Avoid Contentious Terms
It&#x27;s frustrating though when specific factual words with meaning become redefined and the new definition is what is contentious.<p>&gt; &quot;We should defund the police&quot;<p>&gt; No, we should instead invest more in non-police social programs like mental health.<p>&gt; &quot;Yes, that&#x27;s what I mean when I say we should defund the police&quot;<p>&gt; No, we shouldn&#x27;t defund the police.<p>How do you proceed from that?<p>When I was a teenager 15 years ago my friend who studied Gender Studies told me about the concept of &quot;privilege&quot;. I was livid. I understood what she was trying to say (I thought) but I was angry that she dared suggest that I had something. I was an immigrant. My family spent time on welfare. I worked super hard in school. Sure, I was white. So? How dare she?<p>It didn&#x27;t even occur to me to consider who she was comparing me against.<p>It took me some time, I did some reading, I understood what the term meant, and I recognized some context (Yes, my parents were on Welfare for 2 months when we moved to the West. But they also had PhDs and were able to find good jobs soon after, etc)<p>I went back to my friend and I said &quot;look, i agree with your premise. But I still think the word privilege is too contenious. It makes people react negatively.<p>She said, but that&#x27;s the academic term. You reacted negatively because you reacted to a mischaracterization of the definition rather than what it actually meant. I thought about it and agreed.<p>So now it&#x27;s 15 years later, and I see people my own age - grown men in their 30s and older reacting to terms like privilege with the same vitreol I did as an angry teenager. At a time when there is more information than ever for people to find.<p>The problem is not the contentious terms. The problem is some (lots) people just don&#x27;t want to have a reasonable debate no matter what they say. They are entrenched in their ways, uninterested in growing, are arrogant about their beliefs, and lack the empathy to consider the feelings of others.<p>If you discover new &quot;non contentious&quot; terms, they&#x27;ll just find a way to make them contentious too.