What words would you want to see 'reclaimed'?
Reclaiming a word means stripping it of it's negative baggage and giving it either a neutral or positive meaning. The most common example is the word Queer going from a slur to a descriptive term for non cis-het people.
My personal pick would be returning the term "incel" to it's original meaning of "involuntary/involuntarily celibate" or someone who wants a relationship but doesn't have one, because the word is currently associated with the few tens of thousands of extremists who occasionally commit terrorist attacks, consider the redistribution of women reasonable and created the black-pill, but the amount of men (and realistically also women) who would consider themselves as wanting a relationship but not having one is much higher than a hundred thousand violent extremists, and if they could all describe themselves as incels, I think that would help steer the conversation about wanting a partner and not having one away from the extremists and to the much more numerous pool of mostly young people, seemingly mostly men who just want a partner and can't have one and usually mostly just feel bad about it to varying intensities. It wouldn't completely detach the term from cringe online right tropes as a lot of the dudes who can be described as incels often tend to fuel the kind of "women aren't real"/"Girls don't exist on the internet" culture that makes complaining about dating so 'lame'. (As in, the default reply is "just do basic self-improvement it'll put you ahead of most people lol".)
Another term I would reclaim if I could is the Red-pill/Blue-pill dichotomy with becoming red-pilled either being a joke about some vaguely red pill used to transition or as a shorthand for adopting leftist beliefs, mainly because the creators of The Matrix were Trans women who intended the movie to have a strong Trans subtext, and red is usually a leftist color instead of a conservative one, so becoming red-pilled meaning becoming a leftist is more intuitive in most places.
Fun fact: back in the 90s, the most common pill for MTF HRT was premarin, which...was usually red. A literal red pill.
In the original Matrix movie, there was a character called "Switch". In the script, they were supposed to be male in the real world and a woman within the Matrix. Warner Brothers forced them to cut this.
Related, I would like to see the swastika renewed. It has an ancient tradition as a symbol of the sun and various mystical truths, and is still in wide use among various Hindu and Buddhist influenced cultures. We’re able to keep using eagles and arrows, why not the poor swastika?
Because to the average white person (the target demographic), the Nazi swastika is likely the only one they know.
Tangentially related, I was walking through Washington Square Park in NYC last year when I noticed a WWI monument that contained fasces. I indulged in some dark humor musing on a fascist monument in the middle of a liberal-Mecca.
After reading more on the symbol, which is similarly co-opted by right-wing extremists, there is some irony in its origins implying a country stronger through unity than division[1].
Eagles and arrows have always had a more aggressive tone (though the US eagle is balanced clutching olive branches, for what it’s worth), but the swastika was originally a symbol of peace and harmony. It’s an interesting juxtaposition to see the far-right engaging with projections of their own wrongs onto the opposition, while also co-opting leftist symbols to fit a far-right agenda. All to further villainize the left and sow seeds of division, but through a series of rhetorical smoke and mirrors to distract from their ulterior motives. I don’t think it’s long before “Unity makes strength” gets more formally used to imply “you’re with us or you’re against us”, because even that phrase has been used by a Republican president within living memory.
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[1] I know it might be offensive to some, but I was amused by the deeper level of irony behind the right’s co-opting of the fasces as this Simpsons quote so cleverly puts it. Martin: Individually we are weak, like a single twig. But as a bundle, we form a mighty faggot.
In what contexts would you use the swastika that it isn't quite safe to use it? I've seen many a Buddhist family use the swastika freely on incense burners placed on their stoop for all to see, and on decorations around the house. It's also prominent in the temples I've seen in the U.S.. The issue is that swastika is a far-right symbol by default, but that problem is solved by making clear the Buddhist context. I certainly wouldn't decorate a binder with it or something, but I feel like it's perfectly fine to use where it's relevant, and immediately recognized to be at least different from the far-right usage.
I don’t know where you are geographically, but here in the nominally progressive and cosmopolitan raleigh, nc area the only people to make a swastika visible in public are maga types.
When I lived in Boston, a black friend was deeply offended when i showed him pictures I had taken of shrines in Japan that had the swastika, and our relationship never recovered. My intention was purely innocent, but my friend was caught in the culture attachments. Not his fault, and part of the reason i wish we could reclaim the symbol from those who currently wield it with oppressive intent.
I feel certain that even a poster of kali with prominent palms w swastikas would be frowned upon here in most company; and should it be seen by local racists, most would ignorantly view it as an endorsement of their ideology.
i dont know how to say this differently, sorry. but your friend is an idiot. if he was not able to understand the cultural context and got offended so badly that it hurt your relationship you might be better off without him. wtf? just wtf?
I'm choosing to put this bluntly-you're shockingly (for tildes, anyway) insensitive to systemic racism and the associated trauma. "Safe spaces" are not just words to use in playing pretend, it's necessary for healing, growth, and creativity.
If we, as a culture, could reclaim the swastika, it would no longer turn safe spaces to triggering. In the meantime, the last we can do for America's slave-descended population [edit: also the hebrew-descended, and really, just about anyone who isn't "white"] is avoid putting symbols of their oppression in their faces.
I was not to blame for visiting Japan, photographing the symbols as a remarkable departure from my own culture, learning about their widespread and innocuous uses, and sharing that with my friend. Neither was he to blame for suffering the indignities he had due to the color of his skin, leading him to have an irrecoverable trigger reaction.
But, we can work to reclaim the symbol from would-be oppressors, so it returns to its sacred meanings and threatens no-one.
I think I'll formulate my statement more precisely.
One is unable to see an image taken on a trip by a friend - depicting a forein culture which uses a symbol which in their context symbolises (something like) peace and in ones context is a symbol of hatred - without getting offended, because one is not able to understand the differences in scope and context. And then letting that affect permanently the relationship with ones friend.
I dont think this is acceptable behaviour. ergo One is an idiot or has other serious problems that make it hard to impossible to be friends with.
*It is possible that the friend is the idiot and is showing the pictures of his trip at a very impropiate time. eg. one is complaining about a swastika painted by nazis in town and the friend goes hey look here, its a symbol of peace in japan.
I would love to reclaim (or make more prevalent) the positive associations that used to be the rule for language and vocabulary associated with rationalism, logic, and science.
The continuous misuses by alt-righters, using expressions like "facts/logic don't care about your feelings" to defend ideas that are neither logical nor factual, seem to have traumatized a lot of people, to the point that employing analytical language is automatically viewed as antagonistic, abhorrent, and insincere.
So, to answer your question more precisely: "logic" and " facts" are two words I'd like to reclaim.
I don't know if it's even possible to reclaim these words, but I wish people were more precise with their use of language when they talked about politics and economics. Words like socialism, capitalism, neoliberalism, fascism, democracy et al. all seem to mean different things to different people which makes conversation around these topics more complicated than they already are. I don't think these words will ever be reclaimed to the point where they have a single, narrow definition everyone has agreed on but it'd certainly be nice to live in that world.
Kind of off topic but the US American Flag. The United States has an extremely dark history, and to be fair present, and it feels like our flag has been co-opted as the symbol of these actions by the conservative rightwing. It stands for military aggression. It stands for capitalism. It stands as the barrier to progress. It holds this connotation for the vast majority of people, particularly those who have been harmed by the US. By wrapping themselves in the flag, conservatives have managed to paint anything outside of their political scope as un-American. I believe we can have real change domestically and reclaiming the flag is going to be a key part of that. Wealth redistribution or climate action can be American ideologies. We need action before we can actually imbue it with that kind of meaning, but the sooner we do it, the sooner assholes will stop yelling "RESPECT THIS OR GET OUT!!!" to prevent any kind of progress.
This may seem controversial but i would reclaim all of Christianity if i could
Yeah. I agree. But that's a hard one. Christianity is a story about a jewish dude who woke up 2000 years ago and said "wouldn't it be nice if we just, like, were super nice to everyone, everywhere, ever?", and all his followers who answered "Sure! But what about Jerry? Is he everyone? Cause, you know, we kinda wanna kill him. He's nasty".
Jacques Lacan said something to that effect (but not really).