Tag: most challenging arguments
Don’t Just Assume That Language Is Harmful
In my work as a senior editor at a scientific journal, the most challenging arguments I mediate among reviewers, authors, other editors, and readers are not about research methods, empirical data, or subtle points of theory but about which terms describing vulnerable groups are acceptable and which are harmful. My field—addiction and drug policy—has a tradition of savage infighting over language. Are the people whom earlier generations derided as vagrants or bums more appropriately termed homeless people, people who