On Evil Euphemisms

[rusmeister]

maybe not an 'evil' euphemism (though it may become so in its usage); but I have never been content with the term 'community', when referring to a demographic.

It suggests that such members of a 'community' are in close contact with one another, care and support one another. I suppose it comes from marxist conflict theory; a community is a group of persons [who identify, or are identifed as marginalised] who hold solidarity to a cause and will express representation in the public sphere.

Again, I feel this is a subtle euphemism.

Yes, that is part of the general falsification of language, that everything shall be called what it is not, or the meaning of a word twisted far from the original understanding.
I think you are right that it IS euphemistic in the sense that it takes people united only by a characteristic or ideology, and implies a greater sense of unity - that of the community as people who actually live together, in the same local geographical sphere - than actually exists. Thus we could speak of a "science fiction community", a "barber community", or "cleft lip community", to show the absurdity of speaking of "the black community", "the deaf community", etc., as they actually do. It makes them sound more unified than they actually are, most often for political purposes.

 

[Dewi Sant]

thanks rusmeister, you expressed what I was trying to say in better words.

Of course, speaking as a member of the ginger community with intersection of both the Orthodox and British coffee drinking community....

It all lends a certain fragmentation of society with an arrogance of the self, causing one to wonder what rights should be given to each characteristic vs the perceived hegemonic standard.

To be ginger is to be in a minority where most persons are various shades of brown hair; also it means I can't be outside when the UV factor is high (without buying and applying high factor sun block)...oh the injustice! During summer I do feel the victim of tan privilege .

I am also a late chronotype (I naturally stay awake late and awaken later than average); I have thought about claiming this as a lack of representation in the workplace. Early and 'normal' chronotypes have life long advantage from being alert at school and being able to work from 9am. Where is 'my' compensation!

It all returns to individualism and talking points.
Maybe we should get scouts style badges and wear our communities on our sleeve, or even a sash.
Wait, that ended badly in mid-twentieth century Europe!

 

[Chesterton]

maybe not an 'evil' euphemism (though it may become so in its usage); but I have never been content with the term 'community', when referring to a demographic.

It suggests that such members of a 'community' are in close contact with one another, care and support one another. I suppose it comes from marxist conflict theory; a community is a group of persons [who identify, or are identifed as marginalised] who hold solidarity to a cause and will express representation in the public sphere.

Again, I feel this is a subtle euphemism.

Excellent post. We hear the words "the gay community" or "the homosexual community" all the time. The comedian Norm MacDonald used to joke that "Y'know, I've never been to the gay community. I wonder, does it have nice landscaping? Good schools?"

I never was one of them, but in my younger, more profligate days, for let's say artistic reasons I sometimes needed to associate with them. That particular "community" is anything but - they willingly divide themselves up into dozens of factions, indicated by slang terms for each other, which I can't detail here in the interest of good taste, and they all hate each other.

 

[Dewi Sant]

Excellent post. We hear the words "the gay community" or "the homosexual community" all the time. The comedian Norm MacDonald used to joke that "Y'know, I've never been to the gay community. I wonder, does it have nice landscaping? Good schools?"

I never was one of them, but in my younger, more profligate days, for let's say artistic reasons I sometimes needed to associate with them. That particular "community" is anything but - they willingly divide themselves up into dozens of factions, indicated by slang terms for each other, which I can't detail here in the interest of good taste, and they all hate each other.

I agree. The only thing LGBTQIA+ have in common is a perception that they are disadvantaged in society.
LGB - at least these are sexualities
T - that's a medical and psychological concern
Q - a general umbrella term, a harsh slur for all but the most recent generation
I - incredibly rare, I trust such persons are made aware of appropriate channels for treatment by their parents, medical advisors etc.
A - surely this is most peoples' experience the majority of the time. We can't always be looking to mate (or am I oddly sheltered?)

The community is fracturing as the groups fracture the 'community'. The progress flag is indicative of this. The rainbow was meant to be all-encompassing, now it is just for "The Gays™".

I experienced homosexual attraction whilst at university, and it always seemed amusing how distant the stereotypes were to reality.
The 'Gay Lifestyle'...ah, if only it were so glamorous. All I experienced was intense loneliness; maybe I wasn't doing it right. From what I saw, loneliness is endemic in the 'community'; made all the worse with hook-up culture. People feel empty and seek escape from the loneliness.

 

[rusmeister]

I agree. The only thing LGBTQIA+ have in common is a perception that they are disadvantaged in society.
LGB - at least these are sexualities
T - that's a medical and psychological concern
Q - a general umbrella term, a harsh slur for all but the most recent generation
I - incredibly rare, I trust such persons are made aware of appropriate channels for treatment by their parents, medical advisors etc.
A - surely this is most peoples' experience the majority of the time. We can't always be looking to mate (or am I oddly sheltered?)

The community is fracturing as the groups fracture the 'community'. The progress flag is indicative of this. The rainbow was meant to be all-encompassing, now it is just for "The Gays™".

I experienced homosexual attraction whilst at university, and it always seemed amusing how distant the stereotypes were to reality.
The 'Gay Lifestyle'...ah, if only it were so glamorous. All I experienced was intense loneliness; maybe I wasn't doing it right. From what I saw, loneliness is endemic in the 'community'; made all the worse with hook-up culture. People feel empty and seek escape from the loneliness.

I don't think your characterizations here are accurate. That's important, because it is precisely these misunderstandings we have today that enable the proliferation of this alphabet soup.

There is not a multiplicity of sexualities. "Male and female created He them". There IS a multiplicity of sexual passions. There is only one right ordering of sexual passion; all others are wrong. Period.

The fundamental problem is ultimately neither medical nor psychological, but spiritual. The entire creation of the modern language is man's attempt to deny that. The word "homosexual" itself was coined in 1892 to characterize the passion as a medical, rather than spiritual problem. "Psychology" is an invention of the 20th century. A complex mixture of truth and false assumptions about human nature, one of its effects is to refer people to "specialists", rather than either their peers (friends) or a priest. But in all events, passions are a spiritual issue, and any physical causes or confusion of thought are at most only contributory.

I never experienced the same-sex passion of lust; my passions took a different (and also destructive) form. But your last sentence, which I highlighted, is a common factor, and I think it always is so.

Sexual "orientation" is a modern lie, treating all desires as equally good or valid. That is the philosophical meaning of the expression, whatever caveats a person attempts to add to it. Thus, all modern thought goes wrong, one reason why psychology winds up being useless. But yes, the result IS division and fracturing, and men can no longer look at other men and assume that they have no perverted sexual desire towards them, the sexualization of all relationships - and paradoxically, even a false and silly assumption that a woman would be "safe" with such a man with that bent passion (I LOVE Lewis's adjective "bent" here, as an English form of the Latin "perverted") because he "doesn't desire women".

 

[Dewi Sant]

Yes I should have said sexual passions, you’re quite right.

again, here we see how language is used to obfuscate truth. ‘Sex’ has gone from meaning one objective thing to being euphemistic of a whole flurry of debates, further hindered with its conflation with the modernist idea of ‘gender’. Something which till only recently meant a grammatical usage in my understanding.

Not since the LGB movement can persons of the same sex have meaningful relationships. It is automatically assumed they are either already fornicating or intend/ought to.
Speaking personally, my homosexuality never desired sexual intercourse but rather close companionship as a cure to loneliness. I suspect the same of a great many other self identifying ‘gay’ men. Here is the disconnect with the stereotype of the lifestyle.

As modernity further isolates us through the closure of public and social spaces (churches, public transport, well planned urban spaces…hastened through government lockdowns [covid]), the appeal of the ‘community’ through social media is attractive.

As an antidote to the appropriation of community by modernity, I find huge help through reading Stâniloae and Zizioulas regarding the church as communion.

 

[rusmeister]

I do encourage people to read the original article in the OP; it is entertaining and as I said, it really opened my eyes to the phenomenon.

ON EVIL EUPHEMISMS

It's even interesting to learn that people made up a fake term a hundred years ago to try to get cohabitation without marriage socially accepted - and the effort failed - absolutely nobody uses "companionate marriage" today. But "birth control" DID survive and is with us now.