Using ableist language as insults is always bad, even if the words seem innocuous. Some may reference the “euphemism treadmill” to try to justify their behavior, but it’s crucial to understand that the treadmill is merely a linguistic observation. It does not exist to normalize ableist behavior.
what is the euphemism treadmill for those who dont want to google
I don’t understand your question I’m sorry. But can’t you congratulate the medalist without doing judgement on the non-medalists?
Any congratulations of the medalists necessarily implies that they have done better than the non-medalists. While the intent is not to denigrate, it is, implicitly, denigration of the results, whether deserved or undeserved, of the non-medalists. Any positive judgement necessarily creates a vacuum of negative judgement for those who do not meet it, and unless you regard all things as value-indistinguishable, such positive judgements are inevitably made.
You perceive one value scale:
I perceive two entirely separate, non-causal scales.
That implies that you put no valuation on back handsprings, even in the context of the Olympics. Which would make any praise of it very empty.
You continue here to operate on a single-value system, where I find it trivial to embrace multiple variables. My evaluation of every single person to exist cannot be charted as a single value on a single sliding scale from 0-100.
I value back handsprings highly, but my evaluation of a person’s handspring performance has no bearing on my overall evaluation of them as a person, whether they are valuable, deserving of respect or rights. Those scales are utterly unlinked.
It’s okay that you don’t, but can you at least try to imagine how one might operate this way?
It’s quite the opposite. You seem determined to deny that there is any axis of value on which you denigrate someone, as though any valuation of a person that is unequal to another is some kind of sin, that there’s only one value that people are judged by, and to decrease that value is to denigrate their basic human existence.
Who said anything about being deserving or undeserving of rights?
The people making insults under our analysis. The restriction of disability rights and mistreatment of the differently abled is the end result of ableist behavior and language. If you participate in an insult about mental illness, intentional or not, you are contributing to a system that stigmatizes and perpetuates certain avoidable suffering toward the mentally ill. The same goes for disability of any kind.
no clue what you mean, i never said such a thing.
im seeing the answer was “no.” i fear i cannot explain any more clearly how it is possible for me to value an athlete’s skill without casting shade at any single quality of any other person.
See, but I’m talking about the broader issue that you’ve reduced these insults to a basic principle in order to extend it to other language, while any such extension of that basic principle results in a worldview that is either entirely incoherent or entirely without merit.
All of this is predicated on the assumption either that none of the things we’re talking about are negative things, or that all negative judgements are disallowed; which would also disallow any positive judgements. And as someone who is disabled, with physical and mental ailments, let me assure you that disability is a very negative fucking thing. Which leaves only the latter.
Then I’m afraid you don’t understand what valuation is or means, unless the valuation you’re talking about is entirely empty of any real meaning and is the praise-equivalent of a participation trophy.
…and yours isn’t? [for the sake of argument i assume that you aren’t a gymnast or esteemed individual in the field either] the meaning of my praise is probably an insignificant drop in the bucket to most gold medalists. the fact that you operate under a different model of value relationships doesn’t make your praise any more significant than mine. the athlete, as the recipient of praise, is the sole determinant of the relevance or emptiness of that valuation. it would be woefully self-absorbed of me to claim i created the value of my congratulations.