@beadsland Yeah, I frequently see folks saying stuff about racists or bigots or fascists or police supporters that they are stupid or "dropped out of kindergarten" (just came across that one earlier on my timeline) and it's awful.
The ID people I've come to know are all really thoughtful leftists and social justice advocates quite knowledgeable about ableism and intellectual ableism in particular, and other forms of oppression too.
Meanwhile some of the folks I know who went down the pipelines of bigotry and conspiracy thinking have been assessed as highly intellectually abled, because being "highly intelligent" (which is a pretty BS category anyways) doesn't make you immune to being a bigoted asshole.
Not saying there's no bigoted ID people because they certainly aren't a monolith, just, the ableism is so obvious to me. :/ I try to speak up when I can.
@Bel_tamtu
> I frequently see folks saying stuff about racists or bigots or fascists or police supporters that they are stupid or "dropped out of kindergarten"
I suspect this is just the sloppy word choice of people letting off steam. The argument is not that they're "stupid", but that they've been scammed into acting against their own interest. Smart people fall for scams too, and we all benefit from more education about how scams work, and how to avoid falling for them.
Yeah, "sloppy word choice of people letting off steam" is a common argument used when caught in bigotry.
"I'm not a racist. I was just angry. That doesn't represent who I really am." Etc.
That's just it. It does reflect one's biases, when one is stressed enough—as in, when one would let of steam—to speak without filter. Those words came from somewhere.
"Acting against their own interest" is also problematic, as it presumes authority on what another person's interest are.
@beadsland
> "Acting against their own interest" is also problematic, as it presumes authority on what another person's interest are
Granted, but in some cases it's self-evident. Someone drinking heavily is pretty clearly acting against their own interests. Are are working class people voting for politicians who want to cut taxes, minimum wages, and welfare benefits.
When you say that a person is clearly working against their own interest you are discounting any other reasons you can't see or have not considered for why they are doing so. You are saying you know better than they do what they should do. This type of thinking results in all sorts of oppressive systems.
Addictions, for example, could be resulting from a need to self-medicate mental illness symptoms. Someone with crippling PTSD might have very good reasons to turn to something like heavy drug use as a coping mechanism, and though people may wish them to select something less physically dangerous than drinking or whatever it is they do, stepping in & mandating "treatment" on the basis that we know better than they do is literally taking away their rights & doesn't get the results we claim to want. Things like a harm reduction approach where their recovery is self-directed at their own pace is proven to work much better in terms of saving lives & lasting recovery.
@Bel_tamtu
> When you say that a person is clearly working against their own interest you are discounting any other reasons you can't see or have not considered for why they are doing so
This is beside the point. Whatever a person's reasons for drinking heavily, it's a biological fact that it's against their long term interests. As you say, proceeding from that "is" statement to a "should" statement is a move from fact to value judgement.
It's my opinion that "should" is an inherently authoritarian word and I try to avoid using it. But I'm not saying everyone else should stop using it ; )
The thing is, the sloppy word choice is still intellectually ableist. I used to use similar language thoughtlessly, and I know first hand that "high intelligence" is a pretty made up and glorified category that doesn't make one immune to bigotry. It is very common to refer to bigots as stupid, just as it is very common to refer to perpetrators of abuse and violence as some kind of crazy, but both are ableist.
I've made a point in getting to know folks of many different walks of life through social justice circles and there are many intellectually disabled people who speak about ableism they face. They face a lot of direct stuff but also it is so common for us non-ID folks to be thoughtlessly, casually ableist with our language.
I've had some positive results from pointing this out to people when they do it. I try to be gentle about it, because I can be not because everyone should be. But I do, and I am. I ask them to please take more care in the future.
@Bel_tamtu
> The thing is, the sloppy word choice is still intellectually ableist
Fair point. I've long avoided calling people "stupid" etc.
> "high intelligence" is a pretty made up and glorified category
I think it's self-evident that different kinds of intelligence (intellectual, emotional etc) vary across the human population, just like physical strength and other qualities. Higher intelligence doesn't necessarily corelate with greater wisdom, morality, etc, but it does exist.
As someone who was in a Gifted Education program and was assessed as highly intelligent, I'm pretty skeptical of the category of high intelligence and our ways of determining and ranking it. I really don't believe that the other kids in the regular education program were less capable of learning in the "gifted" environment than I was, in fact some of them may have done better than I did. I have come to see that people are intelligent in different ways about different things despite how well they may be ranked at some "classic" definition of intelligence.
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