This essay is not an argument that people should use racial slurs.
It is an argument that equal citizenship cannot survive separate racial speech codes.
Meaning, intent, context, and conduct should determine judgment. Skin color should not decide who may speak, who must remain silent, or who is excused from the standards applied to everyone else.
That is the question I want readers to confront honestly.
Good to know that "niggardly" is etymologically distinct; I will begin using it liberally in my casual conversations, as an ice-breaker to educating the general public on its actual origin.
Something interesting struck me about this paragraph you wrote:
'The word “kill” means one thing in a police report, another in a football locker room, another in a comedy routine, and something very different when spoken during a robbery. Rational adults recognize those differences without pretending every use carries the same intention or moral weight.'
I realized when I used to watch The Sopranos that there are linguistic social conventions used by different sorts of people in order to add or reduce drama around their business affairs: Finance bros use a lot of warlike, violent, and heroic metaphors to describe market actions, in order [I think] to conceal the fact that financial speculation seems like a rather banal activity, with some negative social implications. Mobsters, conversely, soften the language they use to describe violence; not only due to legal implications, but to disguise the ugly nature of their work from themselves. One of many ways in which groups use linguistic conventions for camaraderie or inclusion/exclusion.
In this context, I see the "n-word" as more of a class signifier than racial. It's juvenile as a means of in-group/out-group solidarity. Adult group solidarity looks more like the social networks available to Stanford alumni, for one example; or the linguistic conventions and gallows humor shared by combat veterans. Forbidden words and deliberately unequal language taboos are for defending weak social bonds between groups that don't have anything beneficial to unite them.
Similar to words like "Islamophobia", or even "antisemitism", I would argue. Because a Semite is a Jew or an Arab; although it's only used one way--like the word "populism" is only used to mean right-wing populism. I don't think it's good to have a word that specifically refers to people who hate your ethnic group, because it reinforces the obvious. I'm Jewish, and I happen to think that Jew-hatred is a recurring theme throughout history, mostly undeserved. I regard Islamophobia as both a recent contrivance and thoroughly deserved. But in both cases, these words are not going to perform the intended function.
Taboos against speech should be differentiated from taboos against thought, which are very real but much harder to talk about: For instance the taboo against killing an in-group member of any society, versus killing an out-group member in wartime. Or against killing a "pet" animal versus killing a "food" or "pest" animal. Or many irrational schisms between political humor and actual political behavior. These are uncomfortable on a different level than the "n-word", because any attempt to question them undermines the foundation of civilization itself.
Gramsci & Marcuse were very familiar with thought taboos.
Chuck, I suspect your plan to use “niggardly” as an icebreaker may produce more ice than it breaks. Lol.
Hopefully you never get chiggers. That conversation could become exhausting.
Your point about finance people using the language of war while mobsters soften the language of violence is a good one. Both are using language to change how their work appears, including to themselves. One group makes rather ordinary activity sound heroic. The other makes brutality sound like routine business.
I think there is also a lot to your distinction between juvenile and adult forms of group solidarity. Stanford alumni have institutions, connections, and shared credentials. Combat veterans have shared sacrifice and experience. Neither group needs a forbidden word as its principal proof of membership. When a group has little of lasting value holding it together, control over language can become more important than whatever the language is supposed to express.
I am not completely persuaded that the N-word is more a class signifier than a racial one, though. Class and subculture clearly affect who uses it, how often, and in what setting. But race still seems to determine permission. A wealthy black professor can generally say it with fewer consequences than a poor white mechanic. Class helps explain the culture surrounding the word, but not the racial boundary around its use.
Your distinction between speech taboos and thought taboos may be the larger subject. It is easy to identify a rule against saying a particular word. It is much harder to identify the assumptions people have been trained not to question at all. By that point, censorship no longer requires anyone to silence you. Most people will do it themselves.
There may be another essay hiding in that part of your comment.
Thank you for that insight, I agree with your points. There's definitely at least one essay that could be written about thought taboos. I've discovered a few quite by accident [perhaps I should say quite by Asperger's], and it's seldom a pleasant conversation.
This essay is not an argument that people should use racial slurs.
It is an argument that equal citizenship cannot survive separate racial speech codes.
Meaning, intent, context, and conduct should determine judgment. Skin color should not decide who may speak, who must remain silent, or who is excused from the standards applied to everyone else.
That is the question I want readers to confront honestly.
Good to know that "niggardly" is etymologically distinct; I will begin using it liberally in my casual conversations, as an ice-breaker to educating the general public on its actual origin.
Something interesting struck me about this paragraph you wrote:
'The word “kill” means one thing in a police report, another in a football locker room, another in a comedy routine, and something very different when spoken during a robbery. Rational adults recognize those differences without pretending every use carries the same intention or moral weight.'
I realized when I used to watch The Sopranos that there are linguistic social conventions used by different sorts of people in order to add or reduce drama around their business affairs: Finance bros use a lot of warlike, violent, and heroic metaphors to describe market actions, in order [I think] to conceal the fact that financial speculation seems like a rather banal activity, with some negative social implications. Mobsters, conversely, soften the language they use to describe violence; not only due to legal implications, but to disguise the ugly nature of their work from themselves. One of many ways in which groups use linguistic conventions for camaraderie or inclusion/exclusion.
In this context, I see the "n-word" as more of a class signifier than racial. It's juvenile as a means of in-group/out-group solidarity. Adult group solidarity looks more like the social networks available to Stanford alumni, for one example; or the linguistic conventions and gallows humor shared by combat veterans. Forbidden words and deliberately unequal language taboos are for defending weak social bonds between groups that don't have anything beneficial to unite them.
Similar to words like "Islamophobia", or even "antisemitism", I would argue. Because a Semite is a Jew or an Arab; although it's only used one way--like the word "populism" is only used to mean right-wing populism. I don't think it's good to have a word that specifically refers to people who hate your ethnic group, because it reinforces the obvious. I'm Jewish, and I happen to think that Jew-hatred is a recurring theme throughout history, mostly undeserved. I regard Islamophobia as both a recent contrivance and thoroughly deserved. But in both cases, these words are not going to perform the intended function.
Taboos against speech should be differentiated from taboos against thought, which are very real but much harder to talk about: For instance the taboo against killing an in-group member of any society, versus killing an out-group member in wartime. Or against killing a "pet" animal versus killing a "food" or "pest" animal. Or many irrational schisms between political humor and actual political behavior. These are uncomfortable on a different level than the "n-word", because any attempt to question them undermines the foundation of civilization itself.
Gramsci & Marcuse were very familiar with thought taboos.
Chuck, I suspect your plan to use “niggardly” as an icebreaker may produce more ice than it breaks. Lol.
Hopefully you never get chiggers. That conversation could become exhausting.
Your point about finance people using the language of war while mobsters soften the language of violence is a good one. Both are using language to change how their work appears, including to themselves. One group makes rather ordinary activity sound heroic. The other makes brutality sound like routine business.
I think there is also a lot to your distinction between juvenile and adult forms of group solidarity. Stanford alumni have institutions, connections, and shared credentials. Combat veterans have shared sacrifice and experience. Neither group needs a forbidden word as its principal proof of membership. When a group has little of lasting value holding it together, control over language can become more important than whatever the language is supposed to express.
I am not completely persuaded that the N-word is more a class signifier than a racial one, though. Class and subculture clearly affect who uses it, how often, and in what setting. But race still seems to determine permission. A wealthy black professor can generally say it with fewer consequences than a poor white mechanic. Class helps explain the culture surrounding the word, but not the racial boundary around its use.
Your distinction between speech taboos and thought taboos may be the larger subject. It is easy to identify a rule against saying a particular word. It is much harder to identify the assumptions people have been trained not to question at all. By that point, censorship no longer requires anyone to silence you. Most people will do it themselves.
There may be another essay hiding in that part of your comment.
Thank you for that insight, I agree with your points. There's definitely at least one essay that could be written about thought taboos. I've discovered a few quite by accident [perhaps I should say quite by Asperger's], and it's seldom a pleasant conversation.