I have been trying not to use ‘mad’ as a metaphor in my writing, but some posts are harder than others. I found it really challenging to write a post about holocaust deniers without saying “these people are batshit crazy”. There’s been some discussion of this and Donaquixote articulated the reasons for avoiding madness as a metaphor very well:
I also get the insane = disconnected from reality definition you were going with. But there’s a huge difference between an illness that disconnects you from reality as a result of neurochemical processes and the condition of being willfully disconnected from reality because you don’t want to have your opinions challenged. One is an illness, the other is a character flaw, and the two ought never be confused. The problem is a lot of our terminology quite purposefully does confuse the two.
Many of the derogatory metaphors that come most easily to us are about comparing something we don’t like with the powerless.
Metaphoric language is powerful – even as cliched metaphoric language as ‘batshit crazy’. I don’t think we should give up metaphors, I think we should be creative, more precise and more true in the metaphors we do use.
I thought a way of doing that would be to open a thread for discussion so people could post their metaphors, and other derogatory language, that don’t pathologise powerlessness.
I’m not suggesting we start calling everyone we dislike a futures trader, but I think there are lots of smart articulate people who comment on blogs I write on. We can do better than the derogatory terms we do now.
I’m posting this on Capitalism Bad; Tree Pretty, Alas and The Hand Mirror, for maximum discussion.
Please don’t post in this thread unless you’re actually interested in developing new metaphors. If you’re doubtful about the usefulness of new metaphors then go talk about that somewhere else.
This is a very interesting and, I think, important thing to talk about. Metaphorical thinking is so central to how we see the world and so unexamined–which is one reason why I wrote the Fetal Personhood as Metaphorical Thinking Post. I will think more on this, but, as a start, I’d like to point out that “disconnected from reality,” for example, is itself a metaphor–and a pretty powerful one if you stop to think about it–and it might be worth thinking about why we aren’t satisfied with that; why we need to dehumanize people who are willfully disconnected from reality by comparing them to the powerless–and, in the process, further dehumanize the powerless–instead of really feeling what it means to say to or of someone that he or she is disconnected from reality.
Thank you for writing this.
I can’t think of anything to add right now, but thatnks.
It horrifies me, now this has been pointed out here, how easily metaphors of mental illness come to mind. I’m not sure I agree with DonaQuixote, though, that what’s wrong with people like Michele Bachman is that they’ve got a character flaw. With Bachman, part of it is a character flaw–her don’t-confuse-me-with-the-facts adherence to weird right-wing talking points. And part of it is that she seems to be pretty dim, which isn’t her fault. But I think there’s some real pathology there, one that goes beyond a disconnection from reality but which is not appropriately described with metaphors of mental illness. (That business of hiding in the bushes isn’t just being out of touch with reality!)
Would metaphors of bodily disease avoid the problem?
The problem with metaphors is that there has to be a hook – some semblance of a real comparison at its heart. So you could say “what a futures trader” and perhaps mean that you believe the person to be greedy or short-sighted (in the current economic climate), but I don’t know that it’ll catch on if it appears to people to be a totally random comparison. Then is it really a metaphor?
Also, I question whether the problem with these metaphors is putting down the powerless, or putting down any group based on group membership. There are lots of lawyer jokes out there, doctor jokes out there, and I would agree that it’s more problematic to use put-downs that specifically reference powerless groups, but doesn’t substituting powerful groups just run the risk of (eventually) contributing to them being despised/rendered powerless?
Trying to think of alternative metaphors sort of requires asking – whose stereotypical characteristics is it OK to use as a metaphor? Is powerful/powerless the right rubric? Or is there a problem with using stereotypical traits of any group as a put-down? Or are there ways of creating metaphors that do not involve a comparison between the stereotypical character traits of a particular group and the person you’re criticizing/condemning?
Disease metaphors wouldn’t solve anything, because no one ever asked to get cancer either. I can’t scrape up any alternatives right now…that are printable. (Still, when someone has something contagious, I am quick to tell them to not give it to me, if I see they aren’t being careful.)
A simile at least leaves both terms visible, or close to equal, but a metaphor tends to cover up one of them, and must be used with care. In this case, it distorts both terms.
A similar thing is going on in my own life. People like me, lone wolves who are more into ideas and things than people, find some people trying to lump us in with the autistics. This is not fair either to us or the real autistics, who are now placed on a “spectrum” stretched so wide it is in danger of becoming meaningless. The people that perpetrate this confusion mean to be helpful rather than to insult, but it still is a distortion.
It may in fact be true that some of the people who do and say horrid things are diseased, and need fixing. But I don’t think we are really qualified to diagnose them, and maybe we can still judge them as free agents responsible for their actions until proven otherwise. This guilty-until-proven-innocent stance is a new one for me, and I guess it is because I have been hurt by their behavior. But even if we aren’t 100% sure that they are choosing to do evil, we can still condemn the evil–we can hate the sin without pretending to love the sinner.
You’ve stretched my brain this morn–thanks. [Discuss among yourselves whether “lone wolf” is unfair to wolves that for one reason or another, are, um, unpacked.]
Love metaphors. Regard them as indispensable. And generally try to avoid them.
And no, I haven’t thought up any new ones related to choice/powerlessness yet. So everything that follows is going to be slightly off-topic.
1. Part of the challenge of picking the right metaphor derives from two competing goals: picking a metaphor that best illuminates the functional relationship between parts, and picking a metaphor that conveys the propaganda/value judgment about this relationship that you desire. This second goal poses a problem for picking metaphors related to the choosing-falsehood/unable-to-discern-truth distinction. Basically, what value to you attribute to powerlessness?
Here I sense a big cultural divide related to the question of whether a person’s worth derives from something intrinsic (or from nature or God), or whether it derives from other people (or society). I sense that the English-based “dignity” culture believes that a person’s worth is intrinsic. Christians from this culture discuss Jesus as a guy who surrendered himself, and tend to value conscientious objection, etc. These people do not regard powerlessness as a moral failure; indeed, powerlessness can be associated with blamelessness and innocence, and therefore may be associated with moral virtue. Terms of victimhood (“slave”) are regarded as descriptive, but impute shame to the victimizer.
In contrast, the Spanish-based “honor” culture believes that a person’s worth derives from the regard of others. Christians from this culture emphasize the role of Christ coming in glory and power; they are disproportionately attracted to military service. In this culture, a powerful villain warrants more respect than a powerless person of virtue, and dueling was considered an appropriate – indeed praiseworthy – means of settling differences. Terms of victimhood are regarded as pejorative as they impute shame to the victim.
Picking metaphors in this context is tricky. You really need to know your audience.
2. As Upton Sinclair remarked, “It’s difficult to make a man understand something when his paycheck depends on his not understanding it.” Nevertheless, I generally strive to talk about ideas, not proponents of ideas. I strive NOT to speculate about any given proponent’s mental state, which means I generally look for terms that apply equally to people who are don’t or are incapable of understanding and to people who choose not to understand.
Where I fail to find sufficiently neutral terms, I try to counteract my attribution bias by making the most charitable assumption about those with whom I disagree. But given the cultural divide discussed above, which is more “charitable”: assuming someone acts out of willfulness, or assuming someone acts out of ignorance or an inability to act otherwise? Given my affinity for “dignity” culture, I tend to regard allegations of ignorance as being more charitable. But not everyone shares my perspective.
3. Finally, as an aside, I regard “insane” is a legal, not a psychological, term used to describe people who should not be held legally accountable for their own actions. Different states articulate different standards, but the classic standard is “unable to tell right from wrong.” I regard the practice of gratuitously torturing a living creature to be wrong; I regard a curious toddler pulling legs off of a Daddy Long-Legs spider to be insane.
I definitely see the reasoning behind avoiding legal/medical terms like “insane,” where there’s potential for genuine confusion, and I’m going to be more careful in my own writing and speaking about that. But stuff like “batshit crazy” seems obviously unconnected to actual mental illness. No one ever has been found “not guilty by reason of batshit craziness,” nor diagnosed as “batshit crazy.” It’s why I agree that it’s not appropriate to use terms like “idiot” or “retard,” but it’s OK to call someone “stupid,” because “stupid” never has been a binding label that had real effects on people’s rights. Women didn’t get forcibly sterilized for being “stupid” (given how often women got called that, the human race would have died out if they had been).
All that said, however, I also agree with Maia that these kinds of words and phrases are rather easy, lazy and imprecise; they allow for the quick dismissal and therefore don’t belong in writing that wants its analysis to be taken seriously. When I’m making a two-word summary of what I think of Alan Keyes, however, it’s really hard to beat “batshit crazy.” I don’t mean stupid or ignorant (he’s neither); I mean batshit crazy.
“dueling was considered an appropriate – indeed praiseworthy – means of settling differences”
Er, dueling existed in English culture as well (and came to the U.S., thus depriving us of Alexander Hamilton) — I don’t understand this as a basis of distinction between cultures.
I don’t think you can replace metaphors–due to their nature, if you’re talking derogatorily about a person, you’re going to pick a group or characteristic that you consider bad or wrong. The issue is that people who belong to that group or have that characteristic may not consider it a bad thing, or don’t appreciate their situation being appropriated for something that is minor relative to their situation. I consider this to be true of many metaphors, especially when they’re used irresponsibly, whether or not they’re considered to be negative. (for example: my oppression is JUST LIKE your oppression. or worse, this oppression is the new that ‘old’ oppression. That’s ridiculous. No two -people’s- experiences are the same, so how can the oppression of two different groups be the same? That doesn’t mean that there aren’t points of comparison, of similarity and relation, nor that they don’t work in tandem, but they’re not the SAME)
Therefore, while “batshit crazy” may be useful in and so far as it is a quick and effective way to get your point across, AND there may be no effective replacement, it still shouldn’t be used. With that in mind, the only thing you can say is what you literally mean–not that that person’s choices appear to be like those of a person who has a mental illness or is otherwise non-neurotypical, but that that person is behaving in a way that is illogical and/or disconnected with reality. Yes, it’s more verbose, and thus, somewhat less effective, but you know what–you still get your point across.
I remember that I had a lit prof who got all offended when I proposed that a character was insane. I didn’t mean, I think that she’s batshit crazy, I didn’t mean that I thought that the character was bad, but literally that she had some kind of mental something that was causing her to hallucinate and be paranoid. I thought that something like that was perferable to the character (who was doing some extremely mean things) coming to these conclusions through a reasoned through process, or just being impulsive and inherently MEAN–like a flat character who is the ‘bad guy’. There was another character who experienced hallucinations in times of extreme stress (starvation, near freezing, and some other stuff I can’t remember) which was also explainable in a altered state manner, as opposed to those thing actually happening. I guess I’m not good with ‘mystic realism’ or whatever it was…
I think some of the problem with the problem with the evil/crazy metaphor goes beyond connecting qualities we don’t like with powerlessness. It’s actually part of the *liberal* tradition to say things like, “he doesn’t mean any harm, he must have done it because he didn’t understand.” Or because he was confused. When people break social boundaries in really frightening, damaging ways, we call them “sociopaths”…it’s a language of sickness. This is a fairly recent development, historically (I think from the 19th century). The Victorian idea was that thinking of bad behavior as sickness, rather than sin, made people think of it as something to be cured. Even where nobody has any idea how to fix whatever makes a person commit mass murder or stock market fraud, I am wary of moving away from the sickness model altogether. “That’s sick and wrong,” allows for more compassion than “that’s evil and wrong,” and I think it’s important to retain some human compassion, even for people who have done appalling things. (See also, prevention of torture in prisons.)
This has given me something to think about. I’ll admit that I didn’t flinch at all when I read Jeff’s post. I think the reason for that is that, like PG, I make a distinction between crazy the way we use it colloquially in English and actual mental illness. All that said, I’m troubled that I am drawing a complete blank as I search for another word or metaphor that could convey this quality that Bachman has. I also think we shouldn’t search for a metaphor that let’s someone like Bachman (or Holocaust deniers) off the hook because it’s not their fault and they just need to be “cured.”
Bachman is not entirely connected to reality, but I don’t think she is actually mentally ill. I think we reach for a metaphor like “batshit crazy” because it is very difficult to understand why and how someone can think like she thinks, so we throw our hands up, so to speak, and say she’s crazy. I’m reminded of something I read quite a while back, when the Unabomber was going to trial and his attorneys wanted him to use an insanity defense and he refused, about our desire to pathologize extreme political views, perhaps so as not to deal with the actual ideas and why someone would find them important enough to kill for. I’m not saying Bachman is like the Unabomber (or perhaps, to keep her on the appropriate side of the political spectrum, an abortion clinic bomber), but I think there is a similarity in the way we say she’s crazy as a substitute for trying to grasp what’s actually going on in her mind. I guess the question becomes whether it’s worthwhile to actually understand what’s going in her mind, but her way of thinking has enough resonance in our political system that she can keep a seat in Congress, so perhaps it is.
What about intoxication/hallucinating as the metaphor? Too drunk on prejudice to see clearly. Looking at reality through beer goggles. And instead of being delusional we could say someone was on a hallucinating, or if you want to be more careful about avoiding mental illness metaphors specify that the person is on a hallucinogen. Now this approach could fall into substance addiction analogies which is probably objectionable on similar grounds so pains would have to be taken to keep the metaphors in the realm of the irresponsible debaucher who willing gives up her capacity to see straight.
The intoxication metaphor is nice because its a subject we have a really extensive vocabulary for already. A quick look gives us bombed, boozed, buzzed, drunken, high, inebriated, loaded, looped, muddled, potted, sloppy, smashed, tanked, three sheets to the wind, tied one on, tight, tipsy, under the influence, unsober. And that doesn’t even include hallucinating and all the words for the drugs that put you in this condition.
The dreamer could work but thats already in use for a similar condition (utopian thinking).
We also should stop using “batshit crazy” because it’s terribly cliched!
I like the mix of voluntariness and involuntariness that the intoxication metaphors give us (you become intoxicated voluntarily, but may end up doing things you wouldn’t have done voluntarily had you been sober). “Drunk on power” is already a common phrase that uses this metaphor.
Moving slightly away from intoxication, there’s also “drank the KoolAid,” and one of my new favorite cliches for the flipside of that, “drank the Haterade.” (E.g., “MoveOn.org drank the Bush Haterade.”)
I felt a bit bad for calling Jeff out on the word that he had used: I also sometimes grope for a word that describes how something makes me feel. And then I say, without thinking “it makes me crazy”. Sometimes I’ll slap myself — literally — for using such an oppressive word. It’s hard to excise these words and phrases from our vocabulary. But it gets easier.
I will be back later or tomorrow with more to say, but for now I’d like to ask a question: Do people find the use of the word “crazy” similarly problematic in phrases like “I am crazy for you” or “I am crazy about x” where the point is to connote something positive?
I think intoxication metaphors have some potential. We actually already use this when someone is saying or doing something that makes no sense (She’s on drugs!), and I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. Thanks, Jack. It’s not without potential for misuse, but I think it’s better and more accurate than crazy or insane.
As for “drank the Kool-Aid,” I’ve used this more than once, but it’s not unproblematic, given that it basically makes a joke out of the deaths of some 800 people, many of whom were coerced in one way or another into drinking said Kool-Aid. I had never really thought about it until I watched that Jonestown documentary and one of the survivors talked about how much it bothers him when he hears that expression.
> But there’s a huge difference between an illness that disconnects you from reality
>as a result of neurochemical processes and the condition of being willfully
>disconnected from reality because you don’t want to have your opinions challenged.
> One is an illness, the other is a character flaw, and the two ought never be confused.
Why do you believe that Bachman & Holocaust deniers don’t also find it difficult to change their opinions due to neurochemical processes in their brains?
There is some very interesting work done one brain setups and how well connected some people’s brains are to the “devils’ advocate” areas of their brains, which changes how able people are to consider different opinions and arguments.
There was an amazing discovery seen by some brain researchers when looking at people who were not capable of realizing that their limbs were missing. (this person believed that (s)he (I don’t recall which)) still had two arms, and when asked to do something with the missing arm would give an excuse (“I don’t feel like it”)). One day when for other reasons this person’s ear was being washed out with cold water, (s)he realized that an arm was missing. This continued for several minutes after the washing stopped. Then later the patient continued denying that the arm was missing.
The neurobiologists looked into this and concluded that cooling the part of the brain next to the ear allowed some parts of the brain to function better, and recognize reality.
My spouse and I have been tempted to go on a spree kidnapping world leaders, and pouring cold water into their ears to see if it helps them understand their opponents.
I don’t see a need to ascribe some beliefs, to character flaws, and others to neurochemical brain processes, because (unless you believe that there are parts of thinking that are not done in the brain) all of this traces back to either differences in experiences, or differences in brain neurochemistry.
I’m not sure “drank the Kool Aid” is a joke, exactly — it’s generally a criticism of someone’s having bought into an idea too much, to the point that their unquestioning belief is destructive.
PG, I know what it means, but I think the phrase is supposed to have a certain humorous effect in the way it puts down the person you’re referring to (not unlike batshit crazy). What the survivor in the documentary said (and I’m paraphrasing from memory here) is that the people at Jonestown didn’t drink the Kool-Aid because they wanted to die or accepted Jim Jones decision that they should die, but that they felt they simply had no choice but to obey or that resistance was futile. Anyone who didn’t drink the Kool-Aid was shot, so it was really just a matter of how you would die, not whether you would live or die. Obviously, you could say that by going to Jonestown at all, they had bought into the promise of Jim Jones to a degree that was destructive, but I don’t think the actual act of drinking the Kool-Aid occurred out of unquestioning belief.
I didn’t mean to derail the discussion and, like I said, I’ve used it plenty myself. I’m not even particularly trying to police your language or its use. I brought it up because it had never occurred to me to think about that expression critically before I saw the documentary. If the goal is to find metaphors to talk about certain ways of thinking that don’t further demean the powerless, I’m not sure Kool-Aid drinker really meets that standard.
Excising the “crazy” from our language is incredibly difficult, I think.
I’m relatively comfortable with all the “douchebag”-ing that’s been going around.
Chronologically, “drank the Kool-Aid” doesn’t make sense because it was the final act of obedience/coercion to Jim Jones rather than part of the initial choice to live under his rule, but I think it’s used because people want to evoke that horrible aspect of unquestioning obedience. “Joined a cult” doesn’t sound bad enough, especially since “cult” is such a judgment-embedded term anyway (is the Church of Scientology a “cult”?). It’s not precisely demeaning the powerless, so much as it demeans the choice to give one’s power over oneself to another person or a group or ideology.
“Drank the Kool-Aid” has particular resonance for people on the right because Jonestown was a socialist commune and Jones himself was on good terms with several Democrats until reports of what was happening at the commune began to emerge.
I’m not a big fan of “douchebag” given that douching itself (at least for cis-women) is part of the belief that women are dirty.
This largely reflects my view as well. I suspect all people are prone to seeing the world in a manner that conforms to our preferences, and perhaps even our biological predispositions. What exactly does “character flaw” mean? What accounts for the type of character I have? Specifically, do I choose my character? Am I morally responsible for it? Do I differ from Bachmann in kind or merely in degree?
In this sense, I share the perspective of those who would “pathologize ” deviance – except that I’d take the additional step to suggest that we may all suffer from this pathology to some extent. We may be entirely accurate in our harsh assessment of Bachmann; we may be inaccurate in our comparatively benign assessment of ourselves.
To be sure, Bachmann is just being Bachmann, and the world is full of curious individuals. The astonishing thing is to appreciate how so many people are inclined to send her to Congress. Is something in the water supply?
What motivates Holocaust deniers – this thing we call a “character flaw”? And what motivates people who feel the need to argue with Holocaust deniers? And how do the people in these two groups differ from the great majority of people who take no part in the discussion one way or the other? I suspect that there are some powerful emotional hooks in the first two groups that don’t exist in the third. But I that’s just a guess.
Hmm, a wilfull disconnect from reality: obtuse?
Oh, I’ve discovered even more reasons than that to avoid this phrase, at least when referring to Bachmann.
Hm. “Fool” springs quickly to mind, although “fool” in the sense of someone using satire and humor and misdirection to tweak authority has an honorable history. “Wilfully ignorant” might serve. You might look at it as a case of being entangled or wrapped up in a self-fulfilling illusion or delusion as well. It’s not just a disconnect from reality – it’s a shield from reality.
While it does indeed trivialize mental illness, I must confess an affection for the term “batshit crazy”, though.
PG:
Moving slightly away from intoxication, there’s also “drank the KoolAid,” and one of my new favorite cliches for the flipside of that, “drank the Haterade.” (E.g., “MoveOn.org drank the Bush Haterade.”)
The phrase I’ve seen a lot for that last was BDS – as in “Bush Derangement Syndrome”, the concept that Pres. Bush was ignorant and deceitful and that everything that went wrong in American society or indeed elsewhere was his fault.
Hmm … “derangement”. Ought to be able to craft something out of that for this.
Actually, I still kind of like “batshit crazy” too…except it’s a bit unfair to bats. I propose “bugfuck”–I don’t care so much about bugs. I can’t entirely shake the need for the mental illness metaphor…some of the things done to me when young could only be explained by some sort of psychosis that never got properly treated. So it’s important to think carefully about metaphors, and I will…but only over my dead body would I give up the right to say “His dick must be in the peanut butter because he’s fucking nuts.”
RonF,
I have heard of BDS many times, but I never knew anyone who actually believed that “everything that went wrong in American society or indeed elsewhere was his fault.” Drinking the Bush Haterade works better because it’s more accurate: just as there are people who “drink the Kool-Aid” and lose their critical thinking skills about someone they worship, such that they unquestioningly reject almost any negative claim about him, there are people who drink the Haterade and lose their critical thinking skills about someone they loathe, such that they unquestioningly accept almost any negative claim about him. The Bush Kool Aid drinkers couldn’t believe that he might be screwing up the Iraq invasion by invading with such a small, under-equipped force (“but they’ll greet us as liberators!”); the Bush Haterade drinkers couldn’t believe that Bush sincerely thought — albeit due to his own Haterade consumption — that Saddam Hussein had WMDs.
I’m not a big fan of “douchebag” given that douching itself (at least for cis-women) is part of the belief that women are dirty.
See, that’s why I like “douchebag,” especially for assholes whose assholeishness (assholery?) includes misogyny. It’s not an insult because women are dirty. It’s an insult because it’s something bad for women. It might be the first insult in the English language in which it’s bad to be bad for women.
Thanks for all your comments. I particularly like the idea of doing more with intoxication – drunk on their own prejudice is great and I’m going to try and start using it.
If anyone has other words they want substitutes for, post them in this thead as well. For instance, what are good substitutes for ‘lame’? (which I think is used less as a metaphor than a word that has a evolved from a metaphor for have a specific meaning, but that’s no reason not).
I do wish that we could use more metahpors where we compare those we don’t like to groups with power, but I’ve tried to think of some that sound natural and I can’t.
” post them in this thead as well. For instance, what are good substitutes for ‘lame’?”
When I remember to substitute for words that spring to mind like crazy or lame — which I should remember all the time, but it’s a learning process — I just try to think of what it is that I actually mean by the claim. Often for lame, I mean “That sucks” or “What an unbelievably unfortunate thing to happen” or “That claim couldn’t have less foundation if you built it on quicksand.”
For me, the process has been about trying to identify and articulate the reason why I want to pull for a cliche and offensive word — rather than using the cliche and offensive word as a short-cut to expressing my meaning.
The human brain almost can’t function without metaphor. There are words that are almost always used metaphorically, and we don’t hear them that way because we’re unfamiliar with the literal/original meaning. The words excoriate and flay, for example, literally mean skin — a very powerful metaphor that has lost a lot of its punch as the words have gotten disconnected from their original meaning. (Note the three metaphors in the last sentence. I could rewrite it without them if I had to, but it would be a chore, and it would make for very dull prose.)
Likewise, we talk about excruciating embarrassment, racking our brains, and halting speech or gait without ever considering etymology. The word halting in that sense literally means limping or lame (I just realized that those are derived from the same word), but people aren’t sensitive to the former as they are to the latter — probably because no one uses halt or halting as an insult.
I could go on in this vein at excruciating, er, great length, and may still, but I have to leave very shortly, so, moving on…
The first thing I thought of as a substitute for crazy or insane was deranged, but Ron beat me to it. For some reason, although the dictionary meaning is the same, deranged sounds both more purposeful and more evil than insane or mad. I have used “flaming wacko” to describe Michele Bachmann.
I do believe we need to think about and be careful with language, especially in writing, and to consider if and why we’re insulting the powerless. But if we go parsing and straining every word for every possible meaning… that way lies, um, chaos. (Could we call Bachmann chaotic? Or disordered?) On the way home I’ll try to figure out where the line is, because I can’t help hoping to find one somewhere.
“That sucks” — my understanding is that this arose as disparagement because of the reference to performing oral sex on a man, which is done by women (lesser beings) and homosexuals (lesser beings + gross). So if we want to avoid words that draw their negative power from being associated with the powerless…
I’m pretty sure that douchebag arose as an insult when douching still was common, and did so because what could be grosser than the contents of a woman’s vagina? See, e.g., The Lords of Discipline, which is set in a military academy in the 1960s and based on the author’s experiences (Citadel ’67), in which “douchebag” was an interchangeable insult with “used Kotex.” From p. 163-164:
Followed by asswipe, pussy, vagina-face, etc. At the end of that particular drill, the narrator is asked, “What’s a douchebag?” and says, “I don’t know, I’ve never heard of one, but a lot of people sure think I have a strong family resemblance to one.”
Y’all get the idea.
It isn’t elegant enough to be an actual metaphor, but if you went in a similar direction I think it could be good.
A timing belt in a car controls when the valves open for proper engine efficiency by linking the crankshaft and the camshaft.
If the belt degrades or isn’t set properly, the valves open at the wrong time degrading engine efficiency and causing fluid to leak out. What often happens is one of the valves will be spectacularly mistimed such that you effectively aren’t using it.
Holocaust deniers have functioning brains and hearts, but on the issue of the holocaust (or often Jews in general) their entire logical/emotional structure misfires as if the timing chain was off.
Again, it isn’t elegant, I suspect there is a similar but different metaphor that could go there.
I would go further, and say that for some of them, it is as if they at some point deliberately misset their timing chain.
It is not more “compassionate” to say someone who does something you don’t like is crazy or insane or nuts, it is less compassionate to everyone who has ever been diagnosed with a mental illness and suffered prejudice, discrimination, job loss, health loss, inferior medical care, eviction and loss of liberty without committing a crime because of it. Anyone here remember how recently people were involuntarily sterilized in this country of the U.S. for being diagnosed insane? Anyone here know how many people are dying each year from forced and voluntary use of drugs that are not taken off the market that shorten lives and kill organs?
I want a metaphor for people who insist on their right to call me names that isn’t rude. Anyone got one?
And I see nothing wrong with saying someone is doing the wrong thing, is saying something wrong, even is doing something or did something evil. Lots of metaphors for evil behavior that don’t call my people names. Lacks the empathy of a lettuce is my personal favorite.
Lots of metaphors for evil behavior that don’t call my people names.
I don’t think anyone has advocated for calling people who aren’t neuro-typical names. I’d venture that most people who have commented on this thread think it’s bad to refer to people who aren’t neuro-typical as “batshit crazy” or “nuts” because it belittles a real and serious problem that could afflict any one of us. (Indeed, statistically at least one person on this thread is going to end up with Alzheimer’s or another dementia.)
Why can’t there be legal/medical terms for people who have a mental condition for which they may or may not seek treatment (“insane,” “bipolar,” etc.), that are distinct from slang terms for people who seem to speak or behave irrationally but are neuro-typical from a medical standpoint?
“That sucks” — my understanding is that this arose as disparagement because of the reference to performing oral sex on a man, which is done by women (lesser beings) and homosexuals (lesser beings + gross). So if we want to avoid words that draw their negative power from being associated with the powerless”
I know that. I consider it sufficiently estranged from its origins, and haven’t seen large numbers of women or gay peple asking for it to be removed from our metaphorical language.
Caught in an affective death spiral?
Irrational?
Clueless?
Parasitic meme victim?
Self-brainwashed?
Running unpatched software?
As a mentally ill person, I have to admit that it’s a good idea not to stigmatize mental illness any worse than it already is. I also have to admit to referring to people with whom I disagree as “batshit insane” or “batshit crazy.” I also tend to say that someone who does or says something stupid is “smoking bad crack” or “smoking crack cut with duh” (as if smoking crack doesn’t make a person act badly enough).
As to suggestions for better metaphors for the wrong-headed, I submit my current favorite insult, to wit, asshat. The word, as explained to me when I first encountered it, suggests that one has one’s head up one’s ass, or is wearing one’s ass for a hat.
Maybe we could steal from drug culture and say smoking, high, tripping, or flashing. That last is actually common slang in one specific town in the Boston area; it means seeing, hearing, or in general imagining things. I don’t know the derivation, but one friend suggested that it might be from flashback. (ETA: cross-posted with DesertRose.)
We might borrow from the Internet/computer science as well: 404, syntax error, unknown zone, or, converging with an existing term, buggy.
@Mandolin: I’ve mentioned my discomfort with the term straight, meaning heterosexual, but the same reasoning applies: I’ve never heard a GLBT person complain about it, and the only people conflating the meanings heterosexual and honest are the buggy Boy Scouts.
Coming in late, but I’m personally very fond of “willfully ignorant,” “deliberately disconnected from reality” “amoral” and the like. ‘Cause honestly the thing that gets me about the people who I WANT to label as “batshit crazy” is that they’re NOT. Most of them could know better if they chose to.
Um, and people who are crazy aren’t ignorant nor stupid nor unable to tell right from wrong so it was never a good metaphor in the first place. think Nash and so many others.
Agreeing with both Kira and Alison, I’m getting fonder of buggy in the software sense: having errors in one’s thinking so that one can’t process information correctly.
Maybe something like “living in his or her own universe/country/dimension”? Also perhaps some of the pithiness of “douchebag” could be preserved with “enema bag”?
I have been trying to use the word “suspect” instead of “lame” in responding to a situation/person’s actions that I consider demoralizing and/or trust inhibiting, which is how I’ve used the word in the past.
Friend says: “I left a message but haven’t gotten a return call in weeks”, I say “That’s totally suspect!”
I prefer “watering a dead plant” over “beating a dead horse.” It conveys the same sense of pointless effort without the cruelty.
As for those who willfully deny reality such as the holocaust deniers, I don’t know. “Holocaust denier” pretty much is the ultimate form of willful disregard for reality that I can think of.
Sebastian:
If the belt degrades or isn’t set properly, the valves open at the wrong time degrading engine efficiency and causing fluid to leak out. What often happens is one of the valves will be spectacularly mistimed such that you effectively aren’t using it.
What happens when the belt isn’t set properly is that the vacumm or pressure developed in the cylinder by the falling or rising piston tries to suck air in through the exhaust system or blow air out through the intake system. In an extreme case – such as if you should put the camshaft in 180 degrees out of phase (it was a 1956 Ford my brothers and I decided to rebuild when we were teenagers …) – the piston will actually HIT the valves and either crack or break the valves or bend up the pushrods (which then become DAMN hard to remove and replace).
As a person with mental illness, I tend not to use the term “batshit crazy”. It just lacks the right ring for me. I prefer the term “Nuttier than squirrel poo”. It’s just that much more visually evocative for me.
That said, I think the proper term for holocaust deniers is stupid. With a side of willful. Perhaps “Reality-Challenged”.
I too think the distinction between 1)voluntary delusion 2)faked delusion for rhetorical purpose, and 3)involuntary delusions of some psychiatric disorders is important.
Additionally, some have defined political opposition as mental illness(Soviets and Ann Coulter come to mind). At best, it leads to Othering people with different political views, and discounting criticism that may in fact be reality-based. At worst, well, people get murdered.
Crazy/mad/delusional is an effective metaphor because because having a delusional disorder is not a good thing, either for oneself or people around. But it may not be a good metaphor for actually understanding why people disagree with you. It is possible to disagree without being delusional, being unable to recognize that other stances are based on say, different facts or applying different weights to various values or outcomes. I think that calling your own side reality-based essentially calling the other side some combination of 1-3.
Perhaps the way to avoid using madness as a metaphor is to replace the metaphor with what it is actually a metaphor for(wow that was awkward.) For 1) obtuse, as others have suggested, or saying what you actually think the person is: wrong, or avoiding unpleasant conclusions for personal gain. For 2) It seems reasonable to call this one lying.
A difficulty of replacing metaphors that apply to low social power groups may be that the reality of the metaphorical is trait is generally considered a negative. The new metaphor will eventually become an insult applied to the group. It certainly happens the other way when a new name is chosen because the old one has become a pejorative. Witness various old official terms for MRDD.
Btw, I don’t mean “you” to refer to any actual person. Using one sounds snotty to me.
I might not stop using such metaphors as I have mentioned, in some circumstances, but I will try to use ’em a bit more carefully. And I think that in a lot of cases the expression that should be used is one that does not obscure the responsibility of the wrongdoer/sayer, but shows clearly that they should change their ways.
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