I am keen to write a sister piece on the subject conservative word-abuse. If you have any good candidates, let me know here or hit me up on Twitter. Currently I have "woke" as the obvious one, but "woke" is an interesting case because, as an adjective, originated as only slang, and has gone on to mean different things in different sub-cultures.
the obvious right wing equivalent to "problematic" is "degenerate". Moral condemnation, veneer of objectivity, and not commonly used by anyone but the right. "Woke" is not really equivalent as it's not a once-vommon word but from the get go (at least outside of some slang) used to describe leftist ideology. Degenerate is way more a "everything we don't like". And you could argue that it, too, grew from "offensive", just a branch in the other direction.
It has not met the euphemism treadmill itself as of yet though, at least as far as I'm aware, as it didn't hit the main stream quite as much.
Oh I just picked up on the evolved form. "Unhealthy". It's so devious in its faux-compassion that I must have seen it countless times and never picked up on it. "porn is unhealthy", "not having a traditional family is unhealthy" and so on.
Just dawned on me while watching a video on youtube, maybe I'm on the wrong track, but just keep it in the back of your mind.
Interesting! And funny because 'degenerate' is technically more devastating, but so over-used that 'healthy' has rather backwardly become the more potent alternative.
Oh btw, totally forgot to say but, great article my friend. Quite problematic views you express here ;)
I am keen to write a sister piece on the subject conservative word-abuse. If you have any good candidates, let me know here or hit me up on Twitter. Currently I have "woke" as the obvious one, but "woke" is an interesting case because, as an adjective, originated as only slang, and has gone on to mean different things in different sub-cultures.
the obvious right wing equivalent to "problematic" is "degenerate". Moral condemnation, veneer of objectivity, and not commonly used by anyone but the right. "Woke" is not really equivalent as it's not a once-vommon word but from the get go (at least outside of some slang) used to describe leftist ideology. Degenerate is way more a "everything we don't like". And you could argue that it, too, grew from "offensive", just a branch in the other direction.
It has not met the euphemism treadmill itself as of yet though, at least as far as I'm aware, as it didn't hit the main stream quite as much.
'Degenerate' is a good pick, hasn't evolved as much but definitely abused.
Oh I just picked up on the evolved form. "Unhealthy". It's so devious in its faux-compassion that I must have seen it countless times and never picked up on it. "porn is unhealthy", "not having a traditional family is unhealthy" and so on.
Just dawned on me while watching a video on youtube, maybe I'm on the wrong track, but just keep it in the back of your mind.
Interesting! And funny because 'degenerate' is technically more devastating, but so over-used that 'healthy' has rather backwardly become the more potent alternative.