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> That's one aspect of it, but from another perspective, this is a simple power play.

I would characterize it more as a threat display with collateral damage. A power play implies that the thing you're using the power play on is the direct goal, but here it's more a signal to show that anyone can be taken down. Sort of like when the overlord kills a randomly chosen subjugant to send a message.

I do think there is an aspect of this to it, yes. I don't personally attribute any large scale organized (organized who?) intention behind. More that the emergent properties of our culture have left this new shiny machine gun laying on the floor and some people, for various reasons, are firing off a couple of shots.

We're living in a tumultuous time where power structures are changing. That tends to temporarily leave a lot of destructive toys around and people are going to scrabble for them and do a lot of harm before things settle back down. I hope that when they do we find that the power in the US has been distributed more equitably than it has in the past.

It's a shibboleth. A weapon that an underprivileged class (black people) can weild against any unsuspecting non-black-enough person who accidentally walks into the trap.

The justification is that suffering arbitrary harm is Black History, and this is their chance to inflict the same on the mainstream.

That's what it started out as, but these days it's used as a cheap status display. Effectively, the so called empowerment of under-priviliged groups is what holds them down and that's deliberate. Otherwise there would be no groups to protect and hence no cheap status display.

I believe the technical term is "revenge".

> It's a shibboleth.

That's definitely not the original definition of and metaphorical use of "shibboleth".

Modern shibboleths would be things like whether or not you capitalize "Black", using "democrat" as a noun instead of "democratic ___", "right-winger", and "leftist" (mostly). It's a word that when you use it, it reveals something about which group you are a member of.

> A weapon that an underprivileged class (black people) can weild against any unsuspecting non-black-enough person who accidentally walks into the trap.

No, the sociological forces in play here are more complex than that. In the linked article, as far as I know, all of the students that complained are themselves also white and rich. This is a group of people in the exact same racial and socio-economic group as the person being attacked.

This should also demolish the argument that the use of the n-word in music and black culture has in any way "robbed the word of its power." Clearly the word terrifies and offends people, even if this offense is partially performative. It's not a feckless word.

It doesn't terrify or offend anyone; it's a hall pass to strike at a non-black person.

Am I understanding you correctly - do you actually believe the n-word, in its full, uncensored form doesn't offend anyone? This brings to mind the "Say it" scene from The Good Fight: https://youtu.be/S4pSp3Km6Mw?t=66

No, this it totally upside down.

White teens on a vacation cannot be 'deeply offended by a historically offensive term of subjugation'.

The power of the word in this context is not 'material offences' to those who have suffered in slavery - it's 'social offence' invented by the SJ crowd.

Children have been taught to 'be offended' and to castigate when they hear the word - so they do.

That the word has become political anathema has nothing to do with the depth of it's true offence, rather, it's mostly about the preformative aspects of morality.

People are offended by little things, and now we've enabled them to implicate others with a kind of moral judgment.

It's the new Blasphemy laws of the Left.

"The children told us you said what about Jesus? Heathen!!"

I don't think my statement disagrees with yours.

It reminds me of this Monty Python skit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_hlMK7tCks

"Now look, no one is to stone anyone until I blow this whistle. Even...and I want to make this absolutely clear...even if they do say "Jehovah."

"Everyone with even modicum of intelligence understands the use-mention distinction" --> so we can agree that the editors of the NY times don't have a modicum of intelligence. Why do people read this paper?

It's really not about the word. The word was clearly a smoke screen for the NYT leadership to oust a labor leader. They even claimed they had handled the issue internally when it actually happened, and have a history of using the word frequently, when writing about it in the meta sense. By the time the Daily Beast got a hold of it--mind you, a tabloid that no legitimate paper should ever have to work about--it was a 2-year-old, cold story.

This is such a clear-cut case of railroading someone that the only reason I can imagine that everyone here is talking about use-vs-mention is because the author took so damn long to get to this point. I guess journalists really do need good copy editors.

The manifesto that got McNeil fired was pretty clear in that they understand the distinction, they just don't care.

It is similar to the logic of ethnic cleansing. Many perpetrators are smart enough to understand that "not all Serbs are criminals", but they persecute the outgroup anyway, either for fun, or out of "the end justifies the means" logic.

Here is an interesting blog on Political correctness and the use-mention distinction http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005349.h...

That's one aspect of it, but from another perspective, this is a simple power play.

It’s a framing exercise. You might think it is a harmless demand “don’t use word X” but it establishes the relationship psychologically as one party is dominant, even if the submissive party doesn’t fully realise it. And it’s quite naked once you look at it: the people making these demands simply want money, they haven’t got any coherent philosophy other than gimme gimme (and dindu nuffin).

"Itchy trigger finger" explains this far better than "they're out to get me", honestly. Sure, there might be some machiavellian individuals using this as an opportunity to attack others, but by and large it's clear to see this is more of an overcompensation by people trying to do the right thing.

what is itchy trigger finger, though, if not a yearning to express power?

It's a reaction to fear. In this case, an overreaction. People are afraid to say the wrong thing. People are afraid of having once said a wrong thing, to potentially sully their legacy or impact their career like a ticking time bomb. Or even be peripherally responsible for harboring someone who once said a wrong thing. This social movement towards accountability has created a sense of paranoia and friendly-fire, and it's not healthy for anyone.

An allergy. No, really, you can get a lot of mileage from thinking of cultural reactions to ideas as immune reactions. Some ideas we actually need to attack and destroy (any falsehood, certain proven-toxic ideologies), some just look too much like pathogens and get attacked anyway.

> An allergy.

Or to put it another way, an autoimmune disease.

Man, this is such an excellent analogy. Well done!

Humans keep throwing stones at those they deem sinners, shouting slurs and expletives, as part of a hate group dynamic. They have no control over these actions, are not trying to achieve anything good, even if they rationalize their behavior in that way. Sure there is signaling, status and power somewhere in that mess, as it is always the case with human behavior, but these individuals are not active, not in control. They are being dragged along an ugly dynamic of group psychology that has been recorded since the beginning of history. What can help is emotional maturity achieved by self reflection, but even then one can still fall for it, because anger, agitation and hate are easier then being wise and enlightened. That is not a new insight, we have bronze age books and star wars memes about that.

This is true except "the right thing" is "indiscriminate fighting" perpetuating a cycle of hatred.