[trigger warning: ableism] I’ve started to realize that any intelligence judgment is inherently ableist…
…and possibly classist, and usually racist and/or sexist. “Intelligence” as a concept has been determined by privileged, nondisabled upper class hetero white men. The entire canon of psychology and mental illness literature is 99% people like that.
When a person uses words that judge intelligence like idiot, stupid, dumb, etc., it is about a very specific type of “intelligence”; that is, the socially accepted kind. There’s no room for people who experience the world differently, such as autistic people or people with PTSD.
An example: Sometimes I hang out with some people who like to play board games. There are occasional moments when I just totally blank and forget some rule for my turn. It’s a combination of PTSD and depression causing some cognitive dissonance, so I need a moment to “catch my breath” and think. But because my type of intelligence or processing the world is generally not accepted, I’m rushed into going ahead and playing— which means I usually end up making a mistake and looking a fool.
I know people with Fibro and other chronic issues which create problems like sensory overload or “brain fog”…and these people are incredibly intelligent. It’s just that the society around them does not have space for the different ways in which they approach the world.
There’s also some long histories and traditions of lack-of-intelligence-or-“sense” being prescribed on People of Color, women, and non-heterosexual and non-binary people. It is all there— if you’re not white and hetero, you or people before you have probably been called “crazy”. And it’s not like it is just simple name-calling; a lot of people have been tortured, maimed, and killed for being different. If you are into social justice of any kind, you should be concerned about how intelligence and mental disorder are prescribed to discredit and hurt minority peoples.
So yeah. I’ve begun to question it any time I see intelligence judgements (especially in politics, those happen ALL of the time with democrats and republicans). Because ignorance is not mental illness. Bigotry and hate is not mental illness. People doing what you don’t like is not mental illness either. And some of us aren’t even ill, we’re just different.
