Labels used to suppress ideas

http://www.paulgraham.com/labels.html

by garret • 18 years ago

30 27 18 years ago

mick_m• 18 years ago

Funny, the two most common labels I am hearing these days are not on the list: 'liberal' and 'conservative'. In political discussions a lot of ideas are suppressed - or at least verbally dismissed - using these labels.

unalone4• 18 years ago

Don't forget "moderate." Nobody liked Giuliani's being moderate, no no no. You're not safe ANYWHERE in the scale. Avoid it and you're "apathetic." Get too complex and you're "elitist" or "flip-flopping" or "hostile" (if the right crowd catches you trying to explain things).

...Man. I miss George Carlin.

hugh3• 18 years ago

Nobody liked Giuliani's being moderate, no no no.

While he was too moderate for some (as was, for instance, Clinton on the other side), can you find me an example where "moderate" was used as a term of abuse against Giuliani?

"Moderate" really doesn't seem to belong on the list. I can't imagine anyone ever looking shocked and saying "That's such a X thing to say" when X is "moderate", but it seems to fit for most of the other examples.

yelsgib2• 18 years ago

God, even worse is -Capitalist-. Socialists say the US is Capitalist, Libertarians say the US is Socialist. Who knows? What a waste of words.

rw• 18 years ago

Even deeper: The American free-market libertarians pulled a coup when they were able to redefine, in public discourse, what it means to have 'liberty' (compare the definition of 'libertarian' ca. 1900 Europe and ca. 2000's USA).

edw519• 18 years ago

Nice list, pg.

I'd like to offer a few "extensions"; that is, words that appear to mean one thing, but really mean something else altogether. Probably fit neatly into the idea suppression category...

  side effects
  2 party system
  best of breed
  Department of Defense
  early detection
  diversity
  Patriot Act
  war on drugs
  98% fat free
  politically correct
  national pasttime
  news
  right to life
  choice
  road rage
  baby boomer
  SUV
  write your congressman
  fast food
  HMO
  insurance
  alternative music
  higher education
  affirmative action
  moral majority
  side dish
  soft drink
  cure
  cofactor
  cause
  leading indicators
  inalienable rights
  with liberty and justice for all
  sitcom
  expert
  talking head
  preferred provider
  copay
  deductible
  IRS
  legal right of way
  public servant
  impartial
  defense of marriage

jrockway• 18 years ago

Huh? This sounds like a list of things that annoys you, not words used to dismiss otherwise relevant arguments.

gaika• 18 years ago

I take it as a list of things that are used to suppress ideas by attaching misleading labels to them.

unalone4• 18 years ago

That's doublespeak, not labels. There's a difference.

hugh3• 18 years ago

Some of it isn't even that.

Fast food: it's fast, it's food.

Side dish: it's a dish, on the side.

Sitcom: it's a comedy, set in a particular situation.

Road rage: it's rage you feel while on the road.

Cure, news, choice, baby boomer: I've frankly got no idea what the poster is on about in most of these.

Alex3917• 18 years ago

Should orientalist be orientalism? An orientalist is a person who studies oriental culture, whereas orientalism is the fallacy of constructing ideal types and then going out into the world to look for confirmatory examples. Unless orientalist can also mean anti-oriental; that definition isn't in Merriam-Webster and I don't have web access to the OED right now to check.

izaidi• 18 years ago

I took "orientalist" to be a pejorative in line with Edward Said's Orientalism -- i.e., accusing its target of attitudes shaped by Western imperialism. It's not really correct to use it this way, since "Orientalist" already has the meaning you describe, but I've seen it a handful of times in an idea-suppressing context.

Kaizyn• 18 years ago

The contents of this post are unconscionable and must be taken down immediately! Although he claims to condemn the suppression of ideas, Paul Graham merely provides this community with the most effective tools for such behavior. Perhaps this is nothing more than a calculated way to profit from the censure of others all the while claiming to disapprove of such censorious acts.

meatpie• 18 years ago

Labels? How incredibly crude! Around here we've got much more sophisticated method of suppressing unpopular ideas. Like karma.

kirse• 18 years ago

How true... I've actually typed out a few comments before and decided not to post them because I figured they would just result in a bunch of down-voting without any response.

These weren't trolling comments either, but legitimate arguments that popular opinion would probably disagree with.

If pg is really concerned about suppressed ideas, he should require that people give a response when they downvote and have a separate flag for "trolling" or "spam"-like comments.

cconstantine2• 18 years ago

My understanding is that downvoting is only for trolling or spam-like comments. Disagreement is good, disagreement can be healthy. A well-spoken (or even not-poorly-spoken) argument that is contrary to popular opinion should be upvoted.

If we don't allow, or punish, unpopular ideas we'll become a homogeneous mass with no new ideas.

ken• 18 years ago

What the Hays Code was for movies in 1930, the Comics Code Authority was for comics in 1954: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority

I find it even more shocking because it was created a quarter century later, and it seems even more ridiculous. Hays covers the content of movies, but the CCA dictates even the title: "No comic magazine shall use the word horror or terror in its title".

I'm sure my grandchildren will say exactly the same thing about my generation, but I cannot imagine how that one word would cause anybody to even blink.

Other awesome things the CCA prohibits: gruesome, gory, unsavory, evil.

hugh3• 18 years ago

I find that less shocking, since while films were aimed at a general audience, comic books were aimed at children. If you read it as a list of things that are unsuitable for small children then a lot of it still sounds fairly reasonable (with certain obvious exceptions).

yelsgib2• 18 years ago

"Is it wrong to call something unscientific?"

I'm surprised PG didn't follow this with: "Is it wrong to call something wrong?"

I think that:

wrong, bad, good, evil, should, right, etc.

Form the oldest and most commonly used category of meaningless, superficial, idea/difference suppressing labels.

cconstantine2• 18 years ago

Being unscientific isn't always bad or wrong. Science isn't the One True Path to Everything Meaningful. Calling something unscientific can be entirely correct, meaningful, and not derogatory. Using the label 'unscientific' to demean something that is scientific-but-worthless-or-wrong does a disservice to everything of value that isn't scientific.

This post wasn't created scientifically, that doesn't mean it's worthless. Ok, bad example (this post is probably worthless). All art gains it's value from something outside of science. That doesn't make all art worthless.

Science is an incredibly powerful tool, but it isn't the only one. When all you have is science, you start to see everything as a nail. Or something like that...

DanielBMarkham• 18 years ago

Not one of the better essays. Reminds me of somebody poorly channeling Chomsky.

Labels are nouns. That's all. Nouns have meaning based on how we use them. Guess what? Nouns are always imprecise. Language is slippery, my dear friends, as those of you who ever tried to write a system based on somebody else's input know.

So we're stuck debating and talking about things with words that flex a lot. That's why the #1 thing to do in a discussion, debate, or whatever is talk about terms. It sounds silly, but you have to say things like "when you say 'cat', what exactly do you mean?"

As a political junkie, let me offer an example. Reagan rallied against "tax and spend liberals" -- folks who thought of solving problems from the top-down using government funds and power, instead of from the bottom-up. He was so successful, he inspired a lot of radio commentators who beat the "liberal" phrase to death. As of today, the best word that describes what "liberal" used to describe is "progressive", although there are many who are proud to still be called "liberal"

The kicker is that "liberal" doesn't _really_ mean what Reagan used it for at all. It originally meant somebody supportive of free speech and action. Heck, as a libertarian, I am a classic liberal. We all probably are.

But most of us real people who live in the real world are stuck with messy words like these because humans are not machines. So we say wonderfully obscenely mushy things like "as a liberal I'm not at all supportive of the current progressive agenda"

There's a reason the Lincoln-Douglas debates went on for four hours or more. Language is tough to do. It does not reduce to something like p or ~ q. Labels only shut you down if you're damn fool enough not to qualify the label as soon as its used. I'm just glad I'm not writing AI to figure all of this out.

dominik• 18 years ago

I found this essay little more than ableist abnormal abusive adult age-inappropriate ageist aggressive annoying anti-arab anti-black anti-disability anti-gay anti-intellectual anti-semitic atheistic biased bigoted blasphemous bourgeois classist coarse communist corrupting critical crude dangerous degenerate degrading defamatory defeatist demeaning derogatory destructive deviant dirty disabilist discriminatory disgusting disloyal disrespectful disruptive distasteful disturbing divisive elitist ethnocentric erotic eurocentric exclusionary explicit extremist fascist fifth columnist filthy frivolous foul gay genderist graphic gross harmful harrassing hateful hate-ist heterosexist holocaust-denying homophobic homosexual hostile hurtful illegal immodest immoral impertinent impious impolite improper impure in bad taste inappropriate indecent indecorous indelicate inflammatory insensitive insulting intimidating intolerant irregular irreverent judgemental lecherous lesbian lesbophobic lewd libellous licentious lookist low lubricious lustful malicious menacing militant misogynistic mocking morbid nationalistic nazi negative objectifying objectionable obscene off-color offensive orientalist out of line patriarchal perverted phallocentric pornographic prejudiced profane provocative prurient questionable racial racially insensitive racist radical reactionary revisionist risque rude sacrilegious salacious satanic scandalous scatalogical scurrilous selfish sexist sexual sexually explicit sexually oriented shameful sinful sizeist slanderous smutty speciesist stereotyping subversive suggestive supremacist tactless tasteless threatening treasonous unacceptable unamerican unauthorized unbecoming uncalled-for unchaste unchristian uncivil unclean undemocratic undesirable undignified unethical unfair unfit unfitting ungenteel unhealthy unlawful unnatural unnecessary unmentionable unpatriotic unprofessional unrefined unscientific unseemly unsuitable untasteful unthinkable untoward unwanted unwelcome unwholesome outdated violent vulgar wanton xenophobic claptrap.

cagliost• 18 years ago

progressive liberal conservative concensus centre extremist far-right respect

Labels used to suppress ideas

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