Professor fired for quoting from Mark Twain

[Mobius]

The professor could had made her point using other words and avoided the whole thing. Don't be a martyr if you're an adjunct. No one will care.

[mahagonny]

The professor could had made her point using other words and avoided the whole thing. Don't be a martyr if you're an adjunct. No one will care.

Why isn't the publisher responsible then? The words are still there to be read. The opportunity to get upset is still being toyed with.

'You can look for it, but if you find it, you'd better not tell anyone.' - Pat Paulsen

[apl68]

The post I first say listed Fischthal as a "supplement professor," which is a term I don't know. Does that mean she was an adjunct or PTF?

One of my first years at my current institution, I taught Huck Finn. To preface that, I showed students this 60 Minutes segment on the novel and an Alabama publisher who issued an edition of the novel with the n-word replaced with "slave." At the time, I figured it might be controversial with some students, but I didn't think other departmental faculty would. My new-faculty mentor explained that some faculty, especially in the English department, strongly discouraged the use of white instructors actually saying the n-word when reading from the novel. As in, "don't." I said the word in the context of the novel, and there didn't seem to be too much problem at my predominately white institution. That said, I wonder if I'd have to change my approach now, if I taught that novel again.

I've been getting the impression that "slave" is now considered problematic.

[dismalist]

The post I first say listed Fischthal as a "supplement professor," which is a term I don't know. Does that mean she was an adjunct or PTF?

One of my first years at my current institution, I taught Huck Finn. To preface that, I showed students this 60 Minutes segment on the novel and an Alabama publisher who issued an edition of the novel with the n-word replaced with "slave." At the time, I figured it might be controversial with some students, but I didn't think other departmental faculty would. My new-faculty mentor explained that some faculty, especially in the English department, strongly discouraged the use of white instructors actually saying the n-word when reading from the novel. As in, "don't." I said the word in the context of the novel, and there didn't seem to be too much problem at my predominately white institution. That said, I wonder if I'd have to change my approach now, if I taught that novel again.

I've been getting the impression that "slave" is now considered problematic.

How about Slav?

[mamselle]

Yes, "enslaved person" is more humanizing than a word that objectifies the individual by describing them only in terms of their condition of servitude.

M.

[mahagonny]

No more dehumanizing terms? Seriously? Well then:
Adjunct person hired as adjunct faculty.

Dynamic - It's not about the validity of the claim that one might be offended. It's about the ability of the 'offended' to make trouble for others.

ETA: Before someone gets all excited about a 'thread hijack' remember: while adjunct faculty employment is not slavery, it is an entrenched practice today; whereas, slavery has been abolished for many decades. At least in the USA. I guess, not so in some parts of Western Africa.
Everything is upside down. How we claim to care about people equally.

[marshwiggle]

The post I first say listed Fischthal as a "supplement professor," which is a term I don't know. Does that mean she was an adjunct or PTF?

One of my first years at my current institution, I taught Huck Finn. To preface that, I showed students this 60 Minutes segment on the novel and an Alabama publisher who issued an edition of the novel with the n-word replaced with "slave." At the time, I figured it might be controversial with some students, but I didn't think other departmental faculty would. My new-faculty mentor explained that some faculty, especially in the English department, strongly discouraged the use of white instructors actually saying the n-word when reading from the novel. As in, "don't." I said the word in the context of the novel, and there didn't seem to be too much problem at my predominately white institution. That said, I wonder if I'd have to change my approach now, if I taught that novel again.

I've been getting the impression that "slave" is now considered problematic.

I remember hearing a few years back that in computer systems "master-slave" architectures are problematic. The suggestion is to use "client-server" instead. (This despite the fact that the meaning is quite different, and so often highly confusing.)

Seriously, chattel slavery was a very bad thing. Whatever the language, it doesn't (and shouldn't) change that fact. Is it really some sort of improvement if alternate language makes people less upset when thinking about it?

[mamselle]

There have been conversations in Python and Linux, among others, about that since the early 2000s.

This is a thread that started in 2018 in the Python community:

   https://bugs.python.org/issue34605

M.

[ergative]

The post I first say listed Fischthal as a "supplement professor," which is a term I don't know. Does that mean she was an adjunct or PTF?

One of my first years at my current institution, I taught Huck Finn. To preface that, I showed students this 60 Minutes segment on the novel and an Alabama publisher who issued an edition of the novel with the n-word replaced with "slave." At the time, I figured it might be controversial with some students, but I didn't think other departmental faculty would. My new-faculty mentor explained that some faculty, especially in the English department, strongly discouraged the use of white instructors actually saying the n-word when reading from the novel. As in, "don't." I said the word in the context of the novel, and there didn't seem to be too much problem at my predominately white institution. That said, I wonder if I'd have to change my approach now, if I taught that novel again.

I've been getting the impression that "slave" is now considered problematic.

I remember hearing a few years back that in computer systems "master-slave" architectures are problematic. The suggestion is to use "client-server" instead. (This despite the fact that the meaning is quite different, and so often highly confusing.)

Seriously, chattel slavery was a very bad thing. Whatever the language, it doesn't (and shouldn't) change that fact. Is it really some sort of improvement if alternate language makes people less upset when thinking about it?

I'm not fully sure I understand your point, but I think you're suggesting that, regardless of systems architecture jargon, chattel slavery was bad, and that badness won't be changed by avoiding language like master/slave. Implication: There's no advantage in changing master/slave to client/server, because it's less accurate, and won't fix the badness of slavery.

What comes next is a response to this paraphrase above, so if I've got your point wrong, please clarify what you meant instead. I don't want us to be talking at cross purposes.

I feel like chattel slavery is so distant and oldy-timey to most Americans that people forget how bad it was, or perhaps never fully understood how bad it was in the first place. This is why terms like master/slave came into use: the power relations in the metaphorical source domain were convenient, and they didn't really understand that human rights atrocities were inextricably linked to that metaphor. But let's do a thought experiment with a different metaphorical domain: Would you feel the same if instead of master/slave architecture the terms were rapist/woman? or pedophile/child? Leave aside whether the terms are accurate, and just focus on the source domain in the metaphor.

Using sex crime metaphors is not any more extreme than the master/slave metaphor. Indeed, actual master/slave relations encompassed rape and pedophilia along with the other atrocities. But since we have a modern-day cringe with terms like 'rapist', we can see more clearly how certain metaphorical source domains are in appallingly bad taste. And master/slave is one of those domains. You say that the language of systems architecture shouldn't change how bad slavery was. And maybe it won't--but it certainly trivializes it in the minds of people who use language.

Many people who hold conservative values about language are quick to criticize cursing, saying that it shows much more facility with language and expression to express your thoughts without drawing on four-letter words. Perhaps that same attitude might be useful in redefining IT subsystems architecture jargon. Would dom/sub be a better metaphor than server/client?

[financeguy]

This story reminds me of the refusal of Yale University Press to publish images of Mohamed in a text related to the controversy surrounding such depictions. At some point trust in scholarship in general is reduced when one must assume that it has been anesthetized by giving anyone who is offended veto power. 

[marshwiggle]

I remember hearing a few years back that in computer systems "master-slave" architectures are problematic. The suggestion is to use "client-server" instead. (This despite the fact that the meaning is quite different, and so often highly confusing.)

Seriously, chattel slavery was a very bad thing. Whatever the language, it doesn't (and shouldn't) change that fact. Is it really some sort of improvement if alternate language makes people less upset when thinking about it?

I'm not fully sure I understand your point, but I think you're suggesting that, regardless of systems architecture jargon, chattel slavery was bad, and that badness won't be changed by avoiding language like master/slave. Implication: There's no advantage in changing master/slave to client/server, because it's less accurate, and won't fix the badness of slavery.

What comes next is a response to this paraphrase above, so if I've got your point wrong, please clarify what you meant instead. I don't want us to be talking at cross purposes.

I feel like chattel slavery is so distant and oldy-timey to most Americans that people forget how bad it was, or perhaps never fully understood how bad it was in the first place. This is why terms like master/slave came into use: the power relations in the metaphorical source domain were convenient, and they didn't really understand that human rights atrocities were inextricably linked to that metaphor. But let's do a thought experiment with a different metaphorical domain: Would you feel the same if instead of master/slave architecture the terms were rapist/woman? or pedophile/child? Leave aside whether the terms are accurate, and just focus on the source domain in the metaphor.

Slavery was (and is) practised in numerous cultures all through history, all over the world. People still write speculative/science fiction which includes it. And we talk of "mastery" of subject matter, and we even grant "Master's" degrees. Experts in their fields give "master classes" and so on. If people are unsettled by the use of the term "slave", should we be equally diligent in avoiding the term "master"? (Note that in the examples above, the "triggering" term is the term for the perpetrator, not the term for the victim.)

[ergative]

I remember hearing a few years back that in computer systems "master-slave" architectures are problematic. The suggestion is to use "client-server" instead. (This despite the fact that the meaning is quite different, and so often highly confusing.)

Seriously, chattel slavery was a very bad thing. Whatever the language, it doesn't (and shouldn't) change that fact. Is it really some sort of improvement if alternate language makes people less upset when thinking about it?

I'm not fully sure I understand your point, but I think you're suggesting that, regardless of systems architecture jargon, chattel slavery was bad, and that badness won't be changed by avoiding language like master/slave. Implication: There's no advantage in changing master/slave to client/server, because it's less accurate, and won't fix the badness of slavery.

What comes next is a response to this paraphrase above, so if I've got your point wrong, please clarify what you meant instead. I don't want us to be talking at cross purposes.

I feel like chattel slavery is so distant and oldy-timey to most Americans that people forget how bad it was, or perhaps never fully understood how bad it was in the first place. This is why terms like master/slave came into use: the power relations in the metaphorical source domain were convenient, and they didn't really understand that human rights atrocities were inextricably linked to that metaphor. But let's do a thought experiment with a different metaphorical domain: Would you feel the same if instead of master/slave architecture the terms were rapist/woman? or pedophile/child? Leave aside whether the terms are accurate, and just focus on the source domain in the metaphor.

Slavery was (and is) practised in numerous cultures all through history, all over the world. People still write speculative/science fiction which includes it. And we talk of "mastery" of subject matter, and we even grant "Master's" degrees. Experts in their fields give "master classes" and so on. If people are unsettled by the use of the term "slave", should we be equally diligent in avoiding the term "master"?

(Note that in the examples above, the "triggering" term is the term for the perpetrator, not the term for the victim.)

Interesting observation re: perpetrater/victim. I'm not entirely sure that it matters how the problematic term is aligned. I suspect it's just a question of which term contains the morphological root naming the crime: hence slave/rapist/pedophile being objectionable terms. Only when those terms are used is the metaphorical source domain explicitly named. With master or child or woman, there are many metaphorical source domains that could be invoked, so they are not objectionable in the same way.

That being said, I actually have come across arguments objecting to terms like 'mastery' and 'master's degree' because of the link to chattel slavery. But I've always thought those arguments were a little bit silly. It's not until now that I've had to articulate why I thought they were silly. I think it's because the link between the term 'master' and the institution of slavery just isn't linguistically direct enough. The word 'master' just has too many other associations.

[mahagonny]

Indeed,

The opposite of master is not slave, but apprentice. The apprentice can become a master; whereas, the slave cannot.
Or the opposite of apprentice is the guy who doesn't get to have a competent instructor.

This story reminds me of the refusal of Yale University Press to publish images of Mohamed in a text related to the controversy surrounding such depictions. At some point trust in scholarship in general is reduced when one must assume that it has been anesthetized by giving anyone who is offended veto power. 

+1 Losing trust in scholarship is a bad thing. Losing some amount of trust in scholars, not necessarily bad at all. People like Thomas Sowell actually say that out loud and tell you why.

Your last sentence reminds me of Bari Weiss' 'victimhood olympics.' The person who gets to be the most offended by the greatest number of utterances wins.
ETA: Being offended because someone lost their temper heedlessly is just a one-on-one transgression that calls for an apology. In  contrast, being offended because your group has been so cruelly wronged in the past that is is ultra easy to offend you with any possible construing of a reference to that history is political power. Amplified properly, that power is massive. A black suspect dying in the custody of a white police officer while the officer is using force inappropriately is the ultimate repudiation of Donald Trump's campaign, because of our nation's racial history and the perception of Trump as racist (however illegitimately of legitimately that has come to be the case.)

I'm glad I read this thread. My wife reminded me yesterday to put some brake fluid in the master cylinder of the old truck. Well, it's old, so...

[marshwiggle]

Slavery was (and is) practised in numerous cultures all through history, all over the world. People still write speculative/science fiction which includes it. And we talk of "mastery" of subject matter, and we even grant "Master's" degrees. Experts in their fields give "master classes" and so on. If people are unsettled by the use of the term "slave", should we be equally diligent in avoiding the term "master"?

(Note that in the examples above, the "triggering" term is the term for the perpetrator, not the term for the victim.)

Interesting observation re: perpetrater/victim. I'm not entirely sure that it matters how the problematic term is aligned. I suspect it's just a question of which term contains the morphological root naming the crime: hence slave/rapist/pedophile being objectionable terms. Only when those terms are used is the metaphorical source domain explicitly named. With master or child or woman, there are many metaphorical source domains that could be invoked, so they are not objectionable in the same way.

That being said, I actually have come across arguments objecting to terms like 'mastery' and 'master's degree' because of the link to chattel slavery. But I've always thought those arguments were a little bit silly. It's not until now that I've had to articulate why I thought they were silly. I think it's because the link between the term 'master' and the institution of slavery just isn't linguistically direct enough. The word 'master' just has too many other associations.

There are people who have lost a parent, sometimes even by violence. By similar logic to the discussion above, these people would have reason to find the term *"orphan" distressing. (Someone who experienced an event like this themselves should surely have as much right to be upset as someone who had ancestors several generations ago that experienced slavery.) Should the term "orphan" be avoided?

There is no end to terms which someone will find troubling, for some genuine reason.
As John McWhorter, a linguist at Columbia, has said regarding "the N-word"; it has gone beyond being an obscenity to being basically a taboo. This is getting into the realm of superstition rather than use of language.



*From Wikipedia:

In the common use, an orphan does not have any surviving parent to care for them. However, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), and other groups label any child who has lost one parent as an orphan.

[downer]

The objections to the word slave seem to fit with the wider "people first" language movement. It argues we should say "person with schizophrenia in room 3" rather than " the schizophrenic in room 3" for example. We should avoid phrases like "the blind," "the deaf," "an epileptic" and so on. We should also avoid nouns that are perceived as derogatory -- cripple, moron, retard, psycho, addict.

While it seems a bit simplistic about how language works, it might also be onto something. I guess it could count as a form of conceptual engineering.

I haven't ever heard of a college requiring or even recommending "people first" language be used in classrooms.