[PEN-L:33431] Re: Re: Too much PC

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Doyle Saylor wrote:
>
> 'crazy' or 'nut' issues
>

I've been thinking about this for quite awhile, and I think that you are
perhaps approaching it from the wrong end. I of course sympathize with
your goal. I have friends who are, really, driven crazy by the word
_crazy_: it's a cruel word, and is very often used quite deliberately to
hurt people (especially spouses) who suffer from mental illness.

Now often it is possible to fight the history of language. It was
possible to fight that history in respect to the generic use of the male
pronoun. (There are still battles to be fought here even, but the war
has been won.) But sometimes it isn't possible to win a war against that
history. It is quite hopeless to fight against the use of terms such as
"crazy," "nuts," "loony tunes," even "lunacy" and "lunatic," to apply to
intellectual, social, or political characteristics. But your (and my)
goal can still be achieved. We must attack the use of any of these terms
to apply to people who actually suffer from mental illness. "Crazy," as
applied to someone suffering from mental illness, must be made as
obscene a term as "nigger." We can continue to use it in its (more or
less dead) metaphorical sensesd, but _not_ in its original literal
sense. I really think that physical violence would be an appropriate
response to some one who applied the word "crazy" to a sufferer from
schizophrenia. (Only if you could get away with it of course.) I haven't
looked "crazy" up -- it's very possible that it's original sense had no
reference to mental illness.

And so on.

Carrol