ID10T comments on I hate how common it is to use 'low IQ' as an insult

I hate how common it is to use 'low IQ' as an insult(self)

36 points35 points37 points38 points submitted 2 months ago by Bunnygirl

I hate how normalised it is to use 'low IQ' as an insult. As someone with below average intelligence I find it very offensive and annoying to see so many people (even some progressives) using it as an insult. Why in this age of tolerance and anti-ableism is it so common?

It would socially unacceptable for me to say something is a "black take" or a "wheelchair take" so why is it so common to do it with mentally challenged people? When ever I hear it IRL it feels so isolating. I have have friends who always called eachother "R*traded", "low IQ" and "espeds" and it hurts because I am those things but I'm too embarrassed to call them out because I don't want them to find out so now I have to keep it secret. You don't choose your IQ it's a unchangeable and uncontrollable thing about you so I hate when people just use it like it means being poor or just smelling bad.

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ID10T 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun 2 months ago

Words aren't violence. When I was a child, my parents used to say to me "repeat after me, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." It's a good lesson and prepared me for real life.

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Bunnygirl[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 2 months ago

No, words are worst then violence. The most pain I've ever felt in my life was from words. Being punched in the only last a minute but words can last a life time.

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ID10T 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun 2 months ago

You've clearly never been beaten with a baseball bat or jumped and stomped out.

The reason the "words are violence" bs is so wrong is because it excuses responding to words with physical violence. It's a horrible mindset.

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Bunnygirl[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun 2 months ago

First of all, I have secondly no it doesn't. All I said words can also hurt. Weather being punched in the face or being called "stupid" hurts more is completely subjective but doesn't mean one is better then the other.

Getting run over by a steamroller would surely hurt more then getting kicked in the legs but doesn't mean kicking someone in the legs is ok. So no it doesn't "excuses responding to words with physical violence." It excuses you not being a cunt.

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ID10T 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun 2 months ago

I'm not trying to be a dick (perhaps that just comes naturally). What I'm saying is that it is healthy and important to become resilient to speech you don't like. To engage with it with reasoned discourse, or fight back with equal vitriol, or just walk away, whatever is appropriate for the situation. "Speech is violence" is antithetical to a free and educated society. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/

If somebody insults you and you are hurt for days on end that is something to fix about yourself, not something that that person is responsible for.

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