having the same effect as it used to have.
The rather unsettling side effect of this though, has been that real racism now is more ok. It's a lot easier to find people these days talking openly about "sand niggers", "MENA-scum", "rape settlers", and so on, and there's a lot more of people doing it too. It seems that as racism lose it's meaning, people feel more free to show and engage in real, actual racism, and more and more people see this open racism, and think it's ok, and joins in.