A while back there was a thread about eliminating intelligence-based insults from our vocab. Words like "Dumb", "stupid", etc.
https://hexbear.net/post/15636
My gut instinct to this was to get angry, and berate the OP u/QuillQuote for his ideas. I insulted him, I called him dumb, and when he pm'd me, I dismissed all his arguments and called him dumb again. Then he told me to go fuck myself and I told him I would masturbate later
Since then I actually thought a little about the issue and I began to see their point. An intelligence-based insult is fundamentally wrong, because it concerns something that cannot be controlled.
Insults about race, gender, and sexuality are all de facto verboten here because they target traits that can't be controlled--and I agree.
Intelligence can't be controlled either. And intelligence is actually one of the most disadvantaging traits to be handicapped by. Ditto for appearance.
Likewise, AGE cannot be controlled either, you only age in one direction and that's it. If I was 55, there's nothing I can do to be more like a 30 year old. MOREOVER, some people actually have inborn disabilities that make them age faster, with some 10 year old children having the biological age of a 40 year old adult.
So I'm making the proposition that we should attempt to eliminate these words from our arsenal of insults. Words like "dumb", "stupid", "boomer", "ugly", "short", are all words that target people on traits that they cannot control, and worse, they insult other bystanders in the process who may have committed no offense.
In fact, I called someone a boomer jokingly just a few minutes ago. That was the trigger that made me think about this. I apologize if my words hurt anyone.
I've been thinking about this for a while and have been trying to wean myself off intelligence based insults because of that. It's surprisingly pervasive in our culture once you start seeing it, and then you see the statistics for how often people with low "cognitive ability" get abused it's... hard to ignore. it's not even people with developmental disabilities, it's also the elderly, the mentally ill, or anyone too different like autistics are dehumanized in the same manner. It's directly linked to the capitalist culture of equating worth with production value.
Surely we can come up with insults that don't enforce capitalist ideals of value instead of some nebulously defined insults based on "craziness" or "idiocy". If someone takes a long time to learn ideas, that's fine, they still have value as a human. If someone is not neurotypical, they still have value as a human. What isn't fine is using your ignorance as a weapon or refusing to learn, and it's perfectly fine to call someone out on that, because you are calling them out on a choice they have made.
And i'll offer a brief rebuttal of "yeah but trump is dumb." The problem isn't that he's "dumb", the problem is he's an fascist, and his cognitive issues such as lack of understanding, bad memory, sun-downing, not reading his briefings etc are all separate and distinct problems that should have prevented him from being president in any society that actually cares about it's people. People with dementia shouldn't be in positions of power, i don't think that's contentious to say. People who golf instead of doing their jobs should also not be in positions of power. And we all know how we feel about fascists.
And finally, by focusing your ire on Trump being "stupid" you're actually giving them an excuse. People with cognitive disabilities cannot control their intelligence and we must judge their actions by the standard that they don't fully understand our rules and norms. Trump or any other ruling class fascist is not doing the things they are doing out of implicit lack of understanding. They are doing it because they are trying to extract profit from us in the most efficient way they know how, by grinding our bones through a meat grinder for The Line.