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Willful ignorance
Feb. 6th, 2021 04:34 pmLots of people agreed that getting the R word out of our collective usage was a good thing. I think the formal Special Olympics campaign started about 2008 or thereabouts, but there is no date on the web page
https://www.specialolympicsma.org/what-we-do/transformative-education/r-word/
Other words have been harder. A number of disability and mental health advocates have been admonishing people who use "moron" and "idiot" and "crazy," among others, because of the history of the words and in the case of moron and idiot the historical connection to excuses for eugenics. We made a conscious effort in the home to use things like "willful ignorance" for Trump and many of his followers. I also claimed (still believe) that in many of the cases, the most accurate descriptor for Trump and his offspring would be "badly brought up" instead of whatever aspersions people want to cast on their mental acuity. Crazy is going to be extremely hard to eradicate, because it gets used so many ways. We were just talking about a better title for "Crazy Rich Asians." In that context, it didn't just mean extremely, but maybe appallingly? I thought of unfathomably rich Asians, but maybe not. And how sad would we be without Patsy Cline/Willie Nelson?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N4jf6rtyuw
or Gnarls Barkley, whose video at least calls up a possibly literal meaning by using fake ink blots
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N4jf6rtyuw
I try to avoid saying stupid, too, but that's the hardest for me. It was certainly the hard for me last night when I saw that UNC-CH students were crowding together on Franklin Street to celebrate the basketball win over Duke.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/ncaabk/unc-students-defy-warnings-from-school-pack-street-after-beating-duke/ar-BB1dsrD9
My first thought was that people that stupid don't belong at an educational institution, but really, either willful ignorance or badly brought up would probably work just as well as stupid in that context. And I have problems with some admissions concepts for college, so maybe they do belong there. Just not in the nursing or medical schools.
https://www.specialolympicsma.org/what-we-do/transformative-education/r-word/
Other words have been harder. A number of disability and mental health advocates have been admonishing people who use "moron" and "idiot" and "crazy," among others, because of the history of the words and in the case of moron and idiot the historical connection to excuses for eugenics. We made a conscious effort in the home to use things like "willful ignorance" for Trump and many of his followers. I also claimed (still believe) that in many of the cases, the most accurate descriptor for Trump and his offspring would be "badly brought up" instead of whatever aspersions people want to cast on their mental acuity. Crazy is going to be extremely hard to eradicate, because it gets used so many ways. We were just talking about a better title for "Crazy Rich Asians." In that context, it didn't just mean extremely, but maybe appallingly? I thought of unfathomably rich Asians, but maybe not. And how sad would we be without Patsy Cline/Willie Nelson?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N4jf6rtyuw
or Gnarls Barkley, whose video at least calls up a possibly literal meaning by using fake ink blots
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N4jf6rtyuw
I try to avoid saying stupid, too, but that's the hardest for me. It was certainly the hard for me last night when I saw that UNC-CH students were crowding together on Franklin Street to celebrate the basketball win over Duke.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/ncaabk/unc-students-defy-warnings-from-school-pack-street-after-beating-duke/ar-BB1dsrD9
My first thought was that people that stupid don't belong at an educational institution, but really, either willful ignorance or badly brought up would probably work just as well as stupid in that context. And I have problems with some admissions concepts for college, so maybe they do belong there. Just not in the nursing or medical schools.
