Use, mention and controversial language

One of the fundamentals of philosophy is skills development in conceptual clarity.

Seeing conceptual distinctions is an important part of understanding why two people might think differently on some matter.  And articulating these distinctions clearly and fairly can often hugely help decide on which thought is the more reasonable.

Sadly, in the past few years public discussions regarding controversial language, such as racial slurs, has become, while well-meaning, nonetheless often clumsy.  And sadly it's often young students who are especially likely to be poorly skilled in this.  (Schools need to work harder at teaching critical thinking skills.)

Gerald Dworkin's recent article is a nicely-written corrective.  It's a good example of conceptual clarity exposing key issues and distinctions, to aid decision-making.

To put it bluntly, it's about the N-word.

It's also about other words that sound like the N-word, such as "niggardly" or "那个 (nàge)".  (Apparently, last year some students complained when a professor mentioned the Chinese word "那个" in class, stating that it sounded too much like the N-word.)

(Note: Dworkin writes the Chinese word as "nega", which I understand is simply wrong spelling; the other article linked above writes it as "nèige", which I understand is a correct alternative Pinyin phonetic Romanisation, reflecting the changing pronunciation of some Chinese speakers.)

Dworkins starts with an important conceptual distinction that all philosophy students quickly learn -- the difference between using a word and mentioning it:

Consider the two statements 1) Bachelors are unmarried men and 2) Bachelors has 9 letters.  The first is true. The second  is both ungrammatical and nonsense. But 3) “Bachelors” has nine letters is a true statement.  The difference is that in the first statement we are using the word to make a claim about people who are called by a certain term.  In the third  we are making a claim about the word rather than the people.

If public discourse can start by recognising this distinction, then we have made progress.  Dworkin's other points are well-made, too.

My own sense of it is that to avoid potentially ruffling feathers, I'll avoid directly mentioning the N-word here (I'd never use it!).  Even though barely anyone reads my blog, it is still being openly broadcast to the world.

However, with some private students who I know well, I have directly mentioned the N-word in contextually appropriate teaching settings.

(I think it clear that it is permissible to both mention and use words that sound similar to the N-word, such as "niggardly" and "那个" (unless the words are mentioned specifically to cause offence).  The students who called for the dismissal of the professor got it badly wrong.)

There's a delicate balance to be had between getting it right and avoiding troubling others.  But hopefully drawing attention to articles like Dworkin's will go some small way to reducing the misplaced feeling of offence some people currently have when they over-react without nuance.  Hopefully public opinion will change and realise that occasionally it is permissible to mention the N-word.