1:27am December 5, 2013

slashmarks-cthulhu-mylittlealternateworld

cthulhu:

mylittlealternateworld:

So I read on one of these posts that the word “stupid” is wrong to say. And the hashtag was “ableism”.

I’m a bit confused on that.. Anyone want to explain how those two words correlate?

stupid is a term that was historically and is…

Yes, exactly. The problem isn’t the existence of the concept of stupidity. The problem is that it’s been misused against cognitively disabled people of all kinds, and many physically disabled people, usually if mistaken for cognitively disabled. Also, it’s a word that has several different meanings, and people discussing this topic tend to lump them all together as if they’re identical. But there are meanings of the word that are important, and doing away with the word does away with the ability to discuss those things. (I’ve never heard a substitute word that means the same thing and isn’t also seen by some people as offensive for the same reasons.)

There’s something I find highly disturbing in discussions of this word, but if don’t know quite how to put it into words. It’s almost as if… many of the people who discuss the concept of stupidity in terms of cognitive disability, have more trouble separating stupidity from cognitive disability than many of the people they are denouncing for using the word. Actually I see that a LOT, in discussions of a LOT of words.

(When I say cognitive disability, I mean it as a broad term as broad as physical disability. I’m not referring to specific diagnoses.)

Notes: