• phimosis__jones [he/him]
    1·
    4 years ago

    The concepts from (3) should still be explained in a way that people who didn't go to college can understand. The academy deploys a way of speaking which is designed for the reproduction of elites and not actually changing anything.

      • hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
        2·
        4 years ago

        No bigotry means throwing out people who deadname and misgender trans people. It means telling that racist or sexist to shut the fuck up and if they do it again they’re out.

        I don't think this is the best way to get otherwise well-meaning people to reconsider whatever types of bigotry they're still expressing. If they're just some chud stirring up shit, sure, bully the hell out of them. But for everyone else it's usually more effective to educate them a bit and point out a better approach. Most people don't have One True Leftist syndrome and are willing to learn. That willingness to learn will disappear, though, if instead of teaching them we lead with "shape up or fuck off."

          • hogposting [he/him,comrade/them]
            ·
            4 years ago

            There’s a difference between someone making an honest mistake or not understanding something because of the culture they grew up in and someone refusing to respect someone else’s pronouns because they “don’t get it”.

            :100-com:

            • hauntingspectre [he/him]
              ·
              4 years ago

              My most effective tool for that is the "how does it hurt you to not use someone's preferred pronouns?" approach. Because it's really hard to come up with a negative answer to that that doesn't make someone sound like an asshole.

              And people generally don't want to be thought of as an asshole.

        • KiaKaha [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          If you’re writing cover for mass movements? Run it by someone else first.

          If you’re talking to people? Don’t dumb it down. Just be open to explaining words and concepts. People like to learn. Provided you aren’t being condescending or gatekeepery, it’s not a problem. (Unless you talk like Zizek or Jameson, in which case, don’t.)

          Actually, Jameson and Fisher provide pretty good contrasting examples. Jameson came up with the idea of postmodernism as the cultural logic of capitalism (in the book of the same name), whereas Fisher built upon it with the notion of Capitalist Realism (again, in the book of the same name). Try reading both of them, and you’ll very quickly get an understanding of what accessible language does and doesn’t look like.

          • hauntingspectre [he/him]
            ·
            4 years ago

            To expand on this a touch, people can tell when you're talking down to them. The slight pauses as you search for "plainer language" are a dead giveaway. Be yourself, but also be fully prepared to answer questions about what you said.

        • Owl [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          It's okay to use academic language if you're explaining it. If you replaced "intersectionality" with "flibertygoop" everywhere in your writing, would a reader still come out of it understanding flibertygoop? Then you're fine, you've explained the thing. That's particularly important for words that have many colloquial (or even formal) meanings, like socialism or anarchy, since it might already be flibertygoop to your audience.

          It's also worth considering are how google-able the term in question is. If you start talking about intersectionality, that's a unique word and if someone trips over it they can find an answer easily. If you start talking about the absurd, you're going to want to name-drop Camus or something, since that's just a common word in English.

          Finally, not every message needs to be accessible. If you can safely assume your audience knows the thing you're talking about, just use the jargon and save some time.

        • furryanarchy [comrade/them,they/them]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Practice, exposure to people who speak in a more normal way. I have the opposite problem, I always describe stuff in plain English, and highly educated types tend to find it really funny hearing me talk about complicated academic subjects in a way they are not used to.

          To make myself stand out less and be taken more seriously by these kinds of people, I practice explaining things in my head when I'm doing boring stuff like cleaning around the house. Like, just pick a subject and start lecturing about it. Even if it's a little incoherent and badly structured, it's practice.