The word “Master Race” is clearly equivalent to terms which were used by Nazis and so are today’s far right wing and alt-rights.
There are other communities which created similar narratives, especially from the 4chan side, and I think the origin of “PC Master Race” comes from there.
In my experience, if you let a hate group co-opt a term or euphemism, it emboldens them in that usage.
For example, “Oh you did the OK symbol 👌? That’s a white supremacy symbol.” No it isn’t, in most contexts it means OK and in some cultures it represents a butthole.
So by using “master race” for a trivial and humorous concept that a person’s choice of OS makes them superior to others, it belittles its xenophobic usage. A person’s race or skin colour is (or should be) just as irrelevant as OS choice when it comes to their place in society.
Thank you!!! dilute the hate!
You have a very good argument right there, thank you for enriching this discussion!
The inflationary use of these words leads to generalization in common usage and removes taboos from them. Of course, one could argue that this loses its initial “power”. However, language changes very slowly and the terminology of the past remains. People will see you as people who see themselves above everyone else because of their operating system.
It also empowers Right Wing People and adopts narratives and disseminates ideas from that movement.
Small side info: In Germany, football clubs that would describe themselves as „master race“ would quickly end up on the list of enemies of the constitution, for the simple reason that it also attracts certain alt-rights, as I can see from this post.
The main problem with your argument is that this is not an e.g. racist insult, but a glorification. People are using faggot for themselves to fight the negativity of the word, but by using the word race, you will always recreate racism.
And while we’re on the subject of Nazi words, we can also adopt other terms: how about „Windows concentration camps“? (It’s funny, Isn’t it?)
‘race recreates racism’ lmao with that attitude racism would always exist everywhere cause races ain’t going anywhere
Sure, but just because the fight seems hopeless, you shouldn’t also support the other side. Guns are also legal in the USA and cause a lot of suffering, but civil society there is not giving up in order to finally get the problem under control.
Are you finding issues where there really isn’t any?
Well then let’s just not talk about discrimination. Easy fix
We live in a so called attention economy. That makes your rather negligent overuse of the term “discrimination” a problem because it shifts attention to situations where it’s easy to argue that discrimination is negligible or doesn’t exist at all. That in turn means people are less likely to have any attention left to inform themselves about cases with actual discrimination.
Basically, comments like yours are what I’d make if I wanted to stifle progress and foster structural racism. Heck, maybe you actually are a bad faith actor.
Glad you agree
Total non-issue
Why do you think this using racist language is a non-issue?
Because?
“Master Race” will still be referring to this kind of “We are over everything, because our race is over everything” narrative.
because the community is not actually about race, its about digital toys
Which is basicly the Linux community in a nutshell. We all see ourselves as superior
Which is part of Consumerism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumerism
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The origin of pcmr is a video by zero punctation.
this
Ok, my mistake, but does this change the fact that the term still characterizes structural racism? Also, due to the nature of anonymity, we cannot know much about the motivations of any particular person on the internet. 4chan and alt right are exactly where you least expect them to be.
As you said yourself ‘we cannot know much about the motivations of any particular person in the internet’ so why are you assuming it’s apt right?
You realize that Linuxmasterrace is the parody of penguins feeling superior to other right and you fell for it by blowing it out of proportions?
I’m not familiar with the history of the sub, could you elaborate a bit more please?
thats imho all there is to it.
Fair enough, thanks 🙏
It’s “tongue in cheek”. What you’re implying, is all of the comedy and parodies of nazis, or the KKK throughout history is actually supporting them? No, it’s making them smaller, and smaller, and completely laughable.
Perhaps we should rename it to Linux-Care-Bears. You can be Overly-Sensitive-Bear, or Whoosh-Bear.
amen
To give a bit of context: there have been similar discussions in the computer science community in recent years. Two examples are the master-slave paradigm in networking and the default git branch which used to be the “master” branch.
I see similar arguments here than in the aforementioned discussions, ranging from “non-issue”, over “language forms reality”, to “respect marginalized groups”.
Thank you for bringing up the other terminology issues, it really shows this is a bigger question than just one concerned person on the internet. I think it’s good to question these terms so that the language may develop with greater intention and awareness. I noticed there is a knee jerk reaction to saying this is no big deal, but I think it would do us good to ask why we’re so quick to excuse language that originates from racist ideals. Things likes discrimination and genocide all start with language, so why do we avoid the responsibility of moving away from these ideas? Just some food for thought.
I agree with your statements. Based on my knowledge of German history as well as Kahnrmann’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow” I too think that language forms reality and is strongly related to tractable actions.
However, regarding PCMR, one could certainly argue that the title is more meant like a meme. This might make it acceptable. Further, the meme-like character is in contrast to my aforementioned examples, which came from science and software engineering.
So my point is, while one should treat language seriously, the notion of what is acceptable and what not strongly depends on context. In the case of PCMR, the presence of many younger kids should make us wary of our language, because they might not understand what is meant as a joke and what not.
I understand people mean it as a meme or a joke, I guess I question whether or not it excuses the use. Saying “It’s just a joke” is a common response to things like this, but if the outcome is still the same does it matter if it’s a joke? While context matters to understand intent, does that intent address the consequence of normalizing this language? Or does it just excuse normalizing the language? I appreciate jokes just as much as the next person, but there’s still a matter of responsibility when joking. To me it’s the same as pranking someone, you have to be considerate for a prank to go well, and saying “it’s just a prank” doesn’t excuse the outcome. I understand other people don’t want to take language seriously when their joking, but that doesn’t make their joking harmless.
Hold on I’m a fool, the more I think about your point of context the more I realize I missed the point. There’s no indication this is normalizing the language, but rather a mockery or a parody of the language and by extension the ideology of a “master race” in general. Which is honestly a great way to combat racist ideology, apply them to some inconsequential to display its absurdity.
The only real challenge, and what I think needs to be considered, is the same thing you mentioned in your second comment; failure to recognize the joke is on ideology not in support. So, the responsibility comes in recognizing when the context shifts to support for these values and shutting that down or separating yourself accordingly. If the community is able to uphold it’s parody without lending support it may be beneficial to continue using these terms only to turn the language itself into a joke. Thanks @joba2ca@feddit.de I wouldn’t have gotten here without your solid points. I’m leaving my above responses so people can see how I walk through this reasoning, but I wanted to be sure you saw that your points reached me and made a difference. Thanks again.
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Better post this on PCMR as well, I’m sure it will be well received
I will. I just thought Linux users had a higher moral standard.
I actually agree… the name does make me uncomfortable :I
So don’t subscribe to the community
well that’s not really the point… say a jewish person (or a member of any group persecuted by the ““master race””) expresses discomfort with the term being used (even jokingly), If you tell that person to just leave the community then that means their discomfort does not matter and there is no interest in listening to their issues in this community.
And in all honesty I wouldn’t want to be a part of a community that acts like that
Jewish person here. I don’t care, and neither would anyone from my congregation. It turns out that minorities are capable of understanding cultural and contextual differences regarding the use of language.
Ignornace hardly ever helps anyone.
What do you think about master/slave systems in computing/electronics?
Someone didn’t think this through. Banning Master/slave oppresses the BDSM community. Well, it oppresses the Masters, at least. The slaves like a bit of oppression. It’s their raison d’être.
Joking aside, language is what the speaker means and nothing else. You can say something to ten people and they’ll all have their own interpretations. And they can all be wrong.
A classic a while back was some folk in Australia saying Captain Cook didn’t discover Australia because indigenous people had been there for thousands of years. That isn’t what discover means but it didn’t stop many being offended.
I’ve discovered lots of things in my lifetime. It doesn’t mean I was the first.
Same shit. Different problem. Abolitionism is not finished yet, my friends. And seen in this way, progressive progress has not yet come to an end. It’s an ever evolving project.
It was an outdated comparison to use when the terms were coined, and really isn’t justified in the grand scheme of using existing concepts to illustrate new ones.
This is just cringe. You realize the term “master race” in this context is derived from “PC master race” which in turn was coined as part of the console gamers vs. PC gamers rivalry, i.e. the “console ‘tards” vs. “PC gamer master race”… sigh…
This take is as cringy as gamergate, TBH.
The name is actually poking fun at both the concept of believing in the existence of a master race and the users themselves. It’s not because the creators or users of the community actually think they’re the master race of OS preference.
Calm down.
Jesus christ. People go out of their way to be offended by the most non-offensive shit these days.
This reeks of thought policing. If language doesn’t contain the “bad words” you can’t think about it. I for one will not support a society that strives to become doubleplus good.
Language is more than just what Orwell thought it is.
Language can be harmful to others and recreate structures, which harm others.
I wish you wouldn’t use the word “harm”. I find that term hateful and hurtful.
