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.
Who is renornalizing it?
Have you not looked at this thread? Apparently a fuck ton of Lemmy users are.
No I haven’t, I guess I don’t live in an area where it’s being"re-normalized".
That said, once any term is used in a negative connotation long enough it becomes offensive and a new word is chosen. Until that becomes offensive.
It’s an endless cycle.
slurs are useful.
they are an escalation step that are words instead of physical violence.
making slurs illegals removes that step and leads the escalation straight to violence.
That is an unpopular opinion.
What the fuck kind of logic is this? We can’t magically make insulting language go away. If someone wants to use a slur, they will. People also don’t think “damn, if I didn’t have a word to insult this person that was insulting enough I’d punch them!” If people want to be violent they’re going to be violent.
At no point has the suggestion been that saying slurs should be illegal. It’s that if you say slurs, you are a shitty person.
Also - this is probably the most sociopathic and scary take on this thread. People say slurs rather than do violence, so we shouldn’t be concerned with people saying slurs? My understanding is that slurs are more often then not preludes to violence.
Not trying to be a troll. I just genuinely don’t understand why sociopathic is acceptable as an adjective and retarded is not. Can you explain the difference?
“Sociopath” is not a diagnosis for a mental illness or disability. It is a word describing behavior hostile to others. There is no systemic discrimination against people labeled as “sociopaths.”
Using terms like sociopath to describe someone is worse than a slur. It pseudo-intellectual cowardice to use that rather than saying that you think someone is crazy or more directly retarded.
I think that if you remove pathways that are non-violent, like name-calling, then that makes a more direct path to violence. And NAZIs have shown that violence is inevitable in history.
And hate speech is a crime in many places.
“Oh noo if I can’t say slurs then I have to just attack the ni-”
You gotta get past this phase bro
And you gotta see the Black Mirror episode, “Arkangel”, bro. Cause it’s obvious you haven’t.
“The TV show told me I was right bro”
I’ve seen all of black mirror. -_-
You gotta grow up
Ironically, the term “mental retardation” was introduced by medical and educational professionals as a less derogatory and more objective replacement for older, highly stigmatizing terms like idiot, moron, and imbecile, which themselves were previous medical classifications.
I think about this a lot. I feel like it essentially means the middle school bullies of today drive the slurs of tomorrow.
I think we should go back to learning the old adage “sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me”
Hell, anymore I chuckle inwardly when someone in-person resorts to any subtle sophistry like ad-hom.
Now I’m free to play games with you rather than stay on the subject in front of us.
I have siblings, we were like wolves growing up. Don’t dare show a weak spot, or that button will get pushed, repeatedly.
Someone tries to shame me, or goad me, oh what fun I shall have with them!
Sounds like it made you stronger
OP, I just gotta say, I really agree with you, and I find it really disgusting the amount of people in this thread trying to renormalize it or argue that it’s not problematic. This thread has been one of, if not the, most frustrating threads here over the past two years. Like I’m genuinely feeling gaslit by some of these comments. Do people not remember the voice people would use? Do people not remember the motions people would do? Those weren’t just a mild way to call someone stupid. It was always ableist and still is today. Maybe in five to ten years I’ll feel differently, like language really has moved on, but it doesn’t feel like that’s what’s happening. It feels like people just being more comfortable being edgy.
I’m with you on that. A lot of times lemmy feels like 4chan for self-proclaimed leftists, like look at how popular problematic greentext screenshots are.
But hey, at least this thread lets me know who I should avoid interacting with in the future
Myself and many of my friends were called it a lot growing up, but we still said it to and about each other super often. Now I kinda think people should probably avoid it, but I don’t think it’s “disgusting” for people to think they can say it, it’s very normalized and most people see it as a synonym for “you should know better than this” or “that is the dumbest thing ever.” I’ve seen it used 500x more in those ways than actually against anyone (not saying it’s rare people are called that, just extremely common to see it used not against anyone)
Do people not remember the voice people would use? Do people not remember the motions people would do?
Is that the fault of the word or the person?
The word choice is the fault of the person.
Exactly so.
other people don’t agree with you.
why do you find that so problematic? why do you feel your thoughts/feelings on this are superior such that other people should subordinate their beliefs and feelings to your own? is your moral authority over language use superior to other people’s?
I thought it was widely accepted that you shouldn’t use this word outside of, like, quoting old medical diagnosis from when the word was used in that context. It is not an okay insult.
Maybe I just hang out with nicer people.
I don’t think intellectually challenged individuals deserve cruelty, nor do I believe anyone does. However, this is the first argument that popped into my head, and I want to genuinely discuss this. Again, I do NOT agree that the intellectually challenged are deserving of discrimination. This is for the purpose of discussion.
If being intellectually challenged isn’t worthy of discrimination, why feel insulted when called retarded?
The situation you’re describing is a catch 22. Either people view it as ableist and it’s angering (though not necessarily insulting) that someone is using a slur, or people view it as a general purpose insult for stupid and it’s insulting. Plus, if someone uses a hateful tone and calls me something nice, it can still be hurtful, sarcasm exists, so even if people believe the word shouldn’t be used as an insult it’s not like that magically means it’s now a nice thing to do.
If someone thinks being overweight is t something to feel shameful about and is proud of their body while being overweight, it’s not like someone using fat as an insult magically no longer hurts or isn’t rude.
Idk if someone was called that as essentially a slur many times growing up, it’s not like they choose to feel bad when someone says it. It’s also used as a replacement for “bad/unpleasant” so it’s kinda hard to reclaim.
When you stop being offended by letters on a page and direct that hate towards the individuals that use the word as a slur or out of context on purpose, you’ll be a lot happier.
Do you also use the N word? Would you feel comfortable using that as an insult?
The N word is based off negro which is just black. Calling someone black isn’t an insult so the only connotation would be to be racist. Retard is based on slow and I would want to call someone slow and imply what they’re saying is moronic, so it literally fits perfectly. That said it’s still used as a slur pretty often and it’s purely a negative word so I still don’t really use it.
No, but then that word has very few uses beyond slurs. The word ‘retard’, however, has many uses in technical fields - for example in setting internal combustion engine timings, or throttle settings in aviation. As always, context matters.
I’m not offended by “faggot” because of its shape, I’m offended by it because it takes me back to when Meathead John crushed my throat in the playground calling me it until I would ask him to beat up the boy i liked instead.
Words represent, communicate and are something. Humans have for the entirety of their use of language, understood that the signifier and the signified are interchangeable.
I’m very sorry for your experience, but without knowing you and your history, I can’t possibly know all of that. So I’m left with two choices - sharply limit my vocabulary in the hopes of avoiding making some random person feel bad; or acknowledge that each adult is best qualified to carry and deal with their own traumas.
You don’t have to limit your vocabulary at all, you merely cannot escape the perception of others based on your behavior.
It’s not even limited to humans either - animals, insects will perceive and treat you differently depending on your behavior.
Nothing prevents you from kicking a dog, but the dog and anyone who knows about it will treat you accordingly.
Sure, but if you equate me with someone who kicks a dog just because I talk about master or slave database nodes, or the need to retard message rates - I’m also going to treat you accordingly.
And honestly that’s fair. If I’m sitting in a meeting and you’re trying to browbeat me into calling something a slave in front of some African American co-workers, or you’re talking about retarding something while someone explains they don’t like that term because their child has Downs Syndrome, you are welcome to think we’re foolish for caring - but I can’t imagine that Any Given Person would walk away thinking you’ve gotten the upper hand there
Oh look, somebody else is trying to cast me as a monster because I refuse to be politically correct in a technical context. You should probably also demonize me for the fact that I live my life in a wheelchair and will occasionally refer to myself as gimpy
I’m not trying to cast you as anything, I’m extrapolating real world events from your theoretical responses.
The term “politically correct” is a thought terminating cliche. it’s meant to detach real world experience from hypothetical situations. “Political” here is meant to cast the discussion on what the government is doing, I am not talking about the government, therefore whether this is politically correct or not is irrelevant.
You use that many slurs that avoiding making some random person feel bad sharply limits your vocabulary?
I try not to use any slurs at all, but working in a technical field, I do occasionally use terms that have been picked up as slurs.
And that’s okay, the context matters a lot. But someone’s code will or won’t compile regardless of if they call the branch “main” or “master”
In the context of this thread though, it really really seems like you just want to defend saying slurs
Why would I? I have the intellect and vocabulary to be specific when I choose to be insulting. For example, and only an example, I read you as a weekend intellectual, the sort of person who absolutely must be the smartest person in the room. Your lack of grammar and consistent punctuation gives me the impression you’re Generation Y or Generation Z, part way through what will ultimately be an unfruitful and potentially very short career in tech; and you can’t absorb why you’re not moving up. The real reason, of course, is that you’re bikeshedding everyone’s language instead of learning the craft.
How many slurs did you count?
sucks for you.
my dad used to beat me and call be f-word all the time. but i 100% don’t see any issue with other people using it.
not everyone who experiences the same things as you comes to the same conclusions you do. post-structuralist theory isn’t really so hot these days, but you seem to have referenced it as authoritative to your belief in controlling words.
Well that’s why this sub exists - it is not a matter of fact but a matter of opinion. It’s not even a matter of settled law in most places, or at least subject to scrutiny under precedent or context.
I agree its certainly an unpopular opinion and relevant to the sub, but posting an unpopular opinion in a space designated for such opinions does not mean that opinion becomes acceptable.
Lol you fucking spastic - can’t say that, its offensive
Are you retarded - can’t say that, its offensive
Damn bro, you mentally disabled?
This will continue onward, to think otherwise is retarded.
Quite the imaginary slippery slope you made up there.
I never really understood the difference between insults and slurs. Somebody said that slurs target groups of people and imply that just being in the group is bad. That explanation works for ethnic/racial slurs or the ones regarding gender/sexualities.
But to me “retarded” is not specifically tied to a group. It’s not mainly used for people who are disabled or neurodivergent for example. As far as I’m concerned it’s the same as calling someone a moron or incredibly stupid.
it’s historical and cultural context.
hence why words that were once common place, become seen as heinous.
but it’s not like words are the only thing for which this is true. just look at say, attitudes towards sex.
and the moralists about sex/words will argue that everyone else should do/believe what they do, or they are bad people.
Does that mean if I’m autistic I get an R- word pass?
+1
Maybe y’all haven’t experienced it as a slur. I grew up around jerks that did, and it leaves a nasty taste. I’ve caught myself using it, and felt awful afterwards.
Meh, where I grew up everyone got called all sorts on names - it was the Playground Way.
So yea, call me names, I really just don’t care, and may even laugh when someone does it, because it takes me back to my childhood days, reminds me only children behave like that. Now I know who someone is, and how to manipulate them.
Not at all
My brother has a mental disability. Not his fault, doctors fucked up ab operation when he was a baby and he came out severely damaged. He has the intellectual level do about a 13 year old, but he mostly lives independently, he got his drivers license in a country where many people with full brain capacities cannot. Doctors told my mom after the operation to just dump him in some institution, because he’d never even talk. She told them to go fuck themselves.
I’m fucking proud of him (and my mom), because with severe limitations he really got himself ahead. I see him as a fucking genius.
Then there are retards like Elon musk who do have a full brain with full abilities but somehow fail to even surpass what my brother wasn’t supposed to be able to do, yet by brother does it, these people do
I call people removed when they are supposed to be better but just chose to be lazy or not caring or just behave removed.
Is an insult against people who are supposed to be smart but behave like they have a mental disability, and I stand by that.
If you feel offended, the that is on you.
This is my stance on the word.
We use it regularly in engineering for this exact definition. Mentally disabled people typically operate in the best version of themselves nearly all the time (minus bad days, we all have em)
But people who have the potential to operate at their full capacity but choose not to are the very definition of the word.
I will definitely think it while standing in line behind someone for 15 minutes at a coffee shop who don’t decide to even look at the menu until the cashier gets to them.
But I still don’t say it, as intention and perception are competely unrelated.
I’d also add “you dumb fucker” hits about the same, without the fallout of “the R word”
I guess that’s the part about people and taboo words I don’t understand. A little fun flex in vocabulary can transmit the same sentiment without impacting others.
Tactical strike, not full fallout.
I call people removed
Is lemmy.ca doing the same censorship billshit as .ml? SMH …
Retarded is a word that is now used exclusively to talk about people who are not mentally ill acting like dumb fucking cunts. Like, its totally retarded to see people getting upset at Trump being called a retard… If you hear the word, and you think about actual disabled people. Thats a you thing. Cos I promise you, no one else is.
No one is looking at this, and thinking that anyone else, but Trump, is a fucking retard.
It’s like that South Park episode with the bikers.
77 million votes, and he’s the retard?
Yes, America has a retard problem. Theres at least 77 million of them…
Well, no, Trump was specifically mimicking a specific reporter with a congenital joint condition in that image. So I don’t really get why you don’t think that’s Trump not being disparaging. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34930042
I think you need to read what I wrote again, Chief. Cos I never made that claim.
Retarded is a word that is now used exclusively to talk about people who are not mentally ill acting like dumb fucking cunts. Like, its totally retarded to see people getting upset at Trump being called a retard… If you hear the word, and you think about actual disabled people. Thats a you thing. Cos I promise you, no one else is.
No one is looking at this, and thinking that anyone else, but Trump, is a fucking retard.
Trump didn’t call anyone ”stupid” when he did that. Nor did he even use that word you said he did. He was imitating someone with a disability.
Now, the poor guy, you’ve got to see this guy: ‘Uhh, I don’t know what I said. Uhh, I don’t remember,’ he’s going like ‘I don’t remember. Maybe that’s what I said’
The reporter he’s talking about:
Again, you need to read what I wrote again. Because I didnt say what you are saying I said.
Again, Trump wasn’t even using the word this thread is about in that picture but he was mimicking someone with a disability so I don’t see what point you’re even trying to make.
One last time, read what I said again. I am not saying what you are saying I said.
What do you think I think you’re saying?
OP, fuck these people.
Anyone who thinks that words mean nothing and that historical context is irrelevant are probably people who have never been on the receiving end of these words being used to dehumanize them.
And all of you people, would you also use:
- n igger
- f aggot
- sand n igger
- ching chong
Or did any of those make you feel wrong? Maybe you don’t actually think that slurs should be used but instead don’t realize the impact of r etard as opposed to whatever made you uncomfortable in that list.
they made me laugh
you forgot the ding dong at the end of ching chong, btw.
I don’t like the euphemism treadmill. Normalize all slurs. Get more creative with your language & learn how to reappropriate & reclaim.
The worst take I’ve seen on slurs is the online activism to make the noun female a slur. When I explain that their advocacy accepts a sexist premise that something is wrong with the name of an entire gender & thereby consents to the stigmatization of that gender, they erupt into an irrational rage.
The reason people have a problem with the noun female isn’t because “there’s something wrong with the name of an entire gender” it’s because it’s extremely often used in such a way that people (typically men) will refer to men as men and refer to women as females. It’s why you may see the phrase “men and females” thrown around as a response.
(For the record, I think referring to women as well as men as females or males is pointlessly degrading. The noun version of those is acceptable for non-human animals, e.g. the males in a flock of birds.)
people (typically men) will refer to men as men and refer to women as females
Where
Enough that people made a whole subreddit about it.
No I mean where in the wild? Because I only see women referred to as females in screengrabs from incel forums and incelposters on places like 4chan. Obviously if I went to reddit (which I don’t), to a subreddit specifically for aggregating this behavior, I would see it. So where in the wild are you seeing “men and females”?
I often hear men at the gym refer to women as “females” while referring to men as “guys,” so yes, it’s definitely something that exists in the wild. I never hear them call men “males.” I never hear women call men “males” either.
it’s because it’s extremely often used in such a way that people (typically men) will refer to men as men and refer to women as females. It’s why you may see the phrase “men and females” thrown around as a response.
Right, so the premise is there’s something wrong with the word that names an entire gender. The campaign isn’t “don’t use ‘men and females’”, it’s “don’t use ‘females’”. They’ll write about Ferengis whenever a suspected non-female uses female: they’re not examining meanings & context to draw critical distinctions. ‘Men and females’ is merely a rationalization.
The effect: female is a slur, yet male isn’t, so female is stigmatized. That disparity raises the impression that femininity has such deficiencies even their name is a term of abuse unworthy of pride, and that females are too frail without society coming to defend them from the adversity of their name. In contrast, masculinity is sufficient for its name not to raise adversity, and even if it did, males have the fortitude for society not to come to their defense. That unequal treatment of words implicates females disfavorably thereby stigmatizing them.
Think who that serves: is opposition to the noun “female” unwittingly subscribing to stigmatization & sexist thinking of those who’d welcome the stigmatization? The language police are playing themselves here.
Treating the word female like male, however, wouldn’t raise such questions & impressions, and it wouldn’t ostensibly support a sexist premise and play into its consequences.
Right, so the premise is there’s something wrong with the word that names an entire gender.
How do you get that? The word “women” names an entire gender and isn’t viewed as a problem. Why do you think the problem people have with “females” is because it names an entire gender?
It was already explained, it’s the premise their activism supports by advocating the disparate treatment of female as a slur. From an external, impartial observer, claiming there’s a problem with the word female with little regard for context communicates the problem resides in whatever the word itself denotes rather than the contextual meaning.
Moreover, the position they advocate is counterfactual. The language community decides the meaning of words through observed usage, and in the preponderance of the community, neither female nor woman is offensive. That includes among females. Female is used self-referentially “in-group”: it shows up in feminist book titles, in dating communities (eg, “F4F/M”), classifieds (eg, “need a roommate […] females only”), etc. In conventional language, female is an acceptable word (as is woman).
Imagine online activists started condemning usage of the word dutch as a slur. It’s bizarre: there is nothing wrong with the dutch, yet they’re acting as though we should think so & resist that urge? Why are they propagating problematic presuppositions we don’t have about the dutch? Why are they trying to make this official? Are they some special breed of stupid?
Continuing this analogy, they drag you into fights by claiming you’re a racist for using the word when you’re not actually saying anything offensive about the dutch. You & the rest of society know the word dutch isn’t offensive, yet these activists insist it is by pointing to some fringe online community spewing vitriolic propaganda about dutch inferiority specifically using the word dutch. You repudiate their claim by asking why some fringe group irrelevant to wider society gets to decide the meaning of words, but they condemn your “hurtful” language and say you’re as bad as them or one of them. Don’t be an asshole & use another word like Dutchperson, Netherlander, or Hollander they say: it’s the right thing to do & shows socially conscientious, moral rectitude.
While our society includes both a minority of sexists & a vast majority of non-sexists who use the word female differently, these activists privilege the language & rhetoric of the sexist minority over the non-sexist majority. Why should the sexists get to decide the meaning of words for everyone & the unequal ideas to perpetuate in society? Who does that serve?
Older activists recognized that doesn’t serve them & took a different approach. Against higher odds, black activists reappropriated the word black as a word of pride. Non-heteronormative activists did likewise with the word queer. Instead of antagonizing non-sexists by treating them as sexists or fulfilling an inferiority complex to make sexist language official, online language police would be wise to learn from the older activists & follow their example.
I think we have to say “neurospicy” now, right?
I find that significantly more offensive than people saying “retarded”.
I think most of us do. The state of mental healthcare across the US is in shambles a fucking joke. Trauma based therapy is a fucking joke. We have a generation of brain broken tablet kids that all believe they’re on the spectrum because their parents so desperately want to be victims that they doctor shop for a diagnosis while they themselves self diagnose “AuDHD” because they like to stack things and play with a fidget spinner, but let’s draw the line at calling anyone a retard.
At least America will have the factory and farm workers we need when the tablet kid generation hits working age and is functionally illiterate and have zero basic life skills. 🤷
Only with a doctor’s diagnosis, otherwise its an insult.
None of the clowns using that term have a real diagnosis.
I have a real diagnosis for ADHD and have used the word neurospicy before. I’m not trying to make some grand claim that it’s an okay word or what everyone using it is using it the same. Though I don’t consider myself a clown, so, maybe it’s not really a counter example.
