By the way the Eskimo's have more words for snow thing isn't true. Inuit grammer is a bit like German were you can combine multiple words into one longer word to mean the combination of subwords where English would use an adjective + noun. So the counters were only counting snow and a couple of synonyms, while not counting things like hard snow, soft snow, grey snow, etc. while, because of Inuit grammar combining parts of speech together, those got counted as all distinct words.

That's why the whole "X doesn't have a word" thing doesn't fit. You can't account for all the different combinations of language to represent ideas.

I actually have read up a little on the race centric "ethnomathematics" being proposed for the Seattle school district.

It appears that all the moralizers are gonna nap this one out, probably because they are concerned over stumbling over tripwires they can't anticipate and saying something unwoke. Anyways, I think the "con" argument for politicizing math is pretty obvious, so I doubt we have to spend a lot of time on it.

However, I went to the actual website of the organization that is pushing this initiative, and their basic argument, in addition to the moral virtue, is that politicizing math will engage student better and bring better results. Assuming this hypothesis to be true (we probably won't know until it is actually tried out on a large scale) this on the surface seems like a reasonable, "ends justifies the means" argument. By all appearances whatever public school districts are currently doing doesn't seem to be working, so maybe time to try something new.

Of course, that being said full disclosure I would never allow my own children to be the guinea pigs to test this experiment, and I doubt anyone of the moralizers in this thread would either. But I guess that is an additional luxury of all our privilege, is that we (and our children as extensions of us) don't have to be the test cases for all the progressive social justice policy experiments going on right now (unless we want to); so the cost for us is low, but the benefits potentially high, if any of them actually turn out to work.

You're just repeating back the same point you've been making. If all of the Eskimo words for snow are formed through aggluntination then that hardly goes against my point that languages effect how we think and you are too focused on lexical items while ignoring grammatical structure.
Yes, there is a way to express the same concept in most languages. That doesn't mean that speakers of different languages all think the same and then translate those thoughts into words--which would be the full extension of your argument. You are too focused on what is possible in a language instead of what is actual.

You're point isn't very relevant to the question of "If X is missing a word, is X transphobic". The answer is languages don't have intentions and the lack or surplus of a word doesn't tell us about the intentions of the people speaking that language. You could have a whole group of speakers of X language that has 100 words for trans people and have a very transphobic group, or you could have a group of speakers of X language who have no singular word for trans people, but discuss the concept and are all accepting of trans people.

My five yr old is in the 85th percentile for math, so I think he would be fine in any context, short-term, so I would allow it. My three yr old's place in the math world is still unkown for a couple of years, but if he were under the 75th percentile, I think, I would be more resistant and skeptical, so it would depend on the educators if I sent him to school there.

I just read the Wikipedia page and some of it sounds great--math past the numbers--and most of it I just don't understand. Jury's out on this so-called "moralist".

But that isn't an indictment. I take not understanding something not as an insult but as an opportunity to learn something new from a peer or colleague. So, I don't get it, but I'm curious.

On Monday, I can ask around to the math department (where I know no one) and see if there is someone knowledgable willing to talk to be about this. If I get one or two, I'll report back.

There may be some overlap between people who refer often to intersectionality and people who refer to language as a tool of oppression (in whatever sense), but intersectionality itself, as a kind of theoretical approach, says nothing at all about language.

I never cared about that point. Obviously it isn't. I just think you went to far in arguing that language doesn't effect thought. You can argue that the presence or absence of a word doesn't mean much without throwing away the entire sapir-whorf idea.

Yes, there are scholarly writings attempting to connect the two or better yet exploring such a connection, but afaik, the two are disconnected. Google "intersectionality language" and some stuff comes up. Finding "oppression" within the texts themselves and I found nothing connecting intersectionality and language across the first four articles that came up.

If you, Kelhus, find something, I'm interested in reading it, but it is probably on the fringes, I would guess. If I'm wrong, I'll gladly take the L on this one, as I don't really have an opinion on the matter, just curiosity as to where you got that notion.

Is S.I. Hayakawa's "Language in Thought and Action" still considered relevant among linguists?

If so, does it shed light on this topic?

Well, I am actually ok if we all agree that language itself isn’t a tool of oppression, and it is intent that matters. I guess My presupposition about language is more that it seems a natural extension of the intersectional argument than any specific recollection of someone making that argument. So if my presuppositions are incorrect, that is fine.

I think there's potentially a lot to unpack in a sentence like "language is a tool of oppression." I suspect that you are interpreting it in a way that wouldn't make sense to me. But I also don't think intent is the only thing that matters, if we're just being descriptive, i.e. if were only trying to connect certain features of a phenomena (say, language) with certain outcomes (injustice, etc.)

I think it should be fairly unsurprising that people express certain tendencies (in-group preference, out-group bias, the tendency to reify supposedly essential differences between people of different social categories) in language, including not just semantically but even syntactically. It would probably be more surprising if we didn't do that? At the same time, the same linguistic conventions are also often useful and efficient. I don't think recognizing the role they can play in inequality necessitates some completely radical overhaul of language, but I also don't think it's wrong to recognize the role language plays, or to look for opportunities (like "policeman" vs "police officer") to tweak usage. That language use evolves in the same way that cultural norms evolve is also just a given.

Some of these considerations remind me of the topic of the book I just posted about in the citations needed thread.

Probably this shouldn't come as a surprise given my thoughts on Sapir-Whorf, but I'm definitely on board with the idea that language is used a tool of oppression. [Not that it itself is a tool of oppression although that's a really interesting argument]. And not that I think that language needs to be overly policied or altered--just that it's something to be cognizant of.
And just a cursory look at how euphemisms are used in the news business to justify all sorts of atrocities makes this a pretty easy case to make. But there are plenty of more subtle ways too.

It's not something that I'm familiar with and my formal semantics education is super weak (we lacked a proper semanticist at my school)--but given that it was published before Chomsky and the cognitive revolution, I would assume that it isn't.
Can you talk about it some?

I don't think

"Language can be used as a tool of oppression." is a debatable statement.

I had more written up but I basically think the statement is a truism and not really up for debate. The more interesting debate is what uses of language amount to oppression.

A related question is:
"When does, or can, persuasive speech become oppressive?"

I don't agree.

Language does matter. It can be a "tool" that harms people. And it doesn't have to have active intent to harm to still be harmful. So we have a responsibility to use language appropriately. For instance, I don't think you intended to offend trans people when you said "transgenderism", I think you were just ignorant which is absolutely fair enough, and so now that you are aware of this and can avoid the term all is well. A large part of the idea of microagressions for instance is that statements that are relatively benign and not negatively intended individually can collectively contribute to a sense of othering for instance.

The reason we were pushing back about the nonsensical "but but dutch only has one word for sex and gender GOTCH" bit is because this feature of the dutch language (without knowing about about dutch) does not on its face inherently mean some great failing. It is up to dutch people to decide how to appropriately talk about these issues with sensitivity and it appears that yes they do indeed do that in general.

Finally, you keep talking about "intersectional" in a way that didn't make any sense as people pointed out. Now you've said it is an "extension". Can you please be specific about exactly the way "intersectional" is relevant to this discussion?

So language is a tool of oppression, but only when we decide it is, and there are no rules, it is something we (as a culture) work out arbitrarily (or to be more generous, lets say contextually) on the fly. And right now we are all very confident that the Dutch language construction in this instance is NOT a tool of oppression and the person who asked if it was clearly had ill intentions for even asking and should be mocked

But I imagine if a critical theory scholar wrote a persuasive article arguing that in fact Dutch language construction in this instance was a tool of oppression, we would all probably change our mind and agree with them.

And yes I noticed you napping out the ethnomath question. You too WN, although you (WN) don't moralize, so I will give you the benefit of the doubt you just dont have interest in the subject.

The others napping it out is completely predictable.

Have to go now, and can't get into the weeds at this moment. For now, lets just say, "language is a tool of oppression" sounds to me like something someone who follows intersectionality would believe.

Why?

Yeah, it still sounds like you're reading the sentence in a way that I wouldn't. I don't really think it means much more than that the way we use language can contribute to the creation or maintenance of various unjust inequalities. Sometimes quite intentionally, often times less so. Who else, if not us, will decide when that is the case, or how significant of a contribution is involved?

To me, allowing for the fact that the analogy is imperfect (I think "oppression" can be read as a phenomena disconnected from a specific agent), it's not much different from saying that the automobile is a tool of the bank robber. It doesn't mean all automobiles are always being used to rob banks (that all language contributes to oppression). To repeat myself in slightly different terms, it just means there are interesting ways in which language can contribute to the creation, legitimization, and maintenance of social stratification. You could say plenty about this in the context of social class, and I expect that if one were to do so you wouldn't find it as alarming.

I've been busy and mostly skimming threads, I don't actually recall what the ethnomath question was.

Also intersectionality really isn't something you "follow". It's not a political philosophy or a movement. You tend to inflate it into something much more than it is. I think you just mean that "language is a tool of oppression" sounds like something a woke leftist would say. And intersectionality is a theory that they also appeal to as a way of explaining things. Maybe it's pedantic, but I just don't see a reason to conflate the theoretical idea with a political movement.

Yeah, disagreeing with how intersectionality is utilized is different from disagreeing with intersectionality as a concept. The former is fine and we have those discussions all the time; the latter is just lol.

One of the frustrations I've been having with our "debating" the last week or so is these kinds of sarcastic responses that at best are only tangential to the things I actually said. You aren't providing an argument, you aren't addressing the specific things I say, and you're still mainly arguing by incredulity at your own illdefined but likely bad interpretations of "tool of oppression".

It's hard to know how best to respond to this, but I'll try the following: The use of language IS inherently contextual. Take the N word. This can be said in a racist way or a non racist way and who says it an in what context makes a big difference. Obviously there is a huge history of that word where it HAS been part of extreme oppression. But saying something is contextual and societally defined is not the same as it being completely arbitrary with no rules. Just because issues of subtly doesn't make them vacuous.

Well yes, this guy came in with the whole "dutch trans people must be transphobic" nonsense. I don't need to know a word of dutch to realize this is on its face laughable.

You've also done this type of thing a few times. That is, hypothesize that we would be hypocritical given some scenario that didn't actually happen. Can you try and focus on criticisms of what I have actually said and done, not what I allegedly would do? Especially when your hypothetical is just a pure insult that we are terrible people changing our opinions at the whims of some expert. GTFO with that ****.

Honestly? I think that is probably a more interesting topic. But unpacking issues with you is so tedious (see above) that I'm going to see this issue through first before trying to launch an entirely new topic. But just as before you are implying some type of hyprocisy just right form the get go. It isn't a good look on you.

This is getting ridiculous. You've failed to give a coherent notion of what you mean by "language is a tool of oppression". You've failed to give a coherent notion of what you mean by "intersectionality". And you've failed - after repeated attempts by many people - to explain the relation you are sure exists between them.

Maybe he needs to review some Pederson tape for what to think.

I think the amount of effort it would take for me to satisfy your demands for coherence would constitute A LOT of work on my part, and would probably fail anyways. As there is literally no upside for me doing all this work, I hope you would understand why I probably won't. I already wrote a lot of my thoughts, if you find them too incoherent and are unable to piece together what I am trying to say from a 40,000 foot view that is fine. It is what it is.

Wikipedia defines intersectionality as a theory of multidemensional oppression. It seems fairly self evident to me that someone subscribing to such a framework would also subscribe to the idea that language can be (and in the specific case of English, definitely is) a tool of oppression irrespective of intent of the user. If you disagree, that is fine.

Late to this thread (and grunching) but since Peterson has taken up some significant space, I thought I would note the recent news, which is that he has serious problems with an anxiety disorder, which may explain his take on many things.

As CBC is reporting today, he has become drug dependent as a result -- in a way that has almost cost him his life.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/jorda...ssia-1.5456939