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In reply to the discussion: Ironically, once you decide a person or group is "stupid," you are relieved from thinking about them [View all]RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)As I see it, those terms all have reasonably objective definitions that can be applied. For instance, I can explain how most abortion laws are actually morality laws against women's sexuality. A Trump voter may not agree - they may not even understand - but it is a rational process. I can do the same with racist behavior, environmental degradation, crimes against queer, trans, and other disempowered groups - but I cannot explain why someone is stupid. For me, the word has no objective, baseline meaning. I think it is really serving as a label of "less-human-than-I-am" and gives the user permission to disregard the humanity of their ideological rivals.
Again, I think calling out bigotry, racism, hate crimes, anti-semitism, etc, is absolutely critical to the struggle because they are demonstrable definitionally. However, "stupid" "deplorable" "degenerate" and so on are subjective words that I do not think have very wide spread definitions in common.