Stuff like "stupid, idiot, moron, dumb," you know the ones. If you’re insulting someone for their shitty garbage beliefs and all you can manage to come up with is ways to insult their intelligence, appearance, or other aspect about them that has nothing to do with their cruelty and shittyness, you should maybe reevaluate.

Just saw a thread on here where a user was stubbornly refusing to adjust their language when another user politely pointed out that it was harmful to our comrades as well, and the person refusing was massively upvoted and the comrade trying to explain why it was harmful was downvoted. Thought we were better than that

I'm not calling anyone out, just wanted to make a post explaining my feelings on it and that when stuff like that happens (not the intelligence based insults, I know its hard to switch, but getting insulted for asking people to avoid them) it hurts and makes me feel less welcome here </3

Using words like “You’re being ignorant” or “That’s a cruel belief” is actually more effective than just going “lmao idiot”.

If those are the words you actually mean to convey I'd say use them instead :)

Edit: if the reception this post got isn't a good proof that this is something this community needs to grapple with, I don't know what is.

  • FUCKTHEPAINTUP [any]
    11·
    4 years ago

    Call them revisionists and liberals and reactionaries and fascists and racists and sexists and ableist, use the fucking language socialism already gave you

    You’re not a “radical Communist” when you hurt marginalized comrades, you’re a fashy asshole

    guess what? slurs aren’t a hill you have to fucking die on for Communism to be successful, we’ll simply forgive you assholes when you stop using them like everyone else is asking you to

    • eduardog3000 [he/him]
      4·
      4 years ago

      None of the words he listed are "slurs", despite how much some people want them to be. They are just normal insults.

      I'm autistic and if someone called me stupid I would probably be mad at them, but I wouldn't consider it ableist. Unless the conversation has enough context that they're using the word in reference to that.

      Using "re[dacted]" or "autistic" as a stand in for words like stupid or dumb are ableist. Using stupid and dumb to attack someone for their mental disability is ableist. But stupid and dumb themselves aren't.

      • FUCKTHEPAINTUP [any]
        5·
        4 years ago

        Yes! I’m a reasonable person. I’m fully aware they are in common use.

        Quill is not asking for moderators to ban these words, Quill is opening a struggle session to bring comrades to new unities. This is part of the process of unity / mindcleansing / decolonization / struggle.

        We are asking you to consider the arguments and come to revolutionary positions with us.

        Nobody is asking for the words to be banned, they’re trying to get you to do self-criticism, identify the sentiments that lead comrades astray, and join us.

        This is no longer Reddit. We are no longer that in that combat position on their fascist island. We don’t have to appeal to fascist tendencies to win converts.