I must apologize for my inadequate vocabulary. I’ve used this word censorious before thinking it meant someone who loves to restrict other people’s ability to express themselves. As I was using it in a title, I decided to check on the exact meaning. My favourite definition comes from vocabulary.com who state
Launching the phrase “conspiracy theory” on the scene with full-throated vigor was part of the conspiracy. (Along with its twin cousins, misinformation and disinformation.) Honestly, I cannot respect people who use the phrase seriously. Say something is absurd, stupid, foolish, preposterous, insane, demented; say, as my father would, that it is horseshit. But at this point the plain English translation of “that’s just a conspiracy theory” is actually “I am a dolt reading a script written by my superiors.” (I don’t think; therefore I am Safe.) (Unless the phrase is being used as a sly burn, as with your white privilege example, in which one aptly flips the script.)
I read the first few lines of your post ha ing just completed a 2 hour long, complusory, inclusion and diversity training at work. Having become a fan of the James Lindsay New Discourses podcast of late I was able to completely pull it apart, but is still a most painful, though sometimes hilarious exercise. As for the conspiracy theorist name. Do thise that call it actually think those with all the wealth and power in the world do not conspire to control the world and its inhabitants to their best interests, if people think this they are unbelievably naive and dare I say a touch stupid.
"fond of criticizing," 1530s, from Latin censorius "pertaining to a censor," also "rigid, severe," from censor (see censor (n.))."
Censorious, that's all of us who did't by the Covid-creed hook, line and sinker. Also all of us who wants straight answers from people with the power to move and shake things - "What in St. Pancreas do you think you're doing?"
It's not a bad word, originally, and neither was censor. Censor was simply the official keeping track of nativity, mortality, population figures (and public morals, which is thefunction co-opted into the Catholic Church to become what we to day call a censor).
(If I ever get a coat of arms - how do you wear a coat that's all arms anyway and doesn't the arms start to go bad and stink? - it'd have to be emblazoned with a bird losing its way; a Nitpicker digressing perhaps...)
Originally, "conspiracy" wasn't a pejorative but a neutral descriptive term used in courts among other things (conspiracy to commit a crime f.e.). I think it was after the attempted coup d'etat by US industrialists, bankers and other capitalists during the inter-war years (sometimes called The Wall Street Putsch) that it was - probably purposefully - turned into a very strong pejorative. By the Kennedy assassination it was virtually synonymous with paranoid loon.
Now then, in whose interest (or is it better to write "in the interest of whom", maybe?) could it be, that questioning events, actions and motives of groups with common cause, means and methods be truned into such a strong word of condemnation it shuts down all debate, all investigation and all questions?
Launching the phrase “conspiracy theory” on the scene with full-throated vigor was part of the conspiracy. (Along with its twin cousins, misinformation and disinformation.) Honestly, I cannot respect people who use the phrase seriously. Say something is absurd, stupid, foolish, preposterous, insane, demented; say, as my father would, that it is horseshit. But at this point the plain English translation of “that’s just a conspiracy theory” is actually “I am a dolt reading a script written by my superiors.” (I don’t think; therefore I am Safe.) (Unless the phrase is being used as a sly burn, as with your white privilege example, in which one aptly flips the script.)
I read the first few lines of your post ha ing just completed a 2 hour long, complusory, inclusion and diversity training at work. Having become a fan of the James Lindsay New Discourses podcast of late I was able to completely pull it apart, but is still a most painful, though sometimes hilarious exercise. As for the conspiracy theorist name. Do thise that call it actually think those with all the wealth and power in the world do not conspire to control the world and its inhabitants to their best interests, if people think this they are unbelievably naive and dare I say a touch stupid.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/censorious#etymonline_v_27859
"fond of criticizing," 1530s, from Latin censorius "pertaining to a censor," also "rigid, severe," from censor (see censor (n.))."
Censorious, that's all of us who did't by the Covid-creed hook, line and sinker. Also all of us who wants straight answers from people with the power to move and shake things - "What in St. Pancreas do you think you're doing?"
It's not a bad word, originally, and neither was censor. Censor was simply the official keeping track of nativity, mortality, population figures (and public morals, which is thefunction co-opted into the Catholic Church to become what we to day call a censor).
(If I ever get a coat of arms - how do you wear a coat that's all arms anyway and doesn't the arms start to go bad and stink? - it'd have to be emblazoned with a bird losing its way; a Nitpicker digressing perhaps...)
Originally, "conspiracy" wasn't a pejorative but a neutral descriptive term used in courts among other things (conspiracy to commit a crime f.e.). I think it was after the attempted coup d'etat by US industrialists, bankers and other capitalists during the inter-war years (sometimes called The Wall Street Putsch) that it was - probably purposefully - turned into a very strong pejorative. By the Kennedy assassination it was virtually synonymous with paranoid loon.
Now then, in whose interest (or is it better to write "in the interest of whom", maybe?) could it be, that questioning events, actions and motives of groups with common cause, means and methods be truned into such a strong word of condemnation it shuts down all debate, all investigation and all questions?