Historically Japanese used to call foreigners 外人 (gaijin) which means foreign person.( or if you wanted to be more specific it technically means "outside person" 外 means "outside" and 人 means "person" though 外人 mostly gets translated as "foreigner" by google translate)
And then over time 外人 was considered to be "rude" and "politically incorrect" because 外人 refers to anyone that was not of Japanese ethnicity even if they had Japanese citizenship, so they started saying 外国人 (Gaikoku jin) which means "foreign country person" (or outside country person though again google translate translates it as "foreigner") which is the term used by the Japanese government and media. There's still people who say 外人 but the mainstream term is now 外国人.
And now there are those that even take it one step further to start saying 海外の人 which means overseas person.
So who exactly was responsible for the political correctness being pushed over there?
This is similar to the bastardization of language in the West. its like how "illegal alien" started becoming "illegal immigrant" and then it became "undocumented immigrant" or even why the West doesn't even describe foreigners in their countries as foreigners anymore, or how "transvestite" became "transgender". Political correctness became so bad that even conservatives stopped using "illegal alien" and started using "illegal immigrant" similar to how even in Japan conservatives started saying 外国人 instead of 外人 even though they are clearly still using the term anytime they see anyone that doesn't look of Japanese ethnicity.
Probably American establishment figures pushing this, since the end of WW2, they've had a lot of pull in the workings of Japan.
The Biden administration already showed their hand forcing pro gay policies through the legislature, but fortunately there's still a ton of grass roots resistance, both passive and active in the form of demonstrations.
Many such cases.
"American"
"White"
"Western"
"Hook nosed white western Americans"
👃
Who nose who wrote feminism into the Japanese constitution? Anybody? Nobody nose?!?!
Hand-rubbing intensifies.
It would be interesting to see something like Carlin's (yes, he was a shitlib) 'softening of language' bit in kanji.
What's fascinating about this is that it's somewhat subconscious. It's a really great illustration of the massive power of language (and suggestion.) If I'm not careful, I'll find myself calling them immigrants.
Likewise, with your point on "transgender," that's just the term now. The 'genders took over from the 'vestites and the 'sexuals. Trans = transgender, nowadays, almost exclusively. They certainly won that language war.
Carlin may be a champagne socialist, but a broken clock is right twice a day.
I came here to mention his bit about shell shock->combat fatigue->post tramatic stress disorder.
"Here’s an example. There’s a condition in combat that occurs when a soldier is completely stressed out and is on the verge of a nervous collapse. In World War I it was called 'shell shock.' Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables. Shell shock. It almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was more than eighty years ago.
"Then a generation passed, and in World War II the same combat condition was called 'battle fatigue.' Four syllables now; takes a little longer to say. Doesn’t seem to hurt as much. 'Fatigue' is a nicer word than 'shock.' Shell shock! Battle fatigue. "By the early 1950s, the Korean War had come along, and the very same condition was being called 'operational exhaustion.' The phrase was up to eight syllables now, and any last traces of humanity had been completely squeezed out of it. It was absolutely sterile: operational exhaustion. Like something that might happen to your car.
"Then, barely fifteen years later, we got into Vietnam, and, thanks to the deceptions surrounding that war, it’s no surprise that the very same condition was referred to as 'post-traumatic stress disorder.' Still eight syllables, but we’ve added a hyphen, and the pain is completely buried under jargon: post-traumatic stress disorder. I’ll bet if they had still been calling it 'shell shock,' some of those Vietnam veterans might have received the attention they needed.
"But it didn’t happen, and one of the reasons is soft language; the language that takes the life out of life. And somehow it keeps getting worse."
While I see his point, the word "shock" to me implies something far shorter than the others. As in, something closer to just "ringing in your ears" that you just need to let pass and you'll be fine, like all other forms of colloquial shock where you just need to let your heartbeat slow because you were shocked by a scare.
Or, on the complete opposite end of the spectrum which is medical "shock" which usually implies literal sudden death is coming. Which kinda dramatizes it to a detrimental level, because it makes people expect something extreme and visible instead of the subtle and slower disorder that it is.
So while the middle two are soulless and seem closer to "we have no idea what we are doing to these guys minds, so we will just imply they are tired" I don't think "shell shock" is very good either beyond a quick "we just noticed this is a thing and need a name to describe it."
Whereas PTSD gives you the exact description of what it is and how it happened. Trauma happened, this is the post effects, and the stress of it is causing disorder.
So like a lot of things Carlin, its retarded nonsense meant to sound smart on paper to get his audience clapping like seals thinking they are smarter than everyone, but in actuality its just outright wrong to a degree that its making people dumber to think it.
I'll take that reply in to consideration the next time I'm sitting in the waiting room of a VA clinic. I will be here all day if I continue talking about the horrors of being at the VA, so let's stay on topic.
Carlin was a libtard, but even libtards can be right about certain things. SS->CF->PTSD was just one example given of inserting syllables to disconnect effects from horror.
We can also have a discussion about how in the Shell Shock era soldiers had more time to decompress on the lengthy (usually boat) ride home. I've been on deployment, stayed up for the last ~40 hours before it was time to leave, slept through the flight, got absolutely shit-faced in the airport at the refuel layover, and
passed the fuck outslept through the rest of the plane ride home. Someone going through some serious shit (we had a few on the plane) isn't going to have as much of a chance to wind the fuck back down before being dumped back in to the absolute bullshit that is being at your primary duty station.But that is my disagreement. I don't believe that is entirely the case, as it requires removing the entire definition of the words themselves, and the connotation they evoke, to distill it down to only its syllables because that is the only way to make the point work.
I can do the "all day" about the politics and history of mental illnesses and the DSM, but at the simplest form PTSD is a far more useful term. It tells you everything you need to know about what is going on, rather than limiting to only war born and using a word that has multiple unfitting abilities to describe it proper.
As in, its the opposite of "softening of language" because instead of dancing around the meaning with emotionally charged words, it accurately gets right to the point of what is going on. Which is the polar opposite of what the Left does with more of their word games, such as replacing pedophile with "minor attracted person."
Which is why I mock Carlin on it, because its specifically framed to make the audience feel like they "cracked the code" and are now smarter than all the other sheep for it, but it only works if you just accept the framework without question.
I'll grant, all of this doesn't matter if you think PTSD should only apply to soldiers and veterans, which is a popular opinion, because then it absolutely has disconnected for nothing. I don't agree with that perspective, but I acknowledge it has merit.
That one is different than the other two examples. "Illegal alien" and "undocumented immigrant" are terms for the exact same thing. No one has argued that the thing they describe has changed, only that the term has fallen out of favor. Same with foreigner.
The "vest" part is means clothing. "Transvestite" did and still does mean a crossdresser. The change wasn't the usual euphemism treadmill, but the attempt to normalize the batshit insane belief that people could switch sex. It's a bastardization of the underlying reality rather than just the language. They weren't arguing that "transvestite" is insensitive. They were insisting that the man wearing women's clothes is actually a woman so it's not crossdressing.
I am one of those still using 外人 for good gajins and 黒ん坊 for those turning Japan into 3rd word shithole. Reject modernity, embrace tradition.
It's just another example of the euphemism treadmill.
negro->colored person->black->African-American->person of color
We should simply use xeno instead.
Now brother, get the flamer. The heavy flamer.
The jews did it
Transvestites aren't transgender, and thinking they are shows that you've fallen for their language games even while decrying it.
Transvestites were crossdressers, they were full on and open about having AGP (even if that word wasn't wildly known) and their entire purpose was sexual thrills from being dressed as a woman. Most of the time they didn't even bother to shave their beards or put on a "girly" voice because it wasn't part of the thrill. They are much closer to the drag queens of today than they are the trannies.
As such, the transgender (which was bastardized from "transexual" if you wanted a better example) is more mental about it. They want to actually become a woman in some form, even the form they take is a mockery that appears just as bad as the transvestites. But its much more mental instead of purely sexual, which is why they are so much more insane than the transvestites of years past, who often could function normally in their day to day before going into their kink. Not that the trannies aren't heavily sexual about it, but they are much more of a full package transition instead of only certain times.
The blending of the two, as well as others like traps, is how they blurred the lines between all these various groups who didn't and don't have the same goals or beliefs but now unify under the "LGBT" banner. It also made it seem like trannies had "historical presence" to give them more legitimacy, rather than being a fairly recent cause.
Also the difference between all of them would have shown that there is more to being a tranny than just putting on a dress and saying you are, which is verboten. So they erased it and made them all the same.
the jew fears the samurai and tries to dull their strongest weapon: language
It's crazy how we have to jump through hoops to "not offend someone". This can be a double edged sword though. In German the whole "Fachkräfte" aka skilled workers has become a euphemism for illegal migrants that everyone still normal in the head is using to make fun of the whole thing. We really need more people to make fun of the whole woke shit, those words should stand as insults to pepper the mentioned people with.
Btw, is it gaikoku hito or gaikoku jin? I thought it was jin, aka the onyomi but my japanese is still lacking(I am just glad I could read all the kanji in this :3). IIRC that one's one of those weird exceptions where it can be either way(or has some weird rules attached to it I seem to have forgotten).
外国人 is read as gaikokujin. As for why exactly in terms of grammar rules or what-have-you I couldn't tell you, but I've seen and heard it enough to know.
If you wanted to read 人 as hito and have the term mean something similar I'd guess you'd have to write 外国の人 (gaikoku no hito) much like the example of 海外の人 (kaigai no hito).
Don't take my words as gospel though, I'm learning just like you.
i thought it was jin as well but google tells me its hito.
Google lies, haha. I just thought it sounded weird and wrong. I'm still surprised I can slowly read some of these so I wasn't sure either.
gaijin / gaikokujin -> foreigner
There isn't a word gaikoku hito. You can say "gaikoku NO hito" or kaigai no hito or kaigai kara no hito.
ok i'll edit it. But why does google translate tell me that its gaikoku hito?
Because google translate is kind of shit at Asian languages. Use Deepl instead.
Their transliteration algorithm is confused. But if you click the little speaker icon under that it speaks with the correct pronunciation.
Idiomatically and within the usual context/level of politeness, it means "outsider".
To my understanding, it actually is derogatory in it's original context, so I wouldn't push this implication of being changed as entirely bad. Unlike racial slurs and epithets, it has a more universal touch of "someone not from our society". If you're saying it to someone, it's like saying "what's this fucker doing here, should go home to their own country". It would be similar to an American telling any legal tax-paying, freedom-loving conservative immigrant who came here through all the proper means, that they're an "outsider", simply because they don't look white or clearly are from Europe. There is some racial attitude about it, but it can apply to anyone determined to not be from Japanese society itself.
If anyone's pushing it, it probably the media. That's usually where the core of foreign influence starts where there's external control. Could also be the Japanese themselves, if they're believing in globalism and also believing in general politeness. Japan's economy is shit too, because they won't take themselves off the global banking cartel chain, so could also be wanting to do business with "outsiders".
EDIT: You nigger down-voters are wrong about this. Actually immerse yourself in the culture before passing judgement on what you swine think is really going on.
Japan's too weird for me to care about their culture trading weirdness A for weirdness B
I never got people's love for Japan.
In my opinion, Japan is a cringe producing factory. I don't know how people watch anime without dying of cringe.
Language changes over time, as long as people understand what I mean it’s all good. The words people use also communicates how much they care about shit and where they come from.
Go back to reddit, handshake account