| padib said: I understand your point, but I don't understand how you categorized which terms are disparaging and which aren't. Do you have some kind of official list? And even if you did and it didn't contain the term ignorant, there are many people who use that term to call people idiots online. I have run into so many people using that term about someone they simply disagree with, even if they didn't take the time to argue the point (much unlike your fair points above, which you're arguing). I don't know what the ban was about, but I agree that calling someone ignorant is really tiptoeing a fine line. Calling someone stupid also by definition would mean basically the same thing as a person who isn't thinking well. Though you may caracterize it as a disparaging term (contrasting with "ignorant"), the definition of stupid itself applies is really much less insulting. If I told you you're not thinking well, you wouldn't want to punch me. I think the rule of fist actually works really well. For the record I don't recommend calling someone an ignorant in real life, much like I would conversely recommend you use its definition to explain to a person that they are missing the mark. |
http://jdstone.org/cr/files/ignorance-vs-stupidity-the-political-correctness-of-accurate-labels.html
And to stop beating around the bush, the word I said was "a delusion". In context, I said "you guys are holding on to beliefs that don't line up with reality (aka a delusion)" or something like that. Similar situation. Apparently saying "you have beliefs....." was fine, but using the word that is defined by that got me banned.
