More 'bad' words

These are words that bad people very often use to attack good people or that bad people use to justify their own harmful actions.

Additional bad words:

'Inappropriate'

This word seems to really just mean being against tradition, against social norms. It doesn't have to be a bad word but usually when you ask someone why the given action is 'inappropriate' they can't actually give a reason. It's usually just that they're mindlessly following some social norm and disapprove of someone else who isn't. And, often the thing is, the 'inappropriate' person was just more questioning of social norms and found a particular norm to have no useful value thus discarded it.

This word is then used to justify disapproving of them without actually giving any coherent reason why.

'Privacy'/'Private'

Only slightly a 'bad word'. But what's the difference between privacy and secrecy? To have one's privacy is OK but to be secretive isn't. When someone uses the word privacy it's understood that you can't question them further and it's not that they're being secretive, it's just that they have the right to their privacy.
...not necessarily a bad word but certain people will often use it as an excuse to be secretive, etc.

Of course generally speaking honesty/openness is a good thing instead of secrecy/withholding.

'flip flopper'/'waffler'

This is a retarded rightwing propaganda word which attempts to make being openminded and thus able to change your mind some kind of negative. Hardly worth mentioning as it's so far gone beyond the pale.

Past words:
emotional blackmail, manipulative, stalker, troll... ?

These words can be put into the mouths of fictional villains. Also useful to remember these words as you go about your life in the real world. See the weapons of the ... bad people.

The 'bad people'. Heh, it's so obvious it's hardly worth posting an article. (But the way one forgets...) We are to an extent shaped by our language. Such common 'bad' words have been used to shape our culture, our norms. But I'm stuck with 'bad people' to describe ...? The people who cause a relatively large amount of harm. The relatively closeminded. The short termers. The indifferent. The people who more generally use force. The stupid. What term is there? "Bad people."

What of 'evil'? The word should not exist. A crude simplification which reduces our thoughts to dysfunctional anger/force.

I suppose one doesn't really want to have a specific term for such people so much because one wants to dislike the actions not the person. Of course such considerations don't hold them back in return.

I suppose I'd call them Short Termers. The Short Termers. These are a few words they're far more likely to use.

...'nutters'. This is one as anyone who dares question the basic social norms of this society (any truly good person) is in danger of being called a nutter. It is also a word that is insensitive to people who are genuinely mentally ill. But, it's perhaps mostly just a politically incorrect word as opposed to being a word that stands as part of the material of the wall which closes off meaningful examination of harmful social norms.

Or simply calling a person mentally ill.

The social norms of 'the good german,' of post-industrial living have won. Of monogamy, capitalism (including in how the proclaimed socialists act), etc. To actually really step outside does of course mean potentially being smeared as mentally ill.

The Short Termer will stoop to such an attack more often than the Long Termer. And also may genuinely believe in their opinion/not realize they're just smearing. The Short Termer is the conservative blindly following tradition. Anything different is a bizarre scary thing outside their comprehension. Thus the jump to claiming anyone who says they're causing harm is mentally ill is often not much of a jump.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090523/ap_on_re_as/as_china_suicide_help

"I pushed him off because jumpers like Chen are very selfish. Their action violates a lot of public interest," Lai was quoted as saying by Xinhua. "They do not really dare to kill themselves. Instead, they just want to raise the relevant government authorities' attention to their appeals.".....

The paper said Lai was released on bail Friday but did not give any details. It said he had been on medication for "a mental illness" for decades and had been on his way to a hospital for his pills.

I recall an episode of the Phil Donahue show from 25 years ago. Back then talk shows could still be somewhat intellectual and Phil's show was. He recently had a new show but made the mistake of somewhat questioning the Iraq War; having some people on the show who disagreed with it. His show was quickly canceled with the explanation that his ratings were bad, which was a lie.

Anyway he had an episode about suicide where he had on a lady who had been seriously depressed for many, many years and really just wanted to die. Very quickly a lady in the audience got up to ask (with a look of disgust on her face) why she hadn't just killed herself if she really wanted to die? Clearly she was just an attention seeker. Quite a few people in the audience clapped or voiced their approval.

Then I recall a guy who recently put up a link to a live cam of him killing himself to a discussion board. Most people laughed, told to him to go ahead, etc.

Then I recall linking this to another board, a board that has the word 'compassion' right in it's subtitle. Quickly multiple people come up talking about how you have to watch out for 'drama llamas', people just looking for attention, etc.

This in turn reminds me of quite a few others things, of people responding to others not hiding their pain with disgust, suspicion, etc...

I think that in order to ever truly be happy for a given moment, you have to ignore all negatives. You have to ignore your sufferings and the suffering of others. I don't think it's wrong to have moments when you do this. But i think a lot... most people spend too much time doing this? A lot of people want to ignore the negatives, the suffering way too often. And when someone else doesn't hide their own pain, they often respond with hate.

It's impossible to say to just how much of our time we should spend ignoring the negatives. I do wish that people would spend more time caring about the sufferings of others. And when they've reached the point that they respond with hate or suspicion to people not hiding their pain, they've just gone way too far.

....Beyond trying I guess to justify indifference by dismissing such behavior as "attention seeking", I've then seen a lot of people claim that the person not hiding their unhappiness is either being manipulative or commiting "emotional blackmail". Which... even if it were true I'd really rather err on the side of showing compassion and thus getting "manipulated".

...it sounds strange but I've really seen such behavior a lot. It really seems to be the majority who acts this way in my experience...

I think another concern is that there is an overriding sentiment that we're all supposed to be rugged individualists and that ultimately, just the whole way our society is set-up; the car/TV culture, we really don't have much to do with most other people and there's just not much of a clear selfish reason to be compassionate to these endless multitudes that we aren't really connected to. So most expect that everyone is supposed to hide their unhappiness and be a "rugged individualist" and when someone doesn't, people respond with disgust, because to them, this is a person who isn't properly conforming.

And in a society based on force instead of reason (which I think is largely the reality of this world) the assumption is that this apparent plea for help is a trick. They must just want attention. They're just being manipulative. They're trying to commit emotional blackmail... They should be ignored or perhaps even attacked. At best they think the proper response to any display of unhappines is: "Go see a psychiatrist." As opposed to a nondysfunctional community where the response would be other members of the community simply showing some concern, some compassion, etc.

People then argue that it's dangerous for nonprofessionals to get involved as if any display of unhappiness means deep psychological issues (hallucinations, etc? and in trying to help you might say something that's worse than nothing at all ) as opposed to the reality that this is world where we're all struggling to survive and most of us are bit isolated as compared to the manner in which mankind has lived for many thousands of years. And that most people just could use a few more friends. Although occasionally they may need quite a bit more...

...along with 'preachy' and 'polemical' I'm also suspicious of the term 'emotional blackmail'. Perhaps I just haven't been lucky enough to know anyone who did such a thing.

It does seem an incredibly ugly term to me designed to cause people to just hide whatever unhappiness they feel and stop the person in question from taking responsibility for their actions. Of course some people must really do emotional blackmail. Some people are manipulative/dishonest. So, I dunno.



...I asked someone who uses the term 'emotional blackmail' A LOT what his thoughts were, about the term potentially being used in an unfair and very harmful way. The gist of his response was to tell me that he's not a monster and that I should lighten up.

I didn't call him a monster but to even suggest some harm may be tied into an action of his apparently causes him to immediately reduce things to whether or not he's a monster. Also he did not actually address at all the point as to whether or not the term causes harm, instead dismissively telling me to lighten up.

Hmmmm.

This strikes me first off as a person who is closed to the possibility that they might be wrong. Secondly, that this is a person who prefers to be light as opposed to serious. And by 'serious' I mean a person who bothers to think about whether or not their actions are causing harm. Thirdly this is a person who responds to criticisms by inflating them into strawmen in an attempt to more easily dismiss them. "Can the term emotional blackmail be harmful?"->"I'm not a monster!"

I don't think that causing harm makes someone a monster. I do think that people who refuse to even look at the possibility that their actions might be causing harm are a tad monsterous.

But there are certainly reasons that people become closeminded. Perhaps as children when they were wrong their parents beat them. People learn that being wrong equals unhappiness and so one way to avoid being wrong is to simply refuse to face that they're wrong.

Then after decades spent never changing one's mind, if someone questions their usage of a word, it's not a matter of an action causing harm which can simply be changed, it's a matter of a part of their essential unchanging character being a thing which causes harm. Thus to even question the usage of a word equals accusing them of being a monster.

And anyone with a higher morality then their own is an emotional blackmailer.

The above may not be entirely true. But it's partially true. For a nice preachy polemic I'll have to make sure the antagonist/s use the term 'emotional blackmail'.