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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   30896 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 14, 2025

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Some thoughts that immediately jump to my mind on this subject:

  1. The euphemistic treadmill, which is more of a linguistic phenomenon than a "woke liberal" phenomenon. There is a progression that occurs where words are first used academically and scientifically, then colloquially, and then in a vulgar way. Examples being retarded or hysteria. The role of pseudoscience here is also richly ironic from a culture war perspective as well. IMO this aspect of linguistics is inherent to human nature, and opposition to it is not well-founded in reason. Just accept that words change meanings in a highly predictable way, please.
  2. The leaking of academic or "non-profit" language into colloquial discourse, especially in cases where it disambiguates nuanced concepts within that domain. One example is "unhoused" vs. "homeless", which actually do have utility in terms of what they're precisely trying to describe, but do not have much utility on the 24-hour news cable network.
  3. When words become "purity" memes in academic subcultures: the word Latinx polls very poorly outside of very specific niches. But, if all of your colleagues are using the word Latinx, and you are not, despite the fact that you don't necessarily agree with it, your paper will not get published. But every subculture has its own "purity" memes, and a lot of them are incredibly cringe-inducing. That's what keeps me coming back!

All of these are great cannon fodder to get the red tribe of the culture war fired up, but I personally think they're pretty weak in terms of showing actual flaws in blue tribe principles. There are plenty real flaws in blue tribe principles that these don't really make me lose any sleep.

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