There’s a clear campaign against the mentally ill with the global rise of fascism. Lots of it shows up in anti homeless rhetoric, but you can see it in the MAHA and anti vaccination movements.
There’s no reason to use the word “r-tarded” to describe someone. As someone who’s worked with the intellectually challenged, it’s an insult to them to compare them with people who are willfully ignorant.
i’m austistic and love the word retard, really don’t understand peoples need to be offended for others. it’s not remotely close to the n-word, saying “r-word” just makes you seem like a tool imo
I don’t particularly care one way or the other, but I know it really bothers some people, so I avoid using it. Best case scenario, I avoid making fun of a disability, worst case scenario, I had to go to all the trouble and effort of thinking of and using a synonym, such a terrible effort.
ITT: people making excuses for using what they know is a hateful word.
Just use a different word. That’s it. It’s very simple. Use literally anything else. People are acting like we’re about to stick a probe up their ass.
Once upon a time it was the other word (it is a technical word meaning: delayed). Scientists and Doctors used it as the official term for mental development disorders, which is why people started using it as an insult.
Pick a different word and watch the same thing happen again.
There’s no reason to use the word “r-tarded” to describe someone.
Seeing how upset it makes some people it’s very clear that it makes an excellent insult.
You’re right technically but things have regression so far back were at 2016 levels of slurs the nword is making a comeback. Until thats sorted you have zero chance getting people to care about retard.
isn’t it kind of divorced from the mentally ill at this point? it just means that someone is slow, which is exactly what retardation is.
“People shouldn’t call people “r-tarded””.
Well there’s a hot take!
Here’s the thing, the word doesn’t matter… It’s the intent. For example if I said “well aren’t you a fucking genius” and meant it sarcastically that’s just as insulting. I could also say “you gobflecker” in a aggressive tone that also bad.
An example is the old show red dwarf. The replaced every curse word with smeg. Smeg doesn’t mean anything. But in the show when one character calls another a “smeghead”. You know it’s not nice and meant to be an insult even though they never said or explained that in the show.
Banning a word won’t do anything. Ban the attitude and change people’s opinions and you can change the world. For example women, not saying they are treated well by everyone but compared to 200 years ago? Or even further back? For example there was a “treatment” for women who dared consider working. They were basically forced to bed and forced to stay there only hand few broth for 6 months. They literally just had to lay there, no talking no reading no such thing as a video. Today they are treated much better, it wasn’t by banning the world girl or bitch or vagina or anything it was by changing people’s perception.
Absolutely recommend you try this out with some slurs on people of various races and see if saying “the word doesn’t matter” stops them from beating the shit out you lol
lol, retard isnt even close to the n-word and it’s annoying as fuck when people try to compare the two.
there’s a joke (john mullaney, i think?) that goes if you got two words…and one word you won’t even say…that word is the worse word
The word doesn’t matter, it’s the intent.
Eh, maybe, but words communicate intent. By stigmatizing certain messaging - which can include both reserving certain words for only certain use cases and also shaming people who express bigotry regardless of what word they happen to choose - we communicate to third party observers that such views are not welcome in our society. Will it change the mind of the person using those words? Probably not, but avoiding hurtful words still has a great deal of positive social utility.
I don’t know, I don’t think the specific word is that meaningful. A new slur will likely be made for mentally disabled people, then it will get pushback and then another one will be made.
If I translated it to hindi or German or swahili it wouldn’t mean anything but if I walked up to you and yelled them at you you would probably be hurt. If I said them lovingly and softly you probably would be comforted.
The problem with having these conversations on the internet is there is no way to express that so… Maybe… I could see the point of banning potentially offensive words in text on the internet.
If I translated it to hindi or german or swahili it wouldn’t mean anything [to you]
Well, yeah. There may not be a word in those languages with the same connotations, and yeah, obviously I wouldn’t understand them if there were. But all language is contextual. We’re currently talking about english - and I’m specifically talking about United States English because that is what I speak.
Censorship wouldn’t be my choice - and in any case I believe what’s being advocated for here by the OP is social disapproval - but yeah, in the context of the internet I would refrain from using words that could hurt people when it was not my intention to hurt them.
Around strangers, coworkers, or really anyone you don’t know well a similar policy would tend to apply. Even with friends, I wouldn’t want to encourage a culture of being callous with the words I use.
There are so many other ways to express whatever sentiment you’re trying to express, why would you reach for a word that implies that some people are less than others? I’m referring to it in its use as an insult or derogatory word, of course, since technical language has its place and institutions will generally choose whatever language fits their needs. I can’t assess their situation because I’m not involved.
I think we are arguing the same thing. Don’t be mean or an asshole. Don’t look down on people. People regardless of ability should be treated as people.
Of course you shouldnt use it as an insult or derogatory word. I was totally not arguing for that. I was just saying that if you wanted to be insulting or derogatory the word itself doesn’t matter. The change to r-word doesn’t change anything. The question “are you r-worded?” should be just as offensive.
We have down this many times. Stupid, invalid, ibecil all had similar meanings and then were made offensive and a new word was made up, then that became offensive.
The word itself is meaningless, it’s the context and intent.
Yeah. We’ve been down this road before. Believe it or not but all those african american navy seals with gay brothers who also were active duty military? Yeah, they were just shitty white kids who wanted to say nr and ft a lot. Who’da thunk it?
No. It is about showing the absolute bare minimum of human decency to change your vocabulary and avoid using slurs that people have to constantly hear from people who AREN’T actually african american navy seals with gay brothers and all that.
Ban the attitude and change people’s opinions and you can change the world.
And a huge chunk of that is to stop saying fucking slurs.
but compared to 200 years ago? Or even further back?
Homie… are you ACTUALLY playing the “You could be property so shut the fuck up if I want to say a slur” card?
Also, I strongly suggest anyone who thinks “history” was a no woman’s land or was all about racial purity to actually do some research. Shockingly, things were actually a LOT more “progressive” than they would expect with most bigotry and hatred being more oriented towards killing those Others across the channel. Most of the “We used to be a whole lot more racist and sexist” is, shockingly, from racist and sexist people who want to “make <insert country> great again”.
Nope, I am not saying you could be property so shut up. I’m saying the progress we made was not based on language.
I’m unaware of an existent group of people for whom the term “smeg” is or historically was thier actual designation?
It isn’t about not insulting someone, it’s about using language that refers to actual people who haven’t done anything wrong.
It’s like if suddenly everyone decided to call a pedophile a Vrek. You maybe wouldn’t love that suddenly people are invoking YOU to talk about pedophiles.
That’s the kind of collateral damage people are trying to avoid.
I’ve for sure said things are retarded. I’m no saint. I’ve got mixed feelings… but I think your take on the subject is poorly informed. I think you’ve missed the entire premise of the argument against using the word.
My point with smeg was that it was a made up word. But you could figure out the intent purely by context.
Again it comes to context, if you intend to hurt a person the word is meaningless.
So it seems like we are going to have to wait until impaired, challenged and disabled are turned into slurs by the overly-sensitive so removed can achieve the neutral status of idiot, dumb, stupid, moron and imbecile - words that removed used to be considered the politically correct alternative.
I think the argument is whizzing over your head too.
The logical breakdown here is pretty simple:
Argument #1 (OP): It’s probably not good to use disadvantaged groups as a slur.
Argument #2 (You and most others): Well if we do that then I don’t have words to degrade people.
These are completely orthogonal arguments, and I sincerely have sympathy for both. I genuinely do think there is communicative value in having words that illicit the intended response of calling someone’s argument “retarded”. I know what I mean. You know what I mean. It actually has nothing to do with people who are actually handicapped. It’s effective communication… it just has an unfortunate BYPRODUCT.
But not having slurs isn’t a counter-argument to the thesis that using disadvantaged groups as slurs is bad.
Strawmanning it as “PC gone mad” is just a convenient way to avoid actually addressing the concern head on.
Like, just be a fucking man: “Yeah, it probably isn’t good to use disadvantaged groups as slurs, but I’m at a loss for language that satisfies that while also effectively getting the content and TONE of my communication across, so I’m going to use it anyways. Not everythingi do is ideal.”
As soon as you abandon the ego-sheltering delusion that you don’t do things that are probably not great, you can actually think about things objectively without hitting a mental panic button the second you’re forced to evaluate a legitimate position in which your current behaviors would be evaluated as bad.
I don’t think anyone is saying that clinical language doesn’t have a use. If anything, it’s the use of these words as general-purpose insults that makes them unfit for clinical use, not the other way around.
That dude’s a fucking Vrek, goddamn.
So the solution to mean people co-opting medical language to be bullies is to …move to another term and change the vernacular we accept from doctors so they use different words the bullies can then co-opt?
Have you tried an approach that isn’t running and hiding?
Hi, healthcare worker here. The r-slur hasn’t been used in the medical profession for decades. But hey, feel free to come up with more justifications for why it’s totally fine for you to call people slurs.
The euphemism treadmill. It’s pretty…uhhhh…dumb
There’s a historical cycle where the helping professions rotate the terminology out, as the wider culture overloads the old terms with insulting usage. Eventually the new vernacular leaks out into general parlance and the cycle cycles. “Retarded” was once acceptable clinical terminology because "idiot, “moron”, and “imbecile” had accumulated cultural baggage. The latter terms were, themselves, once politically correct alternatives to even older terms.
I think it’s naive to think that THIS time is special, and today’s politically correct terminology won’t ever leak out into common usage as a slur too.
Right, so then we rotate words again. This isn’t hard. We’re not trying to find the One True Politically Correct Term; we’re arguing that one (1) specific word has a negative bias and we need to stop using it.
If a group of people are telling me this word was and continues to be used as a dehumanizing slur, that’s enough for me to look into a vocabulary change. More importantly, the very existence of a euphemism treadmill shows that you can’t stop at language change, and that disabled people need to be much more fully accepted in society.
Which gets to the larger problem - the dehumanization of people with intellectual and cognitive disabilities. Being such a person is considered such a bad thing that it can be used as an insult. Whatever terminology we use, people with cognitive delays are just as human, just as valuable as anyone else.
People with cognitive delays are just as human and just as valuable as anyone else
Precisely! 100% agree.
I also want to add that I don’t disagree with people who say that there’s a cyclical pattern with words becoming taboo and being replaced. That’s obviously a fact. But the fact that language evolves doesn’t give us license to be assholes.
Ultimately, the only thing that will improve things is educating the average person about the topic. But calling out ableist language - whether the person using such language intends that meaning or not - is often a good starting point for education (for those willing to learn.)
Also, what most people don’t understand is that developmental delays and cognitive deficiencies are a spectrum and can occur across different types of cognition. For example, I’m what today you might call “doubly special” - I was far ahead in some areas but far behind in others. I still am, to a degree.
So should people use the names for people like me to refer to assholes who intentionally hurt other people’s feelings? I certainly wouldn’t like it if they did. Regardless of how much I might accidentally piss people off or hurt their feelings, it’s rarely my intention to make people feel that way and and I’d rather not have someone else’s moral failing conflated with my struggle to communicate in ways most people understand.
Neurospicy
Honestly, it’s not a word in my vocabulary but I think this opinion is moronic, idiotic even.
The only reason it continues to be offense to those living with mental disabilities is because there are people like yourself who keep attributing the word to them.
Oh oh do the n-word!
The n-word isn’t going through a continuous euphemism tread mill, unlike how r word variants continue to go through. That, I think, makes it substantially different — though in truth it’s the same for it as well
almost like ones an actual slur and the other is just something people with too much time on their hands like to pretend matters
They do have some special needs
I find it difficult to imagine a future in which humans aren’t making fun of impaired cognition.
I think the context is what’s most important, if anyone actually directs such language (be it retarded, idiot, etc) towards people with genuine mental impairment, that constitutes a slur. But the word ‘retarded’ literally means ‘slow’, and is still regularly used (including by myself) in scientific and technical contexts (compared to racist or homophobic slurs, which are only ever really used in a ‘slur’ kind of way).
I wouldn’t really have a problem with calling people ‘slow’ in jest, and I don’t think many would. Imo if not ‘retarded’, it’ll be something else with the same meaning.
Also commonly used in timing of internal combustion engines
It is so weird to me that this opinion is unpopular, but judging by some of the comments here, I see your point.
I’ve stopped using it as people have pointed out it’s hurtful, but I’ve never fully understood why. To me it’s in the same group as idiot, fool, lunatic, imbecile and cretin. Words that aren’t used to describe conditions anymore, only used as insults. While they can be used with hatred, they can also be used in a teasing way with friends. To me it doesn’t reach the level of racist, sexist and homophobic slurs.
I wanted to learn more and found a paper that makes the case that ableist insults are slurs. Download it here
I think it’s more about the idea that it’s shameful to be less able than someone else. The core idea here is that there’s nothing wrong with being less intelligent than average, and calling out people’s choice of words is only one part of that.
It’s like when people make fun of Trump’s weight/diet or RFK Jr.'s voice. I dislike those two just as much as the next person, but there’s nothing immoral or shameful about having a vocal condition, being overweight, or having a monotonous diet. And any health concerns (e.g. weight) should be left between a person and their doctor.
If you choose to make those things a subject of your ridicule, all it does is mark you as a shallow person, and I’m probably going to tune you out as someone who doesn’t have anything of substance to say.
