Initiateofthevoid

The changes in attitudes towards social media websites, caused in this instance by Elon Musk are a great way for those in power to suppress another Arab Spring type event in the future.

The change in attitude is the consequence, not the cause. The best way for those in power to suppress another Arab Spring type event is a change in ownership of a massively influential social media platform where the richest man can take over completely to censor and control the narrative and oh, whoops... that already happened.

Maybe that’s your point, that properly understanding the genesis of some term can undermine your desire to use it? And you’re right. Cretinism, the disease, makes me really sad, as does the fact that assholes chose to turn it into a pejorative. So maybe that has something to do with my unwillingness to ever use the word. In my mind, “retard” was more of a vague diagnosis of mental slowness, so it makes it less real as an actual medical condition.

For me, the vagueness of the diagnosis is what makes me sad. To think of how many vulnerable people were left struggling for answers with very little help from that word and plenty of hurt from it for so long. Perhaps this makes it less concrete in the mind than a word with a more specific target, but no less sad to me. Cretinism makes me sad as well, and more so when I think about how many people could have easily avoided it if they just knew more about thyroids.

So yes, precisely! If people change how they feel and think, they change how they speak. Not just their internal dictionary, but the way they use their words too.

I appreciate your time, understanding, and well-reasoned discussion. Thank you!

That's fair, we can step back from the intricacies of this particular word and return to first principles - and I agree, this is an important first principle to discuss. After all this time disagreeing, we may have come back around that big circle to find that we really agreed all along.

I don't really think I advocate for a concerted effort to change the english language the way you imagine. I want people to change the way they think, not the way they talk. I think if they change the way they think, this will certainly change the way they talk. Not the other way around.

I try to invite people to take a look at the words we use as a vehicle for taking a look at the way we use them - the intentions and the context. Why do we use these words this way? What do they mean? Who can be hurt? Why would they be hurt?

I think that there are a lot of good reasons not to use the word "retard". And there aren't many good reasons to use it. I know of plenty of alternatives. So I don't use the word. And I do have the arrogance to think I'm right, and the gall to suggest that others should stop using the word too.

But for the record I have never advocated for censorship of the word "retard" in this conversation, or anywhere. I don't think a fediverse instance or any media platform should just ban the word, or ban people for using it. I don't think people should be silenced for it.

Even below the level of "control", of authority figures or systems imposing changes from the top-down...

Even down to a personal level - I don't think I advocate for people to censor themselves or each other. Please forgive me if I have done so here - that wasn't my intention.

I just want people to be mindful of what they say. To understand what they're saying, and why, and what impact it can have and what implications it carries. I don't think the decisions I make about vocabulary are so severe as your question suggests.

I don't think I'll ever again find someone to go the distance with me on this topic as you have, and I thank you for that. But if I did? And they listened, and thought, and considered... and they walked away, still saying the word? I wouldn't want them to lose their voice. I don't think they should be censored. I might think they're wrong to continue saying it, but I think a lot of people are wrong about a lot of things.

But I do have to say that I think a large part of this conversation unfortunately has boiled down to "who gets to decide?".

You have a list of words in your mind that deserve to be abandoned. I'm fairly confident we could agree on all of them. But I'm not certain, because I don't know your list. I only know my list. Most people only know their list. So I do need to argue against the implication that I have looser parameters from you because my list might be different. I may have added words to my list for different reasons than you added words to yours, but that's not the same thing as having a lower threshold for what offends me. There are people who will add words to their lists that I won't add to mine, and for reasons I won't understand, and I don't think they're wrong for doing so.

That being said, you and I appear to be approaching some of the core concepts of linguistics here, and from different angles. You've joined me this far for this productive discussion, so I feel comfortable asking you to please follow me on one more twist of thought before we step away from ableism entirely -

How often do you call someone a cretin? The interesting thing about the euphemism treadmill is that we kept replacing the "official" words for the same definitions. We actively changed our clinical language each time. But until the treadmill stopped on "retard".... we didn't actively stop using those words colloquially.

We struck them from the medical journals, but we didn't strike them from the social vocabulary. The internet didn't exist. People weren't nearly so up in arms about ableism. You couldn't censor the town square the way you can an online forum. We still use the word moron, and idiot. We even still use the word imbecile sometimes. It's a fun word to say.

But how often do people use the word cretin? You might hear it in a particularly poetic roast, but not out loud. You'll never hear someone say "oh, jennifer? She's a cretin."

(Edit-And I realize this might be a regional thing! Which adds a fun layer to all of this!)

Medical journals stopped using it because it became a derogatory term... but did we stop using it for that reason? Then why didn't we stop using moron?

I take a descriptivist approach to language. I believe it is what it does. The only rules for how we talk to each other are the ones humans made up, and because of that language constantly evolves as we keep making shit up. And I don't set the rules. Nobody does, because we all do. I decide what the language of the future will be as much as you do, which is to say probably not at all.

I don't think we stopped using cretin for good reasons... I think we just stopped using it. I think we'll just stop using a lot of words for no good reason, and so it's not a very big leap from there for me to believe we can stop using a word for genuinely good reasons.

I think that we should try our best not to hurt people. And I think that we will hurt people anyway, no matter how hard we try. No matter our intentions. No matter the context. That's one of the many curses of being the rising ape, and I agree with you - there is absolutely no way to break that curse. Something we do will offend someone somewhere, and that doesn't mean we did a bad thing. But that also doesn't mean we should stop trying.

You're absolutely right. You didn't say that "autistic" is synonymous with stupid, I wasn't accusing you of doing so. Neither of us believe it is synonymous, people don't think it's synonymous, and it's no surprise that people will instead use it colloquially to mean "excessively detail-oriented".

Is that so terrible? I don't think so. I wouldn't use it that way, but I also don't say things like "I'm so OCD" for that same purpose - and I don't think it's a terrible thing to do that either! I wouldn't use those terms like that, for the record, nor do I think others should. But I don't think it's anywhere on the same level, and I don't think it ever will be.

I think it's insensitive to use "autistic" and "OCD" in this way because it runs the risk of blinding us to other people's struggles when we normalize their symptoms as "standard neurotypical problem but worse".

But do you see how specific that concern is? Do you see how far we've come? To even care about the idea of not being able to see someone's symptoms? To discuss how it might be insensitive to not even know someone else has a mental condition?

Being "detail-oriented" is not by itself a bad thing. It doesn't bear any terrible implications of your value or worth to society. It doesn't suggest that you can't be trusted to make decisions, or hold a job. If anything some people are starting to think the opposite.

Which is also problematic, because we sometimes romanticize symptoms as super powers - but do you see? Do you see how far we've progressed, when we have to start worrying that people will assume neurodivergent people are too capable?

So calling someone "autistic" when you want to call them "detail-oriented" is insensitive, sure. It might even be labelled as ignorant - but look how high that bar of ignorance is! "Detail-oriented" is simply the most recognizable symptom of a particular flavor of neurodivergence - and using it colloquially like that suggests that you already know how the disorder works!

In the past, children and adults with autism weren't called autistic. Even after the diagnosis was added to the DSM, it went criminally underdiagnosed for a long time.

Some of them, the ones that didn't strongly present symptoms that disrupted their lives, the ones that could mask their behaviors - they were just called "detail-oriented". They were just "weird".

But most of them? The ones that had trouble speaking? The ones that had trouble looking you in the eye? They weren't called "detail-oriented." They were called retarded.

Do you see how it might be different to call someone "retarded" when you want to call them "stupid"? How much deeper the implications run? How much worse the associations are?

Very close, but not quite. It's like showing up on a post sometime in the future celebrating an end of Palestinian genocide... and saying "it's good that Jewish genocide stopped".

That wouldn't be wrong, it is good to stop genocide, no matter the kind. But it's suspicious that someone felt the need to show up and say that particular thing in that particular place. That additional context seems to be placed there to implicitly communicate something in particular.

Autist” may not be sticky enough to require the medical community to come up with an alternative, more technical (and therefore less appealing) term for that mental disorder. Regardless, people will continue to look for ways to call each other stupid, and the best thing we can do is encourage researchers to come up with long and convoluted names for medical conditions so they don’t get co-opted by teenagers looking for creative ways to insult each other.

That's not the best thing we can do. We don't have to waste time trying to avoid giving teenagers ammunition, and we certainly don't have to do it by giving people with learning disabilities a diagnosis that could be hard for them to remember or understand.

Teenagers don't need ammunition. The reason "autist" isn't sticky enough, the reason it's not used colloquially, the reason it's only an insult for teenagers and people with the emotional maturity of the average teenager is because it's an actual diagnosis with an increasingly well-studied list of symptoms, and standards of care, and moral implications.

It should serve the same vernacular niche as "retard" but it doesn't seem to be doing so. Adults don't say "that's autistic" with good intentions. They do say "that's retarded" with good intentions. Why? Because being a "retard" was a blanket diagnosis with no real treatment options, and no real empirical evidence of its value as a diagnostic label. It was too broad and too vague and therefore effectively synonymous with "very stupid." "Autistic" isn't synonymous with stupid.

You have a responsibility to be mindful of those around you. But they also have a responsibility to at least attempt to understand what you’re trying to say.

I really do think we agree completely for the rest of this, this might just be semantics. They do, absolutely, have that responsibility. You are blameworthy for your acts. And they are blameworthy for their's in response. The whole point is that you and they are entitled to beliefs and feelings, just as you and they are responsible for words and actions. If you are judged poorly for doing the right thing, then you can blame them for that. And they can blame you for the things they're judging you for.

They're entitled to that, because yes we are just apes trying to grasp at moral truths that are not written in the stars or the atoms of the world, and in fact some of these moral truths appear to be actively in contention with many of our ape-derived biological and psychological functions.

And we very often get things wrong. And yes, we have to try to be charitable and give each other leeway. I think that you and I do disagree on some fundamental information, and I think you and I have given each other plenty of leeway, and managed to communicate in a healthy and productive way.

I'm asking you - why should that stop here? Don't the people offended by a term deserve some charitable consideration? Some leeway? They're communicating a feeling that they have. They feel upset. They feel offended. They feel angry. Are they entitled to those feelings? Yes. Can you blame them for those feelings? You are entitled to.

But many of them won't understand or believe your intentions are good. Is that their fault? That they can't see into the mind of a fellow ape, and know your heart is pure?

The transference of "retard" from medical diagnosis to colloquial slang is actually exceptionable. Because it appears to be the last one in the list for this particular group of people. The last one to be so pervasive, so ubiquitous, and so synonymous with "stupid". There were plenty of others before... but what's the next one?

It's not about disarming teenagers. It's about trying to learn more. It's about seeing each other's intentions, and actions, and needs. And it's about not using a word so stained by bad intentions, so villainous in action, and so dismissive of needs.

When a doctor told a parent their son was mentally retarded... that was it. They just were. For the rest of their life. They were a "retard." And the parents just had to deal with it.

When a doctor tells a parent their son is autistic, they follow it with "here's what that means." Here's a couple of potential reasons why they might be the way they are. Here's what their life might look like as an adult, based on these studies. Here's the coping mechanisms you can try to teach them, here's the educational methods that seem to work best, here's the support structure that you need to build.

Is it perfect? Absolutely not. But the whole point is it is far, far better than it ever was with the word "retard", and we as apes and as a collection of apes know so, so much more now. That's why "that's autistic" doesn't mean "that's stupid" for most people, and therefore why it also doesn't replace "that's retarded" for most people.

The term itself was deeply flawed from the beginning, as was idiot, as was cretin. I do blame the people that came up with it, and used it. But I don't think they were bad people. I don't hate them. I think they were acting with good intentions, and probably with the best information that they could find in context.

I just also think they caused a lot of harm by inventing a diagnosis that was far too broad to be medically or socially useful. They can be blamed for that. It was their responsibility to do no harm, and they did harm. That doesn't make them worthy of shame, or bad people. It just makes them human.

I appreciate your good faith and legitimate concerns. But if you could, please answer the question. What is a slur? Your original definition was sufficient for both terms.

There is no such thing as empirical evidence for an emotionally qualitative claim. There is no feasible way to achieve true objectivity there. Trying to call one word worse than another scientifically (rather than philosophically) is like asking people to decide which genocide is worse than another. Not all genocides are the same, of course, and already people might rush to say "but we know the worst one!" And maybe they do know the worst slur, or the worst genocide. I don't presume to tell them otherwise.

But the truth is the answers will vary wildly by the person you ask, and you will not walk away with scientifically rigorous definitions, just a dataset of emotional responses that either agree or disagree with your own internal emotional response.

What - in your opinion - are the qualities of the n-word that differentiate it from "retard", such that one could be called a slur, and the other is not? Are these differences universally applicable, regardless of the slurs in question? There are more slurs than the "n-word". What sets those other words apart from the word "retard"?

I really do appreciate your points, because they are reasonable concerns about the nature of human communication and moral philosophy.

1. The unfortunate truth is, yes. We are blameworthy for all acts independent of intention or context, because we have to be responsible for everything we do.

Certainly independent of intention, because we as human beings can never truly know another's intentions with certainty. We can do our best but that's not useful for establishing moral principles.

But this is the important thing - being worthy of blame is not being worthy of shame. A person can be blamed for an act they commited with all the right intentions and a morally disputable context. Others can tell them "you should have known better", or others can even choose to no longer associate with that person if they want, because that's their freedom to do so.

But that doesn't make them a bad person. Other people's opinions are not truth. Not in a philosophical sense, not in an objective moral sense. The difference is if that person can accept that blame in the first place. If they can genuinely see why other people blame them, why other people don't want to associate with them, and genuinely try to make sure what they did and what they do next was right to do.

They may even come to the wrong conclusions. They may genuinely think they're doing the morally correct thing, and everyone else is morally incorrect, and sometimes people are right when they think that, and sometimes people are wrong when they think that. That doesn't make them bad people, if they decide to do the wrong thing when their intentions were good. That doesn't make them worthy of shame. But everyone else does unfortunately have to blame them for whatever they do next, good or bad, because there is nobody else to blame.

To what extent are others entitled to control our personal, private speech on the basis of their own internalized (and possibly neurotic) offense to it? I.e., religious groups getting mad, or autistic people being offended when people call each other “retarded.”

I know this is terribly apropos, but I have to ask... Was the use of neurotic here intentional?

These examples are not control. If you say a word, and another person says "how dare you!" and decides you're a bad person... have they controlled you?

Sure, sometimes these groups get power and exert control. But I want to clarify that that's not your stated concern here. You didn't bring up examples of theocratic governments or religious persecution. Your stated concern is "to what extent are others entitled... to getting mad... to being offended?"

The answer is to the fullest extent. Others are entitled to be offended, and get mad. They're not entitled to imprison you or harm you. That's control.

But to what extent are others entitled to being offended? What do you think the answer to that question should be? Do you think that you should control them? To tell them that they're not allowed to feel the way they feel about your behavior, and they're not allowed to use the words they want to use to express those feelings?

Or do you think they're allowed to be offended, just as much as you're allowed to be upset when you believe someone is insulting you or judging you without cause or justification?

Everyone is entitled - to the absolute fullest extent possible - to their beliefs, and their feelings, and their expression. This includes you. Just as everyone else is entitled - to the absolute fullest extent possible - to believe you're a bad person for your beliefs, and for the way you express yourself.

I don't think you are a bad person. But I also don't think they're being bad people when they tell you they don't like what you have to say.

The issue is Grice's "maxim of quantity". It's a linguistic model of how we speak to each other - we provide the appropriate amount of information, and no more. Providing a surplus of details "for context" immediately puts people on guard because it quite literally is suspicious.

Breaking the maxim of quantity in this way is like saying "asbestos-free cereal!" It's a detail that wasn't necessary for context, and so its inclusion seems intentionally designed to communicate some implicit information that we're meant to understand.

No, you don't need to say "all slavery is bad" when someone says "slavery is bad" because that was an unnecessary detail to add in context.

People don't need to defend themselves to you and say "you're right, indentured servitude and prison labor are bad, so white slavery is bad too" because they weren't talking about those things. They were talking about slavery as it is protrayed in RDR2 and you seem to be trying to change the conversation.

You are committed to this position, because you continue to hold it despite the core premises of your argument being disputed without reconsideration. You didn't change your position when challenged, nor did you hold your position against that challenge - you just changed the terms of the argument.

The N-word had a very specific target and a very cruel purpose. The word “retard” did not. It basically has the same vernacular trajectory as “moron,” or “idiot.” From medical diagnosis to non-specific pejorative. Why aren’t those synonyms verboten? Because people like to make things about themselves.

We have established countless reasons why the word "retard" had a specific target and a very cruel purpose. It wasn't designed that way, but it was used that way. We have also established that it doesn't seem to have the same vernacular trajectory as moron or imbecile, because the treadmill stopped, and "that's so intellectually disabled" has not and will not be used colloquially to mean "that's so stupid".

I have also provided numerous reasons why this isn't something as simple as "people making things about themselves".

You don't seem to dispute any of these things. It had a specific target and a cruel purpose, and was therefore a slur according to your own definition.

Was it "designed" that way? No. But did it come to be used that way, with the prevalence, apathy, and ignorance of a shared misplaced identity? An identity that was far too broad for a diverse group of people? An identity that was forced upon that group?

An identity that held them back at every turn by a society that believed them all to be lesser, unworthy of consideration or employment? Unworthy of respect?

"It's for their own good", society said, as they broadly and injustly labelled these people, and then used that label to strip them of their rights, abandon them without treatment or help, and abuse them for being different.

So what is a slur?

There will always be a need in language to describe people who are less intellectually capable so I absolutely disagree with this claim. Retard is simply still the word of choice despite efforts to censor its usage.

Still the word of choice? Published in the DSM-IV 30 years ago? Not the words that came after? The DSM-V, the ICD? These don't quite fit in the vernacular? They don't satisfy your language needs?

That's the entire point. The treadmill stopped on that word. The diagnosis-turned-slurs have stopped churning out. You can call something idiotic. You can say that's moronic. You can even argue, perhaps, that it's imbecilic. And finally, lastly, immortally, you can say, "that's retarded."

I'm not saying you need to say any of these things, mind you. But I do understand that you want to find a word that's just a bit more satisfying than saying "that's stupid." It sounds childish, I know. So you want to say "that's retarded" because it really works, y'know? And people get upset when you say it.

But would you say "it's disabled" to mean "it's stupid"?

Would you say "that's so handicapped"?

The catch-all term that said "you're stupid" also said "these people are all the same" and has been pinned down and stuck in place in your mind and the minds of society, and words like "disabled" or "handicapped" just doesn't quite cut it. Oh, people use them the way you know they're going to be used. Mean and ignorant people will use the words the way mean and ignorant people will always use words.

But you'll never use them that way.

But you, and your family, and your doctor, and your classmates, and your coworkers, and your friends, and your government... they'll never say "that's so disabled" when they want to say "that's so stupid."

And sometimes people will make mistakes, and other people will say inappropriate things like "what are you, handicapped?" And that won't be okay. Not because of the word itself - even when it is outdated. but because of the association with a medical condition.

It isn't okay to call your friends handicapped or disabled or whatever the next term will be because of the implication that the same word should be used to describe your niece who is nonverbal whose voice you wouldn't even recognize and your brother who forgot to save your video game.

What comes next shouldn't satisfy what you seem to want. We probably won't settle on an easy answer, and the current "safe" terms will probably fall out of favor in their time. Because they become slurs, like "retard"? No. Because they become outdated? Probably.

If we as a society keep moving in the right direction, nobody will ever use the next "safe" terms the way you freely use the word "retard". That's the entire point.

There is no need to set an arbitrary line on some poorly designed IQ chart and say the people below this line are inferior and cost money and the people above this line are human and can have rights oh and then also use that line to call other people stupid.

There are synonyms that you can use for vernacular that absolutely fill the needs that you're suggesting are crucial for the english language. There are plenty of words to call your friend when he left his keys in your car and his phone at his ex's. If they don't satisfy you, be the next shakespeare and write your own.

There are also plenty of words to describe a vulnerable group of people. There will always - of course - be a need to talk about them, and a need to have certain codified terms whose definitions we agree on for the purposes of professional care and legal protections. These don't need to be the same words anymore, and if we do our jobs right they never will be again.

And yes, the word may and probably should be allowed to forever bear the stain of that history of linguistic injustice. The use cases for "That's so stupid, dude" and "The results came back. I'm sorry to tell you this, but your son may never develop the ability to read." don't need to overlap ever again.

"Retard" was the last one, and therefore the worst one. No, being new is not somehow morally relevant. It is the worst one because it is the one that was still in living memory when we learned how to do better.

The treadmill stopped, and you're still standing on it, upset that people are leaving you behind and blaming them for having the audacity to move on. You're not pushing people away to save time. You're just hurting yourself and others.

Saying the word “retarded” does not have to be inherently offensive. Describing something that is slowed or hindered as retarded is accurate. Using retarded as a pejorative term makes you a dick, sure. But if I go through all the effort to change “retarded” to “intellectually disabled” guess what happens? The same thing that has happened for the past 175+ years. The people who have used the terms in the pejorative sense will quickly adapt, making your efforts to police language pointless unless you intended to enrich their lexicon.

I have addressed this argument elsewhere in this post, but please forgive me rehashing the message here, because your comment is prominent, informative, and based in historical fact.

The word "retard" was used and is used to cause harm to vulnerable people. So was idiot, cretin, and moron. The difference is it is the last and likely immortalized step of this particular euphemism treadmill.

The treadmill appears to have stopped. There is no one-size-fits-all diagnosis to replace “mental retardation” because that was a terrible diagnosis to begin with. That’s why something is wrong with the word. The people whose lives were ground up beneath the turning of the wheels that powered that euphemism treadmill are still alive today.

Yes, if the treadmill had continued for one more step before we stopped using such horribly broad diagnosis criteria to lump together vulnerable people with wildly different needs, the word would lose its weight and implications.

Whatever diagnosis that might have replaced it would be regarded with the same moral repugnance as this word is today, and this word would be used as casually and apathetically as we use the word “idiot” - because we can be reasonably certain that nobody in the room has any memories of themselves or someone they love being excluded, humiliated, and diagnosed by the word “idiot”.

Will other diagnostic terms be weaponized? Certainly. Will they ever be as prevalent or as ignorant in their origin and usage? Unlikely. I certainly hope not. And each new vernacular replacement is more awkward and holds less power than the last. That’s why you’re not here defending any term that came after this one.

That's why - despite you mentioning it specifically as a spiritual successor to the word "retarded" - "intellectually disabled" is not successfully replacing it. It doesn't bear the same emotional connotations, it never experienced the same popularity, and it shows no signs of ever coming close. Is it used in problematic ways, by people in good faith and bad? Yes. But terms like it are unlikely to ever even approach the moral repugnance of "retard" because they won't carry quite the same history of professional ignorance and casual abuse.

The word "retard" - alone among these ableist terms we're discussing - will forever bear the moral weight of all of them. Because it will be remembered as the last term used to humiliate and exclude a vulnerable group of people by a society that should have known better. A society that should have done better. A society that still needs to do better.

Other terms won't be promoted to the same level of societal consciousness, because they hopefully won't be promoted to the same level of professional malpractice at such a staggering scale. The word was misused and caused harm by doctors, and parents, and peers, some who used the word in good faith and watched helplessly as it became twisted, and others who used the word from a place of ignorance and later learned how much harm could be done by a simple word.

By a diagnostic label that was never enough to even describe the people it hurt, let alone help them.

Is it okay to use the term for purposes other than causing pain and perpetuating discrimination against vulnerable people? No. Because those vulnerable people are still alive and with us, and those wounds are still fresh. Will it ever be okay, long after they're gone? Perhaps, but probably not.

The word's abandonment will be a milestone on a path fraught with systemic and systematic abuses, and will probably never recover it's original meaning. But that's okay, because language constantly evolves, and we have plenty of old words to say what we mean, and we will find plenty of new ones along the way.

The treadmill stopped. It’s okay. You can join the rest of the world and step off of it now, knowing that we are better equipped to understand and protect our most vulnerable, while also knowing that there is still so much more work to be done.

I appreciate you!