oreoreoreMar 4

Society is starting to appropriately accommodate neurodivergence, yet stupid/idiot/crazy/lazy etc. stay in the vocabulary.

https://lemy.lol/post/62017205

Society is starting to appropriately accommodate neurodivergence, yet stupid/idiot/crazy/lazy etc. stay in the vocabulary. - lemy.lol

We have decided some brain quirks are disorders (and get accommodations, as is compassionate), whilst others are flaws (and get slurs). But no one picks their hardware. You cannot earn a better prefrontal cortex or deserve a calmer amygdala. Nor does one get to pick the environment they are born in, which will inform their choices later in life. Even the capacity to “learn better” is a roll of the dice, some brains start the race with sprinting shoes, others with lead weights. So when we call someone stupid, lazy or insane we are not describing a choice, but simply announcing which kinds of unlucky we’ve decided are worthy of scorn.

Show threadTrickDacyMar 4
None of this is how words work. Imagining a world where no one can be called stupid or lazy is just bizarre. These are just words to describe incredibly common and undesirable traits. Last time I checked, being lazy isn’t a mental disorder, it’s a characteristic that literally every human embodies at some point or another.
Show threadjafra

I very much like the framing you used here. Words are to communicate about the world and the persons in it. This shouldn’t be made unduely difficult and complicated. Individuals wishing a special treatment don’t have a right to it, people should still try to respect the (handicapped) persons, with the respect comes a willingness to accomodate their wishes (within reason like with everyone else).

An important detail though ist the differenciation between calling someTHING stupid (action or words) and calling someONE stupid.

Every person has their right to be happy and at peace, everyone needs their self esteem (and this includes people with mental handicaps). Calling them stupid is a quality about them as persons. Calling what they said stupid leaves their quality as a person intact, next time they can choose again.

Someone might inform you about a handicap to explain their behaviour, it doesn’t make the shortsighted actions any less shortsighted. But it might help to understand the reasons and limitations of said person.

Actually that ist also put into words how i feel about extreme reactions to someone mislqbeling or misgendering someone else. You can be whatever you like, if it stays reasonable i will accomodate your preferences. If you need me to make a handstand to accomodate your preferences i might choose not to.

Mar 4 at 4:06pmWeb
Show threadTrickDacyMar 4

Yeah. I mostly agree with most of what you wrote. I feel like the over policing of language is not helping anyone. And I think it gives truly shitty people another excuse to shit on otherwise reasonable politics. The idea that we have to sanitize every insult is like trying to rid the world of all bacteria or something. It can work on a small scale but you will never complete the job and if you zoom out, what the hell did you help anyway?

I’d much rather focus on bigger concepts rather than rethinking every piece of language we use. Some of the language changes as of late, probably even most of them, have been good. We don’t need to continually obsess about it.