This is a writing question for a realistic sci-fi book I'm working on. Ableism means discrimination against people who are disabled. What would be the best word, made up (or not made up) for discriminating against people with enhanced abilities? Superableism? Reverse ableism? Is there a better term that isn't used much?
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2Ableism means "discrimination based on ability". So technically it could be used to both describe discrimination of people with limited abilities as well as discrimination of people with extraordinary abilities. But practically I wouldn't consider it appropriate to use the same term, because disabled and superpowered people are completely different minorities who get discriminated for completely different reasons.– PhilippCommented Dec 13, 2016 at 15:14
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I see. What about disableism? I guess that sounds bad, but enhanced people could say that normal people are disabled by comparison and they're being favored by the law.– TomCommented Dec 13, 2016 at 15:17
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Just to clarify: are you talking about discriminating against people who have extraordinary abilities, or celebrating them?– Lauren IpsumCommented Dec 13, 2016 at 15:38
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Discriminating against people with abilities.– TomCommented Dec 13, 2016 at 15:42
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1"Reverse racism" is when people who are commonly discriminated because of their race begin to discriminate those who are not of their race. "Reverse ableism" would therefore be when people who are discriminated because of their disability begin to discriminate people without that disability. It wouldn't designate discrimination by average people against above-average abilities.– user32638Commented Dec 14, 2016 at 8:18
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2 Answers
Enhanceism just doesn't roll off the tongue, does it? (Not my unenhanced tongue, anyway.)
Consider augmentism.
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1While I like the word, there's nothing about it out of context which expresses a negative bias against the augmented.– Lauren IpsumCommented Dec 14, 2016 at 14:55
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The -ism, like in ableism, has become associated with stuff similar to fascism.– P. O.Commented Apr 25, 2017 at 11:57
I think you need to come up with a term for your enhanced people first (inhumans, specials, supers, amazings, whatever). Then you can either slap an anti- in the front of that or coin a new slang term — someone anti-inhuman could be pure human, for example. Anti-amazing could be unzing (which you could then extrapolate into "people who are good without powers" are "unzung heroes," that kind of thing).