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.

  • QuillQuote [they/them]
    20·
    4 years ago

    How is saying that this is something that causes me and others harm and isn't something that is in any way useful to our cause "babytalk"?

      • FUCKTHEPAINTUP [any]
        3·
        4 years ago

        Chapo will get wild when heated and people will be called fascist and revisionist and all posters will be struggled to new positions, new identities, and new unities

        We don’t need ableist language to get there, we need to identify reactionary sentiments and then engage in a positive socialist struggle to remove them, and other poisonous weeds.

        We are of the fucking masses. We can’t ban the language of the masses or coerce them into doing things they don’t want to do. This isn’t a totalitarian ban on the word stupid, as that would be an ultraleft deviation, this is a chance for the left to purge fascism where it finds it through criticism and self-criticism

      • qublic69 [none/use name]
        2·
        4 years ago

        Honestly 'dumb' is better to avoid, because it refers to mutism, which is not even an intellectual impairment.
        (edit: not just being 'woke' here, this was pointed out to me by a deaf person online; and selective mutism is a severe anxiety disorder, again totally unrelated to intelligence; also that makes it worse because it is pure ableism, not even related to stupidity)
        Similarly I would avoid 'cretin' because it is related to a specific medical condition.

        I still use 'stupid' and 'moron' (edit: which was defined in terms of IQ, not anything else); or even 'lunatic' in rare cases where people are unhinged and causing harm to others. (edit: specifically Donald Trump)

        (not saying I'm perfect, or doing good enough, just that we should raise the bar somewhat)

        (edit: oh look a helpful List of disability-related terms with negative connotations on Wikipedia)