7 ms·

> Crazies in General I wonder if, given the social unacceptability of mental illness, it will ever be socially unacceptable to slur mental illness.

justinpombrio 10y ago
I would describe very few mentally ill people as crazy.
- lacantina 10y ago
  I would describe all people described as crazy as mentally ill, unless we're talking about "gay doesn't mean homosexual, it just means dumb", which is also bad.
ams6110 10y ago
I don't see a slur there.
- paulddraper 10y ago
  I agree, though "crazies" is the likely candidate.
  - technopath 10y ago
    Decent treatment: https://www.quora.com/Is-crazy-a-slur https://www.quora.com/Is-crazy-a-slur Personally, crazy the noun is worse than crazy the adjective.
    - jholman 10y ago
      Utterly unpersuasive. The reasoning in that Quora response means that "harasser" and "wrong" are also slurs, because the Quora response equates denigration with "slur territory". As an ongoing fact in my life, I've noticed that (a) I use words like "crazy" in broad and insulting ways, and that (b) some people seem to complain about it. And I'm open to being persuaded that I ought to change my ways. But I haven't yet heard an argument that persuades me. It seems to me that the whole notion of "craziness" or of "mental instability" or even "mental health issue" etc is the notion of socially-atypical behaviour that the speaker judges to be harmful or undesirable (as contrasted with "eccentric", etc). If I hear someone say "that's crazy", I assume they mean "that's weird and I disapprove". (I haven't quite nailed it down. There's a bit more nuance here, in that if someone says "that's crazy", and then someone else says "it's not crazy, it's evil", then you can imagine the first persona conceding the point... so clearly "crazy" sometimes implies a certain degree of helplessness in the bad-weirdness.) Do you think "crazy" means something fundamentally different from this? Do you actually think it makes sense for people to stop observing that behaviours or people are atypical, or stop observing that they disapprove of particular instances of weirdness? At this risk of going on a tangent, here's a tangent. Sometimes advocates for people with mental health issues note that it does not make sense to fear folks with mental issues, because such people are more likely to be the target of violence than the perpetrator. What a hilarious fail. I assume that it's true that such people are more likely to be the target than the perpetrator, but I don't care. I care about whether they're more likely to endanger me than an apparently-not-sane person is to endanger me. It's not some kind of zero sum game where being crazy makes a person more endangered and thereby makes them less dangerous to others than they would be if non-crazy.
      - bpchaps 10y ago
        Sorry for the double post, I just wanted to comment on your last point. Holy shit. Just because someone has a mental health issue doesn't mean they're violent. Everyone I know who has mental health issues are the friendliest people I know. This is the exact sort of attitude that makes issues with HR incredibly difficult. And trust me, it is unbearably difficult. I can't explain how many times and how frustrating it is to explain this to so many people. We're mostly sincerely good people, albeit, 'off'. Sorry for my brain, yo.
        jholman 10y ago
        I don't mind the double-post, but I'll reply to both of them at once. I have mental health issues. Nearly everyone I care about has mental health issues. Some of those issues are moderately serious problems, some are minor annoyances. It sucks having problems. I'm sad you have problems. I'm sad I have problems. I hope your problems resolve themselves, and/or you learn better coping strategies, and that life is as nice to you as possible. But none of that changes my perspective that it's reasonable for me to characterize the world around me. And I have a limited cognitive budget. There's a whole bunch I don't know about the world, including mental illness, so I by no means assume that my model is terrific, but I still need to make choices. Y'know, I don't know if it will rain today, but I still need to decide what jacket to wear. Identifying other human behaviour as extreme is useful. Identifying other human behaviour as harmful is useful. Identifying other human behaviour as extreme-and-alarming-in-ways-that-seem-like-maybe-they're-mental-illness is useful. Knowing more would be better, but I've got a whole bunch of shit to learn, and this is seriously not my top priority. Based on all of the above, it seems to me that the only sane thing to do is sometimes identify other people's behaviour as crazy. And since I live in a city, with millions of people, most of the people I meet get an instant shallow analysis, because otherwise I wouldn't get anything done. So for my limited-cognitive-budget purposes, some people are "that crazy person". I don't know if I've never called a person "a crazy", but I don't see a problem with doing so. To your point in this comment, I never for a moment said that "just because someone has a mental health issue, they're violent". I encourage you to read more carefully. I said that arguing about their probability of victimhood is a logical fail that does not help address fears that such-and-such a person is a threat. It has no predictive value, and will not persuade most people that have the concern in the first place.
- jmcgough 10y ago
  I do.
- bpchaps 10y ago
  I have bipolar II and definitely see it as a slur. See, I go into hypomanic states and do things that are what you'd typically see from a "crazy" person. Buzzing my head, getting into bad financial situations, intense obsession, etc. When I do those things, I'm usually aware that what I'm doing isn't 'normal', but since the rationalizations flow pretty thick, the corrections are nearly impossible to act on. Medication helps, but everything I've tried has significant side effects that are almost as bad as the illness itself. Being called crazy, or receiving comments or looks that imply craziness rather than applying basic empathy skills... fucking sucks. "Hah, what are you, schitzophrenic?" "That guy's nuts" "Why would you do that, are you insane?" "Noise sensitivity? That's fucking weird.." "I'm quitting because people are calling me crazy my back. It's just childish.." "What? Grow a thicker skin!" It's out of our control and we do the best that we can to avoid the problems we have, so being called "crazy" is just another slap in the face. It effects our daily lives, our job prospects and, well, every aspect in our life. It's similar to issues of race, regligion, etc, but since it's an enormous aspect of our thought process, it's just.. different, so the social stigmas are almost incomparable. Not to mention that it has a near identical stigma to a homeless person screaming on a train. It fucking sucks.
  - tremon 10y ago
    I have bipolar II and definitely see it as a slur. So what do you suggest we call people that behave far outside society's bounds and are impervious to reason?
    - lacantina 10y ago
      Seriously mentally ill, needs medical attention.
    - alanwatts 10y ago
      What do we call people who behave far outside society's bounds when that society is impervious to reason?
packetized 10y ago
Not as long as you have shows like "Big Bang Theory".
trhway 10y ago
not only he slurs here, he just stereotypes some group of people this way from the start. It is kind of divisive and an efficient way to initiate combativeness. (Not that i let go waste any good chance to stereotype and to get divisive/combative myself, yet i don't whine about harassment toward me after that. You reap what you sow.)

justinpombrio 10y ago

I would describe very few mentally ill people as crazy.

lacantina 10y ago
I would describe all people described as crazy as mentally ill, unless we're talking about "gay doesn't mean homosexual, it just means dumb", which is also bad.

ams6110 10y ago

I don't see a slur there.

paulddraper 10y ago
I agree, though "crazies" is the likely candidate.
- technopath 10y ago
  Decent treatment: https://www.quora.com/Is-crazy-a-slur https://www.quora.com/Is-crazy-a-slur Personally, crazy the noun is worse than crazy the adjective.
  - jholman 10y ago
    Utterly unpersuasive. The reasoning in that Quora response means that "harasser" and "wrong" are also slurs, because the Quora response equates denigration with "slur territory". As an ongoing fact in my life, I've noticed that (a) I use words like "crazy" in broad and insulting ways, and that (b) some people seem to complain about it. And I'm open to being persuaded that I ought to change my ways. But I haven't yet heard an argument that persuades me. It seems to me that the whole notion of "craziness" or of "mental instability" or even "mental health issue" etc is the notion of socially-atypical behaviour that the speaker judges to be harmful or undesirable (as contrasted with "eccentric", etc). If I hear someone say "that's crazy", I assume they mean "that's weird and I disapprove". (I haven't quite nailed it down. There's a bit more nuance here, in that if someone says "that's crazy", and then someone else says "it's not crazy, it's evil", then you can imagine the first persona conceding the point... so clearly "crazy" sometimes implies a certain degree of helplessness in the bad-weirdness.) Do you think "crazy" means something fundamentally different from this? Do you actually think it makes sense for people to stop observing that behaviours or people are atypical, or stop observing that they disapprove of particular instances of weirdness? At this risk of going on a tangent, here's a tangent. Sometimes advocates for people with mental health issues note that it does not make sense to fear folks with mental issues, because such people are more likely to be the target of violence than the perpetrator. What a hilarious fail. I assume that it's true that such people are more likely to be the target than the perpetrator, but I don't care. I care about whether they're more likely to endanger me than an apparently-not-sane person is to endanger me. It's not some kind of zero sum game where being crazy makes a person more endangered and thereby makes them less dangerous to others than they would be if non-crazy.
    - bpchaps 10y ago
      Sorry for the double post, I just wanted to comment on your last point. Holy shit. Just because someone has a mental health issue doesn't mean they're violent. Everyone I know who has mental health issues are the friendliest people I know. This is the exact sort of attitude that makes issues with HR incredibly difficult. And trust me, it is unbearably difficult. I can't explain how many times and how frustrating it is to explain this to so many people. We're mostly sincerely good people, albeit, 'off'. Sorry for my brain, yo.
      - jholman 10y ago
        I don't mind the double-post, but I'll reply to both of them at once. I have mental health issues. Nearly everyone I care about has mental health issues. Some of those issues are moderately serious problems, some are minor annoyances. It sucks having problems. I'm sad you have problems. I'm sad I have problems. I hope your problems resolve themselves, and/or you learn better coping strategies, and that life is as nice to you as possible. But none of that changes my perspective that it's reasonable for me to characterize the world around me. And I have a limited cognitive budget. There's a whole bunch I don't know about the world, including mental illness, so I by no means assume that my model is terrific, but I still need to make choices. Y'know, I don't know if it will rain today, but I still need to decide what jacket to wear. Identifying other human behaviour as extreme is useful. Identifying other human behaviour as harmful is useful. Identifying other human behaviour as extreme-and-alarming-in-ways-that-seem-like-maybe-they're-mental-illness is useful. Knowing more would be better, but I've got a whole bunch of shit to learn, and this is seriously not my top priority. Based on all of the above, it seems to me that the only sane thing to do is sometimes identify other people's behaviour as crazy. And since I live in a city, with millions of people, most of the people I meet get an instant shallow analysis, because otherwise I wouldn't get anything done. So for my limited-cognitive-budget purposes, some people are "that crazy person". I don't know if I've never called a person "a crazy", but I don't see a problem with doing so. To your point in this comment, I never for a moment said that "just because someone has a mental health issue, they're violent". I encourage you to read more carefully. I said that arguing about their probability of victimhood is a logical fail that does not help address fears that such-and-such a person is a threat. It has no predictive value, and will not persuade most people that have the concern in the first place.
jmcgough 10y ago
I do.
bpchaps 10y ago
I have bipolar II and definitely see it as a slur. See, I go into hypomanic states and do things that are what you'd typically see from a "crazy" person. Buzzing my head, getting into bad financial situations, intense obsession, etc. When I do those things, I'm usually aware that what I'm doing isn't 'normal', but since the rationalizations flow pretty thick, the corrections are nearly impossible to act on. Medication helps, but everything I've tried has significant side effects that are almost as bad as the illness itself. Being called crazy, or receiving comments or looks that imply craziness rather than applying basic empathy skills... fucking sucks. "Hah, what are you, schitzophrenic?" "That guy's nuts" "Why would you do that, are you insane?" "Noise sensitivity? That's fucking weird.." "I'm quitting because people are calling me crazy my back. It's just childish.." "What? Grow a thicker skin!" It's out of our control and we do the best that we can to avoid the problems we have, so being called "crazy" is just another slap in the face. It effects our daily lives, our job prospects and, well, every aspect in our life. It's similar to issues of race, regligion, etc, but since it's an enormous aspect of our thought process, it's just.. different, so the social stigmas are almost incomparable. Not to mention that it has a near identical stigma to a homeless person screaming on a train. It fucking sucks.
- tremon 10y ago
  I have bipolar II and definitely see it as a slur. So what do you suggest we call people that behave far outside society's bounds and are impervious to reason?
  - lacantina 10y ago
    Seriously mentally ill, needs medical attention.
  - alanwatts 10y ago
    What do we call people who behave far outside society's bounds when that society is impervious to reason?

packetized 10y ago

Not as long as you have shows like "Big Bang Theory".

trhway 10y ago

not only he slurs here, he just stereotypes some group of people this way from the start. It is kind of divisive and an efficient way to initiate combativeness. (Not that i let go waste any good chance to stereotype and to get divisive/combative myself, yet i don't whine about harassment toward me after that. You reap what you sow.)