I hear that this has been tried before but it didn't really land because finding viable substitutes for particular terms can be difficult. I'm fascinated by language though and I wanted to take a shot at this myself.

Just a disclaimer that I'm not trying to drag anyone over using any of these terms and I'm not going to pretend that I'm some paragon of anti-ableism myself - I have work to do on this front, you probably do too and if we all work together we can make some positive change and establish better habits and a more supportive culture in our communities.

Here's a list of words that are more socially acceptable in their ableism and some suggestions for alternatives:

Crazy, Stupid, Dumb, Moronic, Idiotic

[In the sense that something is incorrect or bad]

Silly, foolish, absurd, ridiculous, laughable, nonsense/nonsensical, illogical, incomprehensible, inscrutable, irrational, contradictory, hypocritical, self-defeating, naive, ill-conceived, inane, asinine, counterproductive, unbelievable,

Crazy, Mad

[In the sense of letting loose or being enthusiastic]

Going wild, getting stuck into something, in a frenzy, on a rampage, being engrossed, head over heels, obsessed.

Psychotic, Psychopath, Psycho

[In the sense that something is cruel]

Vicious, bloodthirsty, monstrous, horrific, sadistic, heartless, brutal, ruthless, horrendous, reprehensible, despicable, depraved.

Crippled

Hamstrung, moribund, incapacitated, impaired, ineffective/ineffectual, hog-tied (lol).

What are some other ableist words that are pretty commonplace even amongst the left that you've heard?

Are there terms that I have overlooked or any ones that you use yourself that you'd like to replace?

  • panned_cakes [none/use name]
    ·
    7 months ago

    As much as you may hate debate tactics, maybe searching for new versions of "scruffy looking nerf herder" that have punch but simultaneously don't offend anybody is less fruitful work than developing attacks on the bogus ideas being presented by your shitheaded adversaries.

    • ReadFanon [any, any]M
      ·
      7 months ago

      This is intended to get people to consider the implicit ableism in the way they use language and to suggest alternatives so that radical spaces can be more inclusive and less oppressive towards people with disability.

      [This] is less fruitful work than developing attacks on the bogus ideas being presented by your shitheaded adversaries

      I disagree with this framing.

      I'm not trying to convince anyone that the necessary work is to find inoffensive ways to insult people.

      I feel like this is veering into rehashing the same discussions that have taken place in defense of things like sexism, racism, queerphobia (especially transphobia) in radical spaces; no, eliminating transphobia isn't going to be enough usher in the revolution but at the same time this is not a valid reason for ignoring or even perpetuating transphobia.

      • panned_cakes [none/use name]
        ·
        7 months ago

        I'm not endorsing racism and transphobia, thanks for implying that for no reason. I just think name-calling is stupid.

        • ta00000 [none/use name]
          ·
          7 months ago

          I think ReadFanon and myself both misread your first comment in the same way. I took it to mean "Don't bother worrying yourself about ableist language, it's a waste of time when there are more important things" (The class reductionist argument) but I now see that you meant something along the lines of "name-calling isn't helpful in the first place so we should move away from it entirely"

          I don't think the words in question are necessarily name calling.

    • D61 [any]
      ·
      7 months ago

      Downside is, it doesn't do anything for when comrades use the same language without thinking about it.

      Listening/watching YT videos about the Genocide of Palestinians and the anti genocide campus protests, pretty much everybody keeps using "insane" and "crazy" without thinking about it. There's nothing pathological about being a fascist.

      • panned_cakes [none/use name]
        ·
        7 months ago

        To be fair, it didn't cross my mind watching those videos at all. I was thinking more about how to replace my language in private conversation (Maybe Mao would call that liberalism.) where it's much more effective not to do any name calling at all and just be more specific about why someone sucks, and when going back-and-forth with people who are actually arguing in good faith rather than Zionists who should just have their crimes announced for all to hear if you want to insult them. How about "baby murderer" is that okay to call people?

        If you're genuinely alarmed about student protestors calling Zionists "psycho" I think you may just have priorities which are fundamentally different from mine and we have no basis for conversation.

        • D61 [any]
          ·
          7 months ago

          I'm not alarmed but it does seem to be ableist... or maybe ableist adjacent (?).

          Not having anybody around me to point out how many times I do it without thinking about it and having to take the very long way around, by seeing a regular group of "TV" talking heads use the words one after the other after the other and it finally starting to dawn on me that I should pay more attention to the words that I use.