So I'm led to expect that you think that to sensibly discuss whether a given behaviour is intelligent, friendly or moral, we need to be able to give precise definitions for intelligence, friendship and morality. But I can only think that this is fundamentally misguided: the discussions around these concepts are relevant precisely because we do not have such definitions at hand. We can try to unpack our intuitions about what we think of as a concept, for example by tabooing the word for it. But this is completely different from giving a definition.

Well, morality is such an enormous and multi-sided topic that what usually matters in a concrete situation is only some particular small subset of morality. A discussion can be meaningful if there is agreement on the issue at hand, even if there is disagreement otherwise. So to take the same example again, if we're discussing whether someone is a thief (i.e has committed the sort of immoral behavior that is called "theft"), it doesn't matter if we define murder differently, as long as we define theft the same.

But yes, of course that discussing whether a given behavior is intelligent, friendly, or moral makes sense only if we agree on the definitions of these terms. As I said above, in practice our definitions about human affairs are always fuzzy and incomplete to some degree, so there will always be disagreement at least in some corner cases, and discussions will be meaningful as long as they stick to the broader area of agreement. However, in case of friendship, intelligence, and most issues of morality, people typically agree at least roughly on the relevant definitions, so the usage of these words is usually meaningful.

Also, when people agree on definitions, it doesn't matter if they are able to state these definitions precisely and explicitly, as long as there is no disagreement on whether the definitions are satisfied assuming given facts. Giving a precise definition of "friendship" would be a difficult task for most people, but it doesn't matter since there is no significant disagreement on what behavior is expected from people one considers as friends, and what behavior should disqualify them. One the other hand, when someone makes vague ideological accusations such as "sexism," there is no such agreement at all, and a rational discussion can't even being before a clear definition of the term is given.

If they concluded I killed someone because they saw me there, they would just be stupid.

Scary thing is: The jury is made up of these people!

I suspect discussion of how they tend to be used will just leave people insisting on generalities that flatter their own ideology.

I think that the burden of proof is on those criticizing authors for using particular language.

But again, those reasons can't be evaluated in abstract.

It ought to disqualify the prosecutors from bringing such cases if there can't be evidence to support them, so it seems to me you're on a "side" if you think that.

The predominant usage in modern English refers to persons hostile to those of differing sex, race, ethnicity, religion or spirituality, nationality, language, inter-regional prejudice, gender and sexual orientation, age, homelessness, various medical disorders particularly behavioral disorders and addictive disorders.

So if I believe that, say, religion X is wrong and its teachings are immoral, do I qualify as a bigot under this definition?

Also, what do you mean by hostile?

If I believe it's better for people not to have behavioral disorders or/and addictive disorders develop a treatment and encourage people with said disorders to take it, am I being hostile? What if I do the same w.r.t. homosexuality?

BTW, if the answer to both those questions is "no", I have no further problem with the definition.

I'm not sure it's a line so much as it's an impression. Strategists try to reshape battlefields to give themselves the high ground. I'm not sure I can articulate anything worth updating on, but I'll think about it and get back to you if I come up with anything.

On a tangential note, this usage of "reclaim" has always bothered me. "Queer" didn't start out with positive or neutral connotations. It has not been reclaimed by the GLBT movement, it has been appropriated. Reclamation denotes previous ownership, something that simply doesn't apply when you look at the historical relationship between the words that are being "reclaimed" and the groups that are claiming them, but it's chosen for its connotations of legitimacy, since people are less likely to object to your taking back what's rightfully yours.

There were lots of words before queer.

Once again guessing, I'd say that "queer" and "bent" were both at a time abandoned by the gay community (even though "bent' is of course the actual counterpart of "straight") because of the negative connotations of weirdness in the former case, and something that's not in its proper shape in the latter. "Gay" persisted because it was the first name whose alternate connotations were positive (being merry/carefree).

I don't know why "queer" became acceptable to be reclaimed again, but I'm wondering whether it's because "weird" is not really seen as a bad thing anymore -- "geek" has also become a badge of honor after all, though it once used to be an insulting word.

The pain of deliberate insults occurs when Person A directly insults Person B, not when Person A denigrates group X. After all, school and University is non stop denigration of whites, males, white males, and dead white males, which has a lot to do with massive male drop out rate. So the alleged representatives of group X are not personally insulted.

claims of harm due to anti-white racism, as if it were equivalent to anti-black racism are really implausible

Oh come on. Lot of people get beaten up for being white, frequently maimed for life. There is a whole genre of you tube videos on the topic. No one gets beaten up for being black - and very few people ever did. The fact that when you are digging for white racist attacks, you wind up with such an implausible poster boy as Emmit Till shows how hard up you are for examples.

Similarly, lots of people are excluded from university for being white and male, and worse, white and male from rural America

Which tells us:Participation in such Red State activities as high school ROTC, 4-H clubs, or the Future Farmers of America was found to reduce very substantially a student's chances of gaining admission to the competitive private colleges in the NSCE database on an all-other-things-considered basis. The admissions disadvantage was greatest for those in leadership positions in these activities or those winning honors and awards. "Being an officer or winning awards" for such career-oriented activities as junior ROTC, 4-H, or Future Farmers of America, say Espenshade and Radford, "has a significantly negative association with admission outcomes at highly selective institutions." Excelling in these activities "is associated with 60 or 65 percent lower odds of admission."

Claims of harm due to anti-white racism, as if it were equivalent to anti-black racism are really implausible

The question "Is it easier to beat action game levels on normal mode, or on hard mode with an infinite ammunition cheat on?" would be ill-posed.

When people say "that shit is gay" gay people feel marginalized and diminished.

School and university is a non stop denigration of whites, males, and white males. It is clear that males feel marginalized and diminished, which contributes to high and rising dropout rate of males, but it is more important to worry about the marginalization of some groups that other groups.

You are presenting an oversimplified picture in both cases, and the contrast is definitely not so clear-cut.

First, the christological and other theological controversies were often only part of much broader political, ideological, ethnic, and other conflicts, involving all sorts of parties and factions both within and outside the church hierarchy. Sometimes there was also a strong populist element -- during the monophysite controversy, for example, there were plenty of spontaneous riots and pogroms. Therefore, in these controversies, the power and status of many groups and individuals was at stake, not just the interests of the Church leadership.

Second, the modern repercussions of various ideological transgressions are by no means limited to spontaneous reactions by people who feel directly targeted. For start, there is a complicated and non-obvious system that determines which groups are entitled to such reaction, so that their outrage will be supported and the offenders condemned by the respectable opinion, and which groups are OK to denigrate, so that protesting will only lower their status still further. Then, we also have a network of official intellectual institutions that have a de facto monopoly of respectable and impactful thinking, and the reaction of these institutions to various ideological transgressions involves many elements far beyond direct and spontaneous outrage of those who are (supposed to be) directly targeted.

But aside from all this, my main point is the contrast between two kinds of systems that is independent of the issues you raise:

1. A system in which certain beliefs are clearly spelled out as official dogma that it is forbidden to question, so if you're accused of heresy, you can at least demand a clear statement of what exact official dogma you have contradicted -- and if you have in fact steered clear of any matters of official dogma in your writings and utterances, this is admissible as a valid defense. (Historically, this was typically the case for people accused of heresy by the Church tribunals, though of course things varied a lot in different places and times and there were certainly instances of corruption and railroading, like in any other legal system.)

2. A system in which there is official pretense that there is no dogma whatsoever, that everyone is supposed to be a skeptical free thinker about everything, and that imposing some sort of official dogma would be the vilest tyranny imaginable -- so that when you are accused of some ideological transgression, it is automatically assumed that your statements must be due to either disingenuous malice or some crazy delusion, since the respectable opinion is considered to be a product of pure rational thinking, as an assumption built into the system. So rather than having clearly outlined boundaries of what you may or may not say, you must pretend to be a free thinker unencumbered by any official dogma, while at the same time strictly adhering to the de facto official dogma -- which is only more sweeping and onerous because it is so vague and not stated openly.

It seems to me that system (2) is hardly an improvement over (1).

But in regards to racism and sexism though, it's not about lowering the status of institutions like the Church or the Communist Party, but about lowering the status of groups of actual people.

Surely the communist party would say something similar - and indeed it did: Trotsky complained that certain speech was a violation of freedom of speech because that speech oppressed the proletariat.

In communism, political incorrectness might get you shot, but far more likely might be taken into account when you next sought a holiday or promotion. For the most part, the enforcement of political correctness under communism was every bit as decentralized as the enforcement in the US.

Similarly with thirteenth century punishment for heresy, the main punishment being that one was unlikely to receive tenure. No one respectable got tortured or burned at the stake, though Roger Bacon got solitary confinement on bread and water.

And the enforcement in the US is ultimately highly centralized. The reason your boss will fire you for wrongthink is that when his business gets charged with racism, all his employees will be scrutinized for wrongthink. Most discrimination charges do not involve an employer calling a member of a protected group a derogatory name, but rather an employee revealing unapproved views unaware that there are spies present who will rat on him. A member of a protected group heard of the unapproved views - in some cases he would had to have been listening at keyholes to have discovered the unapproved views and have his feelings hurt, and I suspect that in fact these unapproved views were only discovered during the disclosure phase, and the complainant could hypothetically have heard them at the keyhole, rather than actually heard them.

For the most part, enforcement of political correctness under communism worked in exactly the same way as in the US - through employment and academic admissions.