Saturday, May 24, 2008

Battles Over Labels

I've been working on the publishing platform on the y-intercept.com domain. The theme article I just finished is called "labeling".

Yes, I am wasting time on negative terms.

My hope is to quarantine the discussions on negative terms in the themes folder. That way, I can reduce the appearance of negative themes in my other writings.

The basic idea I want to convey about labeling is that, while examining the effects of words is a good thing, the preoccupation with redefining labels for political or social gains has proven a net negative. A primary reason our discourse is so shrill is because people keep redefining terms for political ends.


BTW: While reading up on Deviant Behavior Theory, I thought it would be fun to see how the theory would pan out.

So, to finish this post, I traveled into the future and snipped the following section from the 2014 California Thought Officers Manual:

How to Handle Accusations of Rape

In the failed regressive conservative societies of the past, people would use the accusation of rape to stigmatize certain acts (and the people engaged in such acts) as "deviant." These regressive labels were used by the regressive-conservative-world-order to maintain an oppressive hegemony.

Our enlightened progressive society recognizes that deviant behavior is not the result of acts of individuals. Deviant behavior is the result of social norms. If there are no social norms; there is no deviant behavior.

In regressive conservative societies, people stigmatized by the label "rapist" would behave in an antisocial manner. The secondary partner in the encounter would feel violated for having had an encounter with a "deviant."

In an enlightened progressive society, there would be no stigmas. The primary party of the encounter would retain self-esteem. The secondary party would not feel violated, because there would be no words for expressing feelings of violation.

Our enlightened progressive society uses a new "judgment-free" speak. We refer instances where the first party initiates a physical encounter with the secondary party as a "consent-free-physical-encounter." We believe that people with a compulsion to consent-free-physical-encounters (formerly called serial rapists) should not be stigmatized for acting upon natural instincts. Great care should be taken to avoid lifestyle judgments, and to preserve their self-esteem. The primary actor in the encounter should not be detained. You might praise initiator of the encounter for using contraception.

The concern of a thought officer during an accusation of rape should be the re-education of the accuser. The thought officer should present the accuser with the correct gender neutral/judgment free language of the new enlightened progressive leadership.

If the secondary party persists with accusations of rape; the thought officer should detain the accuser to be sent to a re-education camp for enlightenment.

PS: To help save the Bureau of Socialized Healthcare the cost of a "fetal-contraception-procedure," the thought officer should, in gender neutral terms, confront the secondary party and give him or her an "embryonic contraception pill" so that he or she does not get pregnant.


Oddly, it appears that action leads to reaction. Apparently, there was another transfer of power sometime between 2014 and 2032. I clipped the following from the 2032 California Police Manual.

The victim of rape is a valued member of our society who deserves comfort, counseling and support. The rapist is a perverted bastard, and if you accidentally slammed his face into the doorjamb of the squad car during the arrest … well, we can overlook a few bruises.


Changing the language didn't change things after all.

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