this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2024
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If I call you "stupid," "moronic," or "intellectually bankrupt" you know what I'm saying. Getting offended by the specific wording of an ad hominem, while giving synonymous terms a pass, is truly some of the finest hair-splitting I have ever had the displeasure of seeing.
Imagine calling the difference between people who do stupid things and people who are born with diagnosed mental illnesses "splitting hairs".
It's very, very simple. In one case, you are attacking someone who is completely in control of their mental facilities. In the other, you are attacking people who are literally incapable of defending themselves, from birth. They are not synonymous. If you think that level of punching down is okay, then be as indignant and self-righteous about it as you want, but you deserve to be told.
I don't see anyone getting a ban anywhere for calling someone a "moron," for any other reason than making an ad hominem. The thought is almost laughable.
So, we're just going to pretend that language doesn't evolve because it justifies your bias?
People didn't put their foot down when the meaning of those words began to shift, and now they mean something entirely different. In our more socially and culturally aware culture, we as a people understand nuance and are generally educated enough to see what's happening. We have by and large decided that it's a bad thing to continue normalizing attacking the mentally disabled.
Fuck off with your pseudo-intellectual defense of toxic, dehumanizing culture. Words mean things. The things they mean can change. Those ones, in a less educated and accepting time, did. The ones we have now have not. Your attempt to dismiss that is genuinely hateful.
The push to get people to stop saying it Streisand Effected the word into a slur. There's no reason it shouldn't have just gone the way of "moron," except people turning it into a bigger problem than it ever had any right being.
The entirety of your final paragraph reads like a guilt by association fallacy.