On Evil Euphemisms

howdydave · Jul 31, 2009

Thanks for bringing this thread back, I'd never seen it before.

I just went all the way through it to see if one from "Uncle Siggy" (Freud) was listed yet.

Namely "the Id" (as in: superego/ego/id.)

Would that be "the old Adam" or "man's alienation from God" or what?

rusmeister · Jul 31, 2009

I think a lot of modern psychology actually just replaces the ancient institutions of friends and priests - both of which are much more likely to tell you that some things are actually wrong. So yeah, I'd bet a lot of psychological terms work euphemistically.

Chesterton · Jul 31, 2009

Yes, I think a large part of psychology is finding complex, new ways to describe very old problems we all already know about.

The military is also very creative with language. I hear that "a portable hand-held graphite-based communications implement with organic revision capability" is what they call a pencil.

Gwendolyn · Jul 31, 2009

Chesterton said:
Yes, I think a large part of psychology is finding complex, new ways to describe very old problems we all already know about.

The military is also very creative with language. I hear that "a portable hand-held graphite-based communications implement with organic revision capability" is what they call a pencil.

LOL!

You're amusing.

HandmaidenOfGod · Jul 31, 2009

rusmeister said:
I think a lot of modern psychology actually just replaces the ancient institutions of friends and priests - both of which are much more likely to tell you that some things are actually wrong. So yeah, I'd bet a lot of psychological terms work euphemistically.

While I agree with you, I do believe there is a true need for Psychologists and Psychiatrists. Even Orthodox priests agree with this. Mental illnesses such as bi-polar disorder, or clinical depression are biological in nature, and need the correct medications and therapies to treat them. (I have even had my SF direct me to go to see my MD for an anti-depressant.)

Like everything else in life, the Church should be involved, and one should consult with their Spiritual Father while working with a Psychologist and/or Psychiatrist.

Gwendolyn · Jul 31, 2009

HandmaidenOfGod said:
Like everything else in life, the Church should be involved, and one should consult with their Spiritual Father while working with a Psychologist and/or Psychiatrist.

I agree wholeheartedly, especially because many psychologists/psychiatrists these days are wont to give counsel that runs contrary to one's faith. I stay close to my spiritual father (Catholic) because my depression/anxiety is as much a spiritual struggle as it is a physiological one. I can't tell you how many times a therapist/psychiatrist has told me that in order to lighten up, I should engage in sexual immorality.

I wish I were joking. =/

rusmeister · Sep 27, 2009

This one almost doesn't qualify, but I think it does:
(hyphenated) American
My single biggest objection is to the recent invention "Native American" - for the simple reason that it denies me any sort of country to be native to. It says that I, a white descendant of multiple generations living in America, am STILL an immigrant in my own country. I refuse to use it or teach it to my children or pupils, except to discuss what people mean by it and its intrinsic meaning. I am a native American, for crying out loud! (If you must reject tradition - a bad idea in general - never mind that all names are misnomers, in a very real sense - then 'even a term like 'First Americans' would be more tolerable than what has been artificially foisted on us over the last 40 years.

Most of the other hyphenations, most notably "African American" and "Asian American" are also intended to confuse one's ethnic ancestry with one's cultural identity - and the test is the lack of such a hyphenation for those of European ancestry (often 5 or more generations removed) - does anyone here really claim to be a "European-American"? (I can hear the snickers from actual Europeans over this one.) Such terms are really only applicable if one is truly bi-cultural as well of a given ethnic ancestry; ie, if you really have lived in Africa or Asia as well as America and speak Swahili or Afrikaans or Cantonese or whatever as well as English. The practical purpose is to ensure division in one's identity. We are not united as Americans if we are divided as "African, or Asian, or 'Native' Americans" - or white Americans - the other proof that such terminology confuses skin color with culture and denies a common identity. (Notice the parallel with the divisions of Orthodoxy in America, by the way.)

If you were born and raised in the US, know no other language than English, and we can talk about Paul Bunyan, Bugs Bunny or baseball, you're an American, with no hyphens, in my book.

Julina · Sep 27, 2009

rusmeister said:
This one almost doesn't qualify, but I think it does:
(hyphenated) American
My single biggest objection is to the recent invention "Native American" - for the simple reason that it denies me any sort of country to be native to. It says that I, a white descendant of multiple generations living in America, am STILL an immigrant in my own country. I refuse to use it or teach it to my children or pupils, except to discuss what people mean by it and its intrinsic meaning. I am a native American, for crying out loud! (If you must reject tradition - a bad idea in general - never mind that all names are misnomers, in a very real sense - then 'even a term like 'First Americans' would be more tolerable than what has been artificially foisted on us over the last 40 years.

Most of the other hyphenations, most notably "African American" and "Asian American" are also intended to confuse one's ethnic ancestry with one's cultural identity - and the test is the lack of such a hyphenation for those of European ancestry (often 5 or more generations removed) - does anyone here really claim to be a "European-American"? (I can hear the snickers from actual Europeans over this one.) Such terms are really only applicable if one is truly bi-cultural as well of a given ethnic ancestry; ie, if you really have lived in Africa or Asia as well as America and speak Swahili or Afrikaans or Cantonese or whatever as well as English. The practical purpose is to ensure division in one's identity. We are not united as Americans if we are divided as "African, or Asian, or 'Native' Americans" - or white Americans - the other proof that such terminology confuses skin color with culture and denies a common identity. (Notice the parallel with the divisions of Orthodoxy in America, by the way.)

If you were born and raised in the US, know no other language than English, and we can talk about Paul Bunyan, Bugs Bunny or baseball, you're an American, with no hyphens, in my book.

i think i learned that "Native American" was more appropriate than saying "Indian"

Blackknight · Sep 27, 2009

i think i learned that "Native American" was more appropriate than saying "Indian"

More accurate as well, they are NOT Indians.

MariaRegina · Sep 27, 2009

However, people from Mexico and Canada are also Americans in that they come from the same continent.

If the politicians get their way and have a North American Union, similar to the godless European Nation, then all of us will be called Americans.

I wanna move before that time. Come Lord Jesus.

MariaRegina · Sep 27, 2009

Gwendolyn said:
I agree wholeheartedly, especially because many psychologists/psychiatrists these days are wont to give counsel that runs contrary to one's faith. I stay close to my spiritual father (Catholic) because my depression/anxiety is as much a spiritual struggle as it is a physiological one. I can't tell you how many times a therapist/psychiatrist has told me that in order to lighten up, I should engage in sexual immorality.

I wish I were joking. =/

Why am I not surprised.

I have heard that a lot of Christian psychologists are divorcing themselves from Freud due to his unscientific study of prison populations and the erroneous generalizations he made from those studies.

rusmeister · Sep 27, 2009

Julina said:
i think i learned that "Native American" was more appropriate than saying "Indian"

Yes, this is one of my points. That you were TAUGHT to say this - in a very recent past. What did your grandparents call them?

Blackknight said:
More accurate as well, they are NOT Indians.

In one sense, it IS accurate - but only in the same sense that the term is accurate about me. They are NOT from India. However, as I said, all such names are misnomers. 'America' itself is a misnomer. The important fact is that the name was established, right or wrong, 500 years ago, and was used continuously by our ancestors until exactly one generation ago, at which time a change came about - not naturally, not through normal change in usage among the people over time, but through being imposed by government education and perpetuated by the mass media.

This is how all modern language subverts everything our ancestors believed in. This artificial method of imposing the view of a minority on a majority.

The danger is that the world may fall under a new oligarchy -- the oligarchy of prigs. And if anyone should promptly ask (in the manner of the debating clubs) for the definition of a prig, I can only reply that a prig is an oligarch who does not even know he is an oligarch. A circle of small pedants sit on an upper platform, and pass unanimously (in a meeting of none) that there is no difference between the social duties of men and of women, the social instruction of men or of children. Below them boils that multitudinous sea of millions that think differently, that have always thought differently, that will always think differently. In spite of the overwhelming majority that maintains the old theory of life, I am in some real doubt about which will win. Owing to the decay of theology and all the other clear systems of thought, men have been thrown back very much upon their instincts, as with animals. As with animals, their instincts are right; but, as with animals, they can be cowed. Between the agile scholars and the stagnant mob, I am really doubtful about which will be triumphant. I have no doubt at all about which ought to be.

What is Right With the World

This (public education and media) is how the children can be taught to believe the diametric opposite of their parents today, this is how 'gay marriage' gets popular acceptance, and it is how the idea that America has no culture of its own; that it remains a purely immigrant culture - that, because its former native culture (in itself one held to have come across the Bering Straits from Asia) was eradicated by the sins of our ancestors, that it has no ability or possibility of establishing a new native culture - even though it did. (We conveniently forget other cultures eradicated by invaders in countries around the world, and we call the peoples dominant there now native to their own lands. But we have this curious idea that we should deny a native status to the English speaking people that initially colonized what became our country 400 years ago. How much time should pass before anything may be called "native"?

rusmeister · Sep 27, 2009

MariaRegina said:
However, people from Mexico and Canada are also Americans in that they come from the same continent.

If the politicians get their way and have a North American Union, similar to the godless European Nation, then all of us will be called Americans.

I think you are right in that we have expanded the idea of 'American citizen' to mean holding a passport even though you share nothing in terms of language or culture of America; however, the idea I am pointing to is that of the fostered diversity within the supposed unity - of the imposing of 'hypenated-American' terms and even attitudes, so that we should treat as absolutely normal the fact the the people we live among are completely different from us - we are supposed to 'celebrate' this diversity, and be 'proud' of it, when in fact, it is the very opposite of the spirit of 'e pluribus unum'. So we will all be American citizens, but with the emphasis on that which divides us - and the divisions are to be encouraged.

MariaRegina · Sep 27, 2009

We do celebrate the diversity of God's creation at Divine Liturgies. People from every race are honored as Saints -- as Witnesses that surround us.

Today at the Divine Liturgy, we honored the saints for the day and they come from diverse lands and cultures, but we are united in Christ.

Blackknight · Sep 28, 2009

Our ancestors also thought that Africans weren't fully human and that Women should stay in the kitchen. I would much rather replace the bigoted, racist terms with something more accurate.

The United States is a very diverse nation but we are still one nation. I like to celebrate our diversity as it helps us remember where we came from and boiling things down into a single mono-culture would simply be boring.

rusmeister · Sep 28, 2009

MariaRegina said:
We do celebrate the diversity of God's creation at Divine Liturgies. People from every race are honored as Saints -- as Witnesses that surround us.

Today at the Divine Liturgy, we honored the saints for the day and they come from diverse lands and cultures, but we are united in Christ.

This is true, M-R, but I'm not talking about the Church. I'm talking about our nation - America. I am speaking to something which OPPOSES unity and encourages division

Blackknight said:
Our ancestors also thought that Africans weren't fully human and that Women should stay in the kitchen. I would much rather replace the bigoted, racist terms with something more accurate.

The United States is a very diverse nation but we are still one nation. I like to celebrate our diversity as it helps us remember where we came from and boiling things down into a single mono-culture would simply be boring.

I wonder if you have read any GK Chesterton, Blackknight? It is very difficult for me to respond to your statements right now because they are based on a view of history that is essentially untrue, but is taught to everyone in public schools - and in many private schools as well. I strongly recommend "What's Wrong With the World" (free online) for a Christian reconsidering of the history you were taught, which must be completely reviewed. It would be much more effective to read someone ten times smarter than both of us combined - who is also funny and humble - rather than to go back and forth based merely on the limitations of our own knowledge.

MariaRegina · Sep 28, 2009

rusmeister said:
This is true, M-R, but I'm not talking about the Church. I'm talking about our nation - America. I am speaking to something which OPPOSES unity and encourages division.

United we stand; divided we fall.

If we celebrate our diversity and respect our different cultures and languages, then that is good. This is what we do in pan-Orthodox Holy Services. This is the Lord's doing!

However, if we use our different languages and cultures to fight each other, then that is truly sad. In several classes I took in college, the texts clearly had an anti-white and anti-Christian bias. No one really liked those diversity classes as they caused division and did not mitigate the friction but enhanced it. One of the classes was called "intercultural communications" which was an oxymoron because the purpose of these classes did not teach us to communicate but actually caused friction as the authors and professors revealed cultural superiority attitudes. That was very unfortunate.

However, every class or seminar that I have taken in diversity or sensitivity training has had this flawed purpose and so the classes backfired. Yet, in my university, we were required to take at least four of these so-called diversity classes in order to graduate (one per year). (And then they wonder why college graduates cannot write.)

I wonder if you have read any GK Chesterton, Blackknight? It is very difficult for me to respond to your statements right now because they are based on a view of history that is essentially untrue, but is taught to everyone in public schools - and in many private schools as well. I strongly recommend "What's Wrong With the World" (free online) for a Christian reconsidering of the history you were taught, which must be completely reviewed. It would be much more effective to read someone ten times smarter than both of us combined - who is also funny and humble - rather than to go back and forth based merely on the limitations of our own knowledge.

MariaRegina · Sep 29, 2009

Here is a rather newly coined euphemism from the NY Times (9/29-09):

Advocates on both sides said that if the committee does not adopt the amendment they expect a very close contest over the issue when the bill reaches the floor. Two Democratic abortion-rights opponents,

So, a pro-life advocate is now an "abortion-rights opponent."

At least they are not calling us "pro-choice opponents."

For the complete article, click here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/health/policy/29abortion.html?th&emc=th

Protoevangel · Sep 29, 2009

Yea, for it to really be accurate, it would have to call us murder opponents.

MariaRegina · Sep 29, 2009

Correct, they would never dare to call us baby-killer opponents.

If abortion is a euphemism for deliberately killing an unborn child.

Then, abortion-rights opponent is also a euphemism.

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