this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
55 points (100.0% liked)
World News
22057 readers
74 users here now
Breaking news from around the world.
News that is American but has an international facet may also be posted here.
Guidelines for submissions:
- Where possible, post the original source of information.
- If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
- Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
- Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
- Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
- Social media should be a source of last resort.
These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.
For US News, see the US News community.
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
That’s not an answer to the question.
Interesting that you use the idea that English is a living language to push back against people using a term in a way you’ve decided is incorrect. Seems like you don’t think English is that alive after all if you refuse to incorporate all Semitic people into the concept of antisemitism.
You can’t cite descriptivist arguments to defend your prescriptivist attitude towards the term antisemitism. It betrays your own bias and deflates your argument.
Language evolves, just like you said. Which is why people are realizing the double speak nature of this idea that antisemitism is only when you’re prejudiced against a specific Semitic people group and the others don’t get a term to describe prejudice against them. Your position is an Orwellian attempt to deny a group of people the ability to specifically identify their oppression and it’s sad.
You can argue about it all you like, but if you say the word "antisemitism" then people will assume you mean anti-Jewish sentiment. Because that's the agreed-upon meaning. Pineapples aren't really apples, but that doesn't cause confusion because people know what the word "pineapple" means.
Like you said, language evolves. People are deciding that the definition you follow is very limited and constrains dialogue by being needlessly exclusionary. So they’re seeking to expand the definition to its logical conclusion.
You can throw a fit about other Semitic people being recognized or you can accept that language changes to fit our current understanding of the world.
Antisemitism still refers to prejudice against Jewish people. It’s also being extended to all Semitic people as to disallow them the ability to categorize prejudice against them is to obfuscate and to an extent even deny their own reality.