politically sensitive labels

[Geoffrey Nunberg]

One point worth bearing in mind is that a lot of the language that we
now associate with conservatism had its origin in left or liberal
discourse -- cf "bias," "color-blind," "political correctness,"
"empowerment," and more recently "hate speech" (often used by RNC
chairman Ed Gillespie to describe Democratic attacks on the
President).

In fact it's my sense that "values" itself first became widely
current during the 1950's as one of those social-science borrowings
like "alienation," "status symbol" and "peer group" that were popular
in liberal-progressive circles,  before it was picked up by the right
in the late 1960s in phrases like "mainstream values" and "family
values." (The first cite for "mainstream values" in the NYT is in a
1968 article that bears the wonderfully of-its-moment headline
"Political Activism New Hippie 'Thing.'")

BTW, the OED gives 1918 for the use of the plural 'values' to mean
"the principles or standards of a person or society, the personal or
societal judgement of what is valuable and important in life." But
there are cites for this sense in the JSTOR sociology journals from
the mid-1890's, and I'm betting that Fred Shapiro could take it back
earlier than that.

Geoff Nunberg



>On Wed, 10 Mar 2004 14:14:40 -0500 Laurence Horn
>
>>  larry horn, knee-jerk liberal
>
>Isn't that redundant from a Yale professor? But since you are out of the
>closet, maybe you can help with a related subject.
>
>I've been talking recently with some of my pick-up drivin;, coon
>shootin', Old Milwaukee drinkin' friends the unique language that
>liberals use. We are working on a list of words that are peculiar to
>liberals. This is primarily a time saving effort. When you hear one of
>these words, you can immediately identify the speaker as a liberal and
>move on to more important things without needing to listen further.  A
>partial list would be: marginalize, arrogant, the ever popular big
>business, facilitator, disenfranchise, empowering, greedy, victimize.
>
>Seriously, though these are all mainstream words, they seem to be
>primarily in the liberal lexicon. And perhaps it's like the Southerner
>who thinks Yankees have an accent, I can't think of a comperable list for
>conservative speakers.
>
>Incidentally, although "liberal" is used as an epithet in some circles --
>OK, in my circles -- "progressive" which is to the left of "liberal"
>doesn't seem to carry the same emotional clout. Even "Marxist" lands more
>gently on the ear.
>
>D
>
>I am Duane Campbell and I approve this message