>
Well, discussions about my second Scott Adams piece over on Feministe (which was basically identical to my post here) have now been completely derailed by a number of commenters who’ve decided I’m “ableist” because I used the word … “idiot.” That word, they have decided, is offensive to the “cognitively impaired.” If you want to wade into the mess, here’s the comment that, while polite in itself, started the long slide down this particular rabbit hole. You can see my responses in blue further down in the comments.
I consider this kind of language policing to the EXTREME! to be bad for feminism (and frankly insulting to people with disabilities), and I’m glad a number of others have stood up against it in the comments there. I don’t think that the language police are in the majority at Feministe, much less in feminism at large. But these debates are so frustrating that many feminists who disagree with the language police end up biting their tongues and/or just walking away. At some point I may post more about this fraught topic here.
In the meantime, I’m am conducting a little poll about cats. Please click the appropriate button in the graphic above. Clicking it won’t actually do anything, but I’m pretty sure what the results are going to be anyway. Go kitties!
—
If you enjoyed this post, would you kindly* use the “Share This” or one of the other buttons below to share it on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, or wherever else you want. I appreciate it.
*Yes, that was a Bioshock reference.
>Oh yes, and it's also full of fat-hatred too–you know, towards the big-boned fellows whose physique gave rise to the term "man boob."
>Putting 'pussy' in there as if it's harmless is bullshit. It's like 'nigger' and anybody who thinks they're being edgey by using it is just being blatantly sexist. Even if they're a woman. So's cunt and hysterical, which is still used to call women emotional, unreliable, on the rag, hormonal, all that bullshit. I've seen people excuse it by saying, "Oh, I'm using it the British way,' or "I'm calling a man that, so it's okay." No, it's not, ya fuckin' moron. You're saying that a man is a woman, and that's the worst thing you can say. There are some things that say more about the speaker than his target. That's one of them. There's just some really offensive insults that shouldn't be used. It's that simple. However, beyond that relatively small group, there's been a lot an explosion of calling out, ever-more-niggling at more and more obscure wordsa nd meanings, and the joyous dogpiling that happens on so-called liberal sites over anything but truly substantial things. Feministe and Shakesville are the two biggest offenders. I saw an amazing discussion about how 'dwarf star' was ableist or some such shit once, and recently—as in the past month or so—I saw trigger warnings for dog dick and dog teeth. You can't warn for every fucking thing. What it comes down to, is nothing ever winds up getting resolved, interesting discussions get shut down in the dogpiling.
>Victor: Different people have different levels of privilege depending on the situation. There were some really awesome posts on feminist blogs about this exact issue earlier this week: Relational privilege and situational privilege. I won't link to them, because I don't want to send people with opposing points of view to their door (as they don't so much have discussion boards for open debate, as David provides here), but the basic idea is that, for example, a white, cis, able-bodied woman might be less privileged than a white, cis, able-bodied man but more privileged than a black, cis man with a disability (relational privilege). And a woman might generally have privilege over a man in the area of child care (situational privilege). So these seem to me very feminist concerns you've raised.Ending my response to Victor and moving on to the original topic, I guess what's always struck me about the concerns regarding "idiot" (and its sibling terms, "cretin," "moron," and "imbecile") is that they haven't been used (to my knowledge) as actual categories for people with disabilities in … I'm not sure how long. Probably not since I've been alive. Possibly not since my parents have been alive. I don't think that necessarily means their use won't be hurtful to someone who has a low IQ, but it's something I'd toss into my equation.My idea about terminology (which is somewhat separate from my use of such–I try not to use possibly offensive terms in places I'm not sure about) is a kind of balancing test. What is the usefulness of the word? How likely is it to offend? I might be tempted to say, "Boehner is such a moron!" or "The war on uteri drives me crazy!" but, even if the likelihood that those terms will offend is pretty low, the words I've used aren't as accurate as they might be. What I really mean is: "Boehner is an evil asshole," and "I am enraged over the war on uteri." Much better on two counts.That said, I couldn't help but notice that at least one of the commenters at Feministe seemed on the verge of saying that any word describing a person's intelligence as less than sufficient is wrong. I've always been afraid that this is where this debate is going, frankly. Oh, it's not like a large part of my day will be empty if I suddenly can't call people stupid. It just seems weird that some would take offense if, say, I said that Sarah Palin's repeatedly demonstrated stupidity caused me to think she wouldn't make a good president.
>I always thought butthurt meant someone who had been smacked or spanked.Oh the things you learn.
>@Nathan, I just added a comment over in that thread (horrible coding errors! Embarrassing!) but I just want to say – Some of the commenters who later got very angry at David and demanded that he change his language posted ON THAT POST in a humorous, on-topic way until the initial "idiot has an unfortunate history" link. Then suddenly they were offended and David was evilly ignoring them. Which tells me that they didn't even notice the word until it became the "Official Word We Are Offended By This Week."
>I always thought butthurt meant someone who had been smacked or spanked.I thought the same thing, Elizabeth, and it's the first point in my post that might be revealed when it makes its way out of the spam filter. One might think that a certain word or phrase is universally and perpetually known as a trigger/slur/etc., but that might not be the reality.
>When I first heard the word butthurt my mind went immediately to anal sex. But then, my mind always goes immediately to anal sex.However, it didn't take me long after that to realize that it only makes sense in a rapey context, so I don't use it.
>From context, I always thought "butthurt" was a word created to discount and make fun of a person's real emotional reaction to something by putting the word "butt" in front of the (false) acknowledgment of said emotional reaction.Which is why I don't use it. Knowing that it's meant to discount the feelings of someone who's been spanked or anally raped doesn't really make me feel any more kindly toward its usage.
>…they didn't even notice the word until it became the "Official Word We Are Offended By This Week."Yes, and not only that, some of the more vocal offended ones are oblivious to their own usage of potential "Official Word We Are Offended By This Week" words/idioms. For example, "Is David somehow not able to convey that Scott Adams sucks because someone asked him not to use the word “idiot”?" Sucks?? Do they not know that that word has oral copulation implications? They are conflating someone's negative behaviour with something that some of us would like to think is a positive experience, sucking genitalia. They might also be triggering someone's negative experience, in that oral copulation may have been forced upon them.
>Ugh, thread closed before I could respond to the last poster who responded to me.Being snarky in a response: Not Silencing.Demanding that someone go back in time and redact/unsay things to manufacture a faux history of agreement and never having been "incorrect" in the first place? ACTUALLY SILENCING. YOU ACTUALLY MADE THE WORDS GO AWAY.
>I wrote about this on my blog, mainly because I wanted to address the fact that the Feministe detractors seemed to completely fail to understand the importance of context in determining privilege. David didn't use the word in an ableist context. That is absolutely vital to understand. And it bugs the hell out of me to see any word portrayed as inherently bad.
>Bee (from this comment):I was thinking something in that direction, but then I realized that, for instance, the n-word hasn't been a correct, scientific word for black people for a long time, either. Maybe the difference is that the history of "idiot" or "imbecile" is a bit of arcana now that most people don't even know, whereas everyone knows what the n-word means and meant.-katz
>Of course the practical difference is the derailing. It seems like any long Feministe discussion inevitably devolves into a discussion about who used inappropriate words, thereby precluding any real conversation about whatever the post was about. Perhaps there wouldn't be a problem if one person could just say "Please don't use the word 'idiot' on this site in the future" and leave it at that, but that never happens.
>I'm sure you'll want to keep misogynist, woman hater, has a small dick, can't get laid, rape apologist, deadbeat(unemployed)dad, loser, white privilege, has mommy issues, man up, manchild, ect. ect. ect. in your arsenol of goodies.Funny how Dave and the rest of the mutual admiration feminisite gang rapid fire these gems out like theres a gun to their collective heads. Try practicing what you preach. And quoting feminisite as a "model" for a commenting policy is the definition of oxymoron.
>"Actually, it wasn't your word choice I was taking issue with, it was your unquestioned assumption that being "manful" is a virtue."You zeroed in on the word, rather than the points I was making. You wrote two comments about it, neither one discussion the content of what I said. You even admit that you know how I was using it in the quote above. Form over substance.
>The important thing about the difference between "idiot" and, say, "nigger" or "bitch" is that it's largely lost any clinical loading it once had, and in fact had a long history of pre-clinical use in largely the same sense as it's used now. In other words, it's being used in a sense that's older than any medical sense. You can argue ableism all you want, but if you're not paying attention to the history of the word, there's a very good chance you're wrong. Or should I stop calling someone a schmuck because it's a somewhat belittling term for a penis?
>I'm back! just catching up on all this.Pam had a good comment in the spam filter; it's up now. (It was originally posted at 12:17.) Now off to read the new Feministe comments. In case anyone was wondering, the reason I haven't posted there (or here) since the moderator stepped in is that I was asleep much of the time. Sleep is good.
>200 comments on that post, 85% related to the use of the word "idiot." A good example of movement self-destructing in action. This is exactly why for every step forward, three are taken back.
>Oh, and according to this:http://www.bing.com/dictionary/search?q=definition%20manful&qpvt=definition+manful&FORM=Z7FDmanful is defined as "traditionally brave and determined"A woman can behave in a manful way, just like a man can behave in a motherly way. They are just words, and they have definitions.There is a direct line between taking issue with this word and posting, like the commentator at feministing did, about how the use of the word 'idiot' caused him or her to have a panic attack.
>"privilege deniers"ROFL. Me as the average male, I don't feel one tiny winy little bit of privilege over women. Feminists are highly delusional laughable nitwitsBut but but male privilege and patriarchy is everywhere I tell ya. Even that there’s no logic explanation or real evidence, it’s everywhere because delusional feminazitards say so
>Interesting that Feministe hasn't posted its usual Self Promotion Sunday, the most recent post glorifies a singer who's made truly awful statements about victims of sexual assault, and despite what Cara claimed, they clearly don't cap comments at 200 since there are 294 on your other Scott Adams post. Hurray hypocrisy!
>anthonybsusan, I'm actually glad the topic is closed over at Feministe. You, Capt. Awkward, Florence, switchin and a few others there pretty much made all the points I wanted to make, and then some. Time to move on.
>A woman can behave in a manful way, just like a man can behave in a motherly way. They are just words, and they have definitions.*Facepalm*
>ROTFLMAO!!! About time nicko weighed in with a pathetically futile attempt to stir the pot!
>There are 10 comments on the most current Feministe post, the topic of which is a cool female musician whose sense of style the poster admires.1 is making issue with the poster's definition of androgynous1 is making issue with how the poster conflated "popular femininity" and "conforming"3 are about how the musician has actually made some horrible statements.3 are of the poster trying to defend herself.I have no idea why anyone would waste their time posting there at this point.