Do you really see no difference between that and an Amazon warehouse? If the Amazon job is "slavery", then what word would you use for the guy chained up on a Thai fishing boat? I am asking this not to minimize the unpleasantness of working for Amazon, but to preserve the gravity of a word whose meaning is among the worst human evils.
You removed the words "of the genuine horrors that exist even today". Those make it clear that I think the use of "slavery" is wrong here not because it slanders Jeff Bezos or American enterprise or whatever, but because it conflates (a) a bad job--accepted on the open market, by people in a country with a safety net that while imperfect almost never lets people starve to death--with (b) taking people with force or deception, making them work, and keeping them even if they want to leave, under threat of physical violence.
Do you think we should use the same word for both of these concepts? Is there a word that you use to mean (b) that doesn't include (a)? How do you think that guy on the Thai fishing boat would feel, if he saw the Amazon warehouse and was told it was "slavery"?
So for calibration: What fraction of American workers would you consider to be slaves? What do you think distinguishes a slave from a non-slave? Is it the pay? The working conditions? It's not just the discipline and the long hours, unless you think that soldiers (and junior investment bankers) are slaves. Might the same conditions be slavery or not, depending on the pay? Given a job description, how do I determine if it's slavery?
And how sure are you that you could look that guy from the boat in the eye, and tell him that yes, the workers in those warehouses are slaves, same as he was? (Did you read the story I linked? Look at the pictures, and count everyone who died?) How many people have you met who have spent time under conditions far beyond what American labor law could imagine?
I'm wasting my time belaboring this. You ignore most of my questions, and I doubt I'll change your mind. The casual use of a such a heavy word just bothers me. If we waste our strongest language on ordinary wrongs, and then the worst comes, then what words will we have left to express it?
I'm ignoring most of your questions because they are, to put it shortly, amazingly stupid.
>And how sure are you that you could look that guy from the boat in the eye, and tell him that yes, the workers in those warehouses are slaves, same as he was
No, because I said they weren't really equatable. Someone sick with a cold and someone sick with cancer are obviously fairly different. But we still treat the cold, and we still call the people who are ailed by the cold "sick." Sorry you can't seem to appreciate basic semantics.
>If we waste our strongest language on ordinary wrongs, and then the worst comes, then what words will we have left to express it?
I mean, your contention is that we're wasting it, which you'll need to prove. I don't think we've ever had a problem with word selection and creation to express the gravity of certain situations, so you'll need to further explain this vocabulary doomsday scenario you're describing.
Why the insults ("amazingly stupid", "can't seem to appreciate basic semantics")? Do you think they'll help convince other people reading that you're right? I'm spending my time here with them in mind, not you.
Or do you consider this to be a normal way for people to interact? I can assure you that it's not. If it is for you, then your experience is different from most of the world's, in a way that I suspect makes your life worse.
If someone is coerced using physical force to work, and forbidden to leave under that same threat, then I would call them a slave. I would use the word only in that context. You disagree. It's common for people on the Internet to disagree.
But then what word would you use to distinguish the guy on the fishing boat from the Amazon workers? How would you express that unique human evil? I saw a newspaper headline: "There are 40 million slaves worldwide, most are women and girls". I'm pretty sure that's not counting the Amazon workers. How would you rewrite that headline to fix the undercount (without changing the 40M)?
I'm still trying to understand your definition for the word "slave". I understand that you think the Amazon workers are slaves. Are all warehouse employees? Only those with the rigid, machine-enforced discipline of Amazon's warehouse? Those paid less than some threshold? Manufacturing workers, on the long lines where each worker repeats a single step over and over? Fast food workers reading their instructions off a monitor? A trader glued to his Bloomberg terminal? If these questions are "amazingly stupid", why?
> I'm spending my time here with them in mind, not you.
I'm pretty sure you're here to hear yourself speak. I'm being terse because you're not fooling anyone else but yourself. You're concern trolling at best.
You still have not sufficiently pinpointed your personal deviance with the very vanilla definition of the word slave and how it could ever be disrespectful in the currently used context about Amazon workers.
If I judge correctly from your words "concern trolling", you've made assumptions about my political beliefs. You think that I care neither for the slaves on the Thai fishing boat nor for the Amazon workers, and that I'm pretending to care about the first in order to minimize the situation of the second.
So, you think all of this is fake. You don't think I believe anything I'm saying, so you feel no need to engage with it. If you did, then you'd be falling for my trick. So, better just to tell me--tersely--how bad I am and move on. Am I right?
I'm a stranger on the Internet. You know nothing about me. You don't know what experiences I've had in my life. By attacking me instead of engaging, you've abandoned any chance to find common ground. (Maybe you think I'm too far gone, hopeless, evil, Republican. Are you sure? Why?) So the world is dangerously polarized already, and it gets a tiny quantum worse.
If you want to discuss, then I've asked many questions. You could answer, or even just explain what makes one so "amazingly stupid". You might convince me of something, or I might convince you. (Have you ever changed someone's mind? What kind of language, arguments did you use? Maybe it would work this time?)
If you want to do that, I'm here. Otherwise, I'm out.
Oh, and you got me--I'm writing because I can manage a polite, constructive discussion with almost everyone I meet, even when we disagree. So, this thread nags at me. I'll see how it goes.
>I'm a stranger on the Internet. You know nothing about me
I don't need to know anything about you. I just need to know that what you're saying is not rationally or logically consistent. You're playing a game with your statements.
I responded directly to and directly labeled your statements. You are the only one in this thread that made a direct personal assumption in your previous post.
>I'm writing because I can manage a polite, constructive discussion with almost everyone
I mean that's pretty blatantly false. You engaged in a direct unprovoked vague personal judgement because you didn't like being called out for being disingenuous.
Notice you still have not been able to respond to a direct link for the definition of the word slavery, but you contine to make pretty pitiful claims about other people and being "attacked" despite not being able to quote anything to back that up.
The word "slave" has many meanings. In some sentences ("she was no slave to fashion"; your definition 1.2) the meaning is clearly casual. In others ("this is modern slavery") it isn't clear whether your definition 1 is meant, or something less serious like your definition 1.1. I think the distinction between those is so important that the word should be avoided when there's any hint of doubt as to which meaning is intended. I don't know how to succinctly express the concept of "yes real slavery coerced with violence, the really bad kind" otherwise. (Do you? How would you do it?) I consider the concept important enough in human history that I think that succinct expression is important.
Maybe you disagree with my position, but I don't think it's as incomprehensible as you seem to imply. Here's an academic expressing roughly the same ideas in the context of adjunct professors:
Do you think he's wrong? Or if he's right, how is his argument different from mine? If you don't try seriously and specifically to comment on Prof Leonard's argument, then I won't respond further.
I don't think your linked definition is great--"a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them". It seems to exclude slaves held extra-legally (like most of those at sea today), and to blur the line in cases where law (e.g., relating to debt) doesn't actually make the slave legal property, but provides a strong enough coercive effect that the result is the same.
Note that there are people who believe American law to be sufficiently coercive in the case of our Amazon workers that the condition is satisfied, and that they really are slaves by something close to your definition 1. Do you believe that? In referring to work at Amazon as "modern slavery", which of your linked definitions do you think is intended?
You might ask who I am to disagree with the dictionary; but the definition of slavery is a difficult question that academics debate. They're not satisfied with the dictionary, so I feel no need to be. Here is one summary, from a legal viewpoint:
The word "slave" is a heavy word to many people, in the same category as something like "Nazi". There is a movement in some academic disciplines to avoid the word entirely, in part to encourage language that shares more detail of the enslaved person's life, in part just because it's a really heavy word.
I disagree with that argument, except in cases where the modified language actually adds information (e.g., "slave" to "enslaved blacksmith", but not "slave" to "enslaved person"). I understand and respect it, though.
So I don't think the idea that "slave" is perhaps among the dozen heaviest words in the English language is unique to me here.
> > I'm writing because I can manage a polite, constructive discussion with almost everyone
> I mean that's pretty blatantly false.
I said "almost". This thread is the "almost". I'm hoping to change that.
I encourage you to read Prof Leonard's argument; perhaps he can express what I've failed to. I hope most interactions in your life are more positive than this thread.
>I hope most interactions in your life are more positive than this thread.
How much of a toxic person do you have to be to be consistently petty and backhanded over a conversation about a vanilla definition of a word you seem to think is inappropriate?
> it isn't clear whether your definition 1 is meant, or something less serious like your definition 1.1.
Yes it is. I'm well aware you want to pretend like it isn't, but if you go through a quite literal elementary exercise (i.e., an exercise literally done in the U.S. elementary school curriculum) of finding the closest definition of a word based on how it's used in a sentence then the answer is pretty obvious. If you can't do that then I apologize.
>You might ask who I am to disagree with the dictionary;
That is exactly what I'm asking and you haven't answered it. No one was "throwing" around the word. It was used explicitly for its well understood definition -- used day in and day out in common conversation. If you want to claim that the word should be reserved for a specific situation, that's fine. But that's not what the dictionary says, so you don't really get to call it disrespectful.
>but the definition of slavery is a difficult question that academics debate.
No it's not. Lawful definitions are not exactly relevant to common conversation. You're stretching to make a point.
What's funny is that after all of this, I genuinely don't know what you believe. Like, if you say "work at Amazon is modern slavery", then you could mean at least two things:
a. "Amazon employees work very hard, without proper remuneration or appreciation." (definition 1.1)
b. "Amazon employees are coerced by economic circumstances in such a way that their 'choice' to work there is in fact no choice at all. They are forced to obey Amazon, and for all practical purposes become Amazon's property." (definition 1)
So which is it? I'm not sure if you're saying that (b) is obviously true, or that (b) is obviously ridiculous. In the first case, I--and most Americans--disagree. In the second, I'm with you; but I can assure you that people exist who aren't. Indeed, there are people who consider proletarian labor in a capitalist state to be different in its form from chattel slavery, but equivalent in its essential substance. This isn't mainstream, but neither is it hard to find--like, read some Emma Goldman speeches.
I'm pretty sure I'm not a total moron. So I'm not surprised that you would disagree with me, since anything relating to labor rights tends to be controversial; but I don't think my argument is quite so "embarrassingly stupid" as you keep saying.
That leaves the possibility that I'm insincere--I'm building some kind of rhetorical hall of mirrors, trying to trick you into believing something that I want you to believe, using arguments that I think are false. I think that's what you meant by "concern trolling'. If my assumptions are wrong, please correct me.
Did you read David Leonard's article? He is the chair of the "Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman". So if he's concern-trolling, then he's put extraordinary work into his backstory.
Do you think his position is right, or wrong? How do his adjuncts differ from Amazon's warehouse workers? If my comparison between adjuncts and warehouse workers seems odd to you, remember that many of the adjuncts are actually earning less per hour, with worse protections against arbitrary dismissal. (If you think I just made that up, double-check--the job market for humanities profs is brutal.)
I have no way to prove this, but I don't mean anything that I write here in a backhanded manner. I asked if you thought this was a normal way for people to interact, and you said "yep". It's not. I think you realize that, since you call me a "toxic person" above.
You can read through my comment history here. While I often disagree with people, both I and the other party generally keep a civil and productive tone. I think that's possible here too--even if in the end, each of us continues to think the other is wrong--and I'm not giving up hope for that yet.
And finally: There are many English dictionaries in the world. All of them are compiled by imperfect humans, doing their best to capture the definition that emerges from the ways that millions of humans use words to convey meaning. At their best, they're a trailing description of how language is used--to enter the dictionary, a meaning must already be in use. There's nothing magical about them, and especially nothing magical about the simplified ones you can get free online. Like, how did "fag" go from a common word for gay men, to an unacceptable slur, to something partially reclaimed and in some cases used in a friendly manner? The dictionaries followed this; they didn't lead it.
No it isn't.