Something I actually really hate is when people use “room temperature IQ” as an insult. Especially in the case of someone being reactionary and conservative (how it’s used by leftists). The conservative use of it is not much better because on that side of the aisle the phrase is used to imply that you have a low IQ for supporting the rights of your fellow man, but I digress.
The phrase is always used in a way to say that arguing with someone whose intelligence you perceive as low is a waste of time, or to imply that only “stupid” people are reactionary. And that’s just plain ableist and nasty.
I’ve had so many more productive and civil conversations about serious world issues with people who quite literally have the room temperature IQ implied by that insult than people who have average or self-proclaimed high IQs (which in most cases, no your IQ is not actually high. You Dunning-Kruger’d yourself). In conversations about serious world issues with people who have average IQs (like myself) they have actually been far quicker to be dismissive and reactionary than when I’m taking about those same issues with my lower IQ friends.
And I’m not saying that either side of things is better or worse. I’m simply saying that using “room temperature IQ” as an insult is incredibly fucking ableist. I’m also saying that in my personal experience with people who actually have low IQs that it doesn’t take a average/high IQ to have a civil conversation or to understand that people in this world are suffering. My most left leaning friends are intellectually disabled. Pretty significantly so at that. Equating high IQs to good morals is just as harmful as equating high empathy to good morals. You don’t need either of those things to be a good person and using “room temperature IQ” as an insult to those you don’t agree with implies just that.
Tagging @monarch-my-love and @sesamecrackers as they are both intellectually disabled, but any other ID folks that see this and are able to give their input to this please do! I really want to hear thoughts on this, and I hope I worded everything well on this issue.
