(no subject)

[supergee]

According to the great philosopher Carlin, we have 3 classes of problems in this country:
1. the genuinely stupid
2. the full-of-shit, who sound stupid but aren't...
3. the fucking crazy"-- R.A. Wilson

womzilla has a post about whether the people who say, e.g., that Procter & Gamble is run by Satanists, are stupid, crazy, or lying. (Perhaps George W. Bush scored a trifecta.)

There are those who say we must not use the words stupid and crazy to describe people because it's "ableist." To me that's one of the few ideas that deserve the dread epithet politically correct (as opposed to, e.g., "Black people are no worse than white people," which is simply correct). What I value in people is their minds, which is why I consider people more valuable than animals (yes, even PETAmanes), so while everyone is valuable, I value mean people, stupid people, and boringly crazy people less than people without those traits.

Further thought: Ideally, one might treat the words stupid and crazy like racist, as qualities of ideas and actions, rather than people.

Comments

[piranha]

a few years ago i decided that i could safely ignore any post that used "politically correct" to disparage people the poster suspected of greater sensitivity than zie was willing to grant, because those posts simply never had anything insightful to say, but were just defensive about their attitude, and usually misstated the maligned position.

unfortunately, you didn't break the streak. next we know you're gonna call me a bleeding-heart liberal, like that were a bad thing.

i would say "that's disappointing", but what i've seen from SFF fandom in the last year has lowered my bar for that tremendously. now it just seems par for the course.

[serene]

Whenever I see someone claim that my language is "politically correct", I feel really dismissive of that person (as I do of you right now), because that implies that, rather than having given some thought to how my language might be damaging, and coming to a decision that I want to avoid hurtful language, I'm instead toeing some party line with no meaning behind it.

There's a really good discussion of why ableist language is hurtful here: http://vito-excalibur.livejournal.com/223281.html

[supergee]

This convinces me. "Politically correct" has been used so badly so many times that it cannot be used well. I will endeavor not to use it again.

There is a dogma on the Left that we are all equal, not just in rights but in abilities, and they exert more ingenuity in denying contrary evidence than Creationists do in denying evolution (because they're smarter). There is no such thing as general symbol-using intelligence, it isn't hereditary, and those who are born with it shouldn't be allowed to take advantage of it.

I know that I am too emotional about this. When I was in public school, the teachers would tell us something, I and a few others would get it, and then I would have to behave while it was repeated over and over again to the "slow kids" (some of whom were stopped).

It also was a big double bind for me. My parents didn't give me double binds about sex (the traditional sort) but they did about elitism: My mother loved me, she despised stupid people, and she told me I was no better than they were. As with all double binds, I could not/was not allowed to question the contradictions.

So I'm a bit crazy on this topic. In my more lucid moments, I know that "stupid" and "crazy" should at most be used for ideas and actions, rather than people, but I act out. Some day maybe medical science will find a sustainable antipissedoffant, and my feelings will no longer drive me to say stupid angry things.

[serene]

"Politically correct" has been used so badly so many times that it cannot be used well.

It's never been used well.

There is a dogma on the Left that we are all equal, not just in rights but in abilities

I call bullshit.

[supergee]

You're probably right, just as I don't know anyone on the hereditarian side who thinks Einstein would have done as well if he'd been raised by wolves.