Concept creep a term coined to describe 'psychology's expanding concepts of harm and pathology'.
by applying concepts of abuse, bullying, and trauma to less severe and clearly defined actions and events, and by increasingly including subjective elements into them, concept creep may release a flood of unjustified accusations and litigation, as well as excessive and disproportionate enforcement regimes. The concepts of abuse, bullying, trauma, mental disorder, addiction, and prejudice ... {have been subjected to historical changes}. In each case, the concept's boundary has stretched and its meaning has dilated.
SourceThis trend towards a very broad definition of what constitutes 'harm' has been particularly pronounced on university campuses in the USA and - to a lesser extent - in the UK.
See Conor Friedersdorf's Atlantic essay, 'How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm'Download
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Hi Kieron,
ReplyDeleteIntersting little lesson.
David Crystal has got a book coming out about this and in this entertaining (as always) presentation, he talks about the influence of the KJBible, which you might find interesting.
Nice to watch of an evening, rather than endless Youtube-ing, I found :)
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/king-james-bible/english-speaking-union-lecture-professor-david-crystal