You are committed to this position, because you continue to hold it despite the core premises of your argument being disputed without reconsideration. You didnāt 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 āretardā did not. It basically has the same vernacular trajectory as āmoron,ā or āidiot.ā From medical diagnosis to non-specific pejorative. Why arenāt those synonyms verboten? Because people like to make things about themselves.
We have established countless reasons why the word āretardā had a specific target and a very cruel purpose. It wasnāt designed that way, but it was used that way. We have also established that it doesnāt seem to have the same vernacular trajectory as moron or imbecile, because the treadmill stopped, and āthatās so intellectually disabledā has not and will not be used colloquially to mean āthatās so stupidā.
I have also provided numerous reasons why this isnāt something as simple as āpeople making things about themselvesā.
You donāt 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 ādesignedā 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?
āItās for their own goodā, 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.
Again, two main questions I need to figure out (believe it or not, I donāt use āretardā in my everyday speech ā which is hard for me because like 80% of the human population is retarded):
Are we really blameworthy for speech acts independent of our intention and context?
Right now, Iām leaning no but maybe.
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 āretarded.ā
We also disagree on the facts I think. You have once again, without a morsel of empirical evidence, equated āretardā with the n-word, which is totally preposterous. So I think we are at an impasse.
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 ābut we know the worst one!ā And maybe they do know the worst slur, or the worst genocide. I donāt 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 āretardā, 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 ān-wordā. What sets those other words apart from the word āretardā?
I really do appreciate your points, because they are reasonable concerns about the nature of human communication and moral philosophy.
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 anotherās intentions with certainty. We can do our best but thatās 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 āyou should have known betterā, or others can even choose to no longer associate with that person if they want, because thatās their freedom to do so.
But that doesnāt make them a bad person. Other peopleās 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 donāt 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 theyāre 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 doesnāt make them bad people, if they decide to do the wrong thing when their intentions were good. That doesnāt 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 āretarded.ā
I know this is terribly apropos, but I have to askā¦ Was the use of neurotic here intentional?
These examples are not control. If you say a word, and another person says āhow dare you!ā and decides youāre a bad personā¦ have they controlled you?
Sure, sometimes these groups get power and exert control. But I want to clarify that thatās not your stated concern here. You didnāt bring up examples of theocratic governments or religious persecution. Your stated concern is āto what extent are others entitledā¦ to getting madā¦ to being offended?ā
The answer is to the fullest extent. Others are entitled to be offended, and get mad. Theyāre not entitled to imprison you or harm you. Thatās 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 theyāre not allowed to feel the way they feel about your behavior, and theyāre not allowed to use the words they want to use to express those feelings?
Or do you think theyāre allowed to be offended, just as much as youāre 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 youāre a bad person for your beliefs, and for the way you express yourself.
I donāt think you are a bad person. But I also donāt think theyāre being bad people when they tell you they donāt like what you have to say.
A slur is an insulting or disparaging remark (according to the dictionary). Our contention is not over the definition of that word (I hope), but over whether the use of offensive language (such as slurs) is categorically unacceptable.
There are lots of slurs, but only a handful cross the line (for me at least), because I consider them to exclusively and belligerently perpetuate some evil ideology (usually racism). I donāt want to list these words here, but I can think of maybe 3 or 4.
There is no such thing as empirical evidence for an emotionally qualitative claim.
Well, history is not a matter of emotion. It is a matter of empirical fact. We can trace the origins and common usage of words, and the n-word is no exception. That body of knowledge is the product of research (historical data). The (mis)use of the medical term āretardā is also well understood. Its transference to colloquial slang is actually unexceptionable. Consider āpsychoā or ācretin.ā In the same vein, the word āautistā is now being used disparagingly among teenagers being goofy or weird, and so on.
āAutistā 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 donāt get co-opted by teenagers looking for creative ways to insult each other.
The unfortunate truth is, yes. We are blameworthy forĀ all actsĀ independent of intention or context, because we have to be responsible for everything we do.
Well, yes and no. You have a responsibility to be mindful of those around you. But they also have a responsibility to at least attempt to understand what youāre trying to say. If we ignore your intentions, the result is tantamount to willful misunderstanding.
Remember, we are apes. Nothing more. Language is complex, and the average person is painfully, animalistically stupid. Thatās why we have to be charitable to one another and give folks leeway to communicate without losing our shit over misunderstandings.
Autistā 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 donāt get co-opted by teenagers looking for creative ways to insult each other.
Thatās not the best thing we can do. We donāt have to waste time trying to avoid giving teenagers ammunition, and we certainly donāt have to do it by giving people with learning disabilities a diagnosis that could be hard for them to remember or understand.
Teenagers donāt need ammunition. The reason āautistā isnāt sticky enough, the reason itās not used colloquially, the reason itās only an insult for teenagers and people with the emotional maturity of the average teenager is because itās 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 āretardā but it doesnāt seem to be doing so. Adults donāt say āthatās autisticā with good intentions. They do say āthatās retardedā with good intentions. Why? Because being a āretardā 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 āvery stupid.ā āAutisticā isnāt 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 youāre 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 theirās 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 theyāre judging you for.
Theyāre 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.
Iām asking you - why should that stop here? Donāt the people offended by a term deserve some charitable consideration? Some leeway? Theyāre 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 wonāt understand or believe your intentions are good. Is that their fault? That they canāt see into the mind of a fellow ape, and know your heart is pure?
The transference of āretardā 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 āstupidā. There were plenty of others beforeā¦ but whatās the next one?
Itās not about disarming teenagers. Itās about trying to learn more. Itās about seeing each otherās intentions, and actions, and needs. And itās 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 retardedā¦ that was it. They just were. For the rest of their life. They were a āretard.ā And the parents just had to deal with it.
When a doctor tells a parent their son is autistic, they follow it with āhereās what that means.ā Hereās a couple of potential reasons why they might be the way they are. Hereās what their life might look like as an adult, based on these studies. Hereās the coping mechanisms you can try to teach them, hereās the educational methods that seem to work best, hereās 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 āretardā, and we as apes and as a collection of apes know so, so much more now. Thatās why āthatās autisticā doesnāt mean āthatās stupidā for most people, and therefore why it also doesnāt replace āthatās retardedā 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 donāt think they were bad people. I donāt 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 doesnāt make them worthy of shame, or bad people. It just makes them human.
But āautistā is used colloquially ā all the time. Thatās my point. I mean that it hasnāt entered wider usage outside of high schools, twitch, and discord. Boomers donāt use it as an insult (yet).
I didnāt say āautisticā is synonymous with stupid. Usually itās used to mean youāre excessively or neurotically detail-oriented.
Youāre absolutely right. You didnāt say that āautisticā is synonymous with stupid, I wasnāt accusing you of doing so. Neither of us believe it is synonymous, people donāt think itās synonymous, and itās no surprise that people will instead use it colloquially to mean āexcessively detail-orientedā.
Is that so terrible? I donāt think so. I wouldnāt use it that way, but I also donāt say things like āIām so OCDā for that same purpose - and I donāt think itās a terrible thing to do that either! I wouldnāt use those terms like that, for the record, nor do I think others should. But I donāt think itās anywhere on the same level, and I donāt think it ever will be.
I think itās insensitive to use āautisticā and āOCDā in this way because it runs the risk of blinding us to other peopleās struggles when we normalize their symptoms as āstandard neurotypical problem but worseā.
But do you see how specific that concern is? Do you see how far weāve come? To even care about the idea of not being able to see someoneās symptoms? To discuss how it might be insensitive to not even know someone else has a mental condition?
Being ādetail-orientedā is not by itself a bad thing. It doesnāt bear any terrible implications of your value or worth to society. It doesnāt suggest that you canāt 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 weāve progressed, when we have to start worrying that people will assume neurodivergent people are too capable?
So calling someone āautisticā when you want to call them ādetail-orientedā is insensitive, sure. It might even be labelled as ignorant - but look how high that bar of ignorance is! āDetail-orientedā 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 werenāt 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 didnāt strongly present symptoms that disrupted their lives, the ones that could mask their behaviors - they were just called ādetail-orientedā. They were just āweirdā.
But most of them? The ones that had trouble speaking? The ones that had trouble looking you in the eye? They werenāt called ādetail-oriented.ā They were called retarded.
Do you see how it might be different to call someone āretardedā when you want to call them āstupidā? How much deeper the implications run? How much worse the associations are?
I agree with everything youāve written, but we are sort of going in a big circle. Earlier I wrote that
using the r-word to insult someone autistic is cruel and unacceptable.
For that reason, I can endorse everything youāre saying. However, I thought our disagreement was over whether there should be a concerted effort to banish a particular pejorative term from our vocabularies (namely the r-word). I had argued no, since it seemed like an overreaction, whereas you were in the affirmative, since groups of people were being offended/hurt by the casual use of that term.
So then the question becomes:
To what extent are we responsible for moderating our private speech in order to appease people weāve never met?
My intuition is that the answer is never. I think words should be struck from our vocabulary for a very different reason. Namely, when they represent an evil ideology. That is to say, I think that removing words from our vocabulary is a drastic thing to do and should be reserved for truly heinous verbiage (the sort of language that, if repeated, the only possible outcome between us would be violence). Some of these words are worse than the n-word. They are so evil, I canāt even euphemize them in good conscience.
My understanding is that you have looser parameters for unacceptable language, which must meet a certain thresholds of causing offense to be candidates for censorship. Is that right? Itās a reasonable position, Iām just clarifying.
Thatās 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 donāt 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 āretardā. And there arenāt many good reasons to use it. I know of plenty of alternatives. So I donāt use the word. And I do have the arrogance to think Iām 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 āretardā in this conversation, or anywhere. I donāt think a fediverse instance or any media platform should just ban the word, or ban people for using it. I donāt think people should be silenced for it.
Even below the level of ācontrolā, of authority figures or systems imposing changes from the top-downā¦
Even down to a personal level - I donāt think I advocate for people to censor themselves or each other. Please forgive me if I have done so here - that wasnāt my intention.
I just want people to be mindful of what they say. To understand what theyāre saying, and why, and what impact it can have and what implications it carries. I donāt think the decisions I make about vocabulary are so severe as your question suggests.
I donāt think Iāll 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 consideredā¦ and they walked away, still saying the word? I wouldnāt want them to lose their voice. I donāt think they should be censored. I might think theyāre 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 āwho gets to decide?ā.
You have a list of words in your mind that deserve to be abandoned. Iām fairly confident we could agree on all of them. But Iām not certain, because I donāt 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 thatās 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 wonāt add to mine, and for reasons I wonāt understand, and I donāt think theyāre 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. Youāve 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 āofficialā words for the same definitions. We actively changed our clinical language each time. But until the treadmill stopped on āretardāā¦ we didnāt actively stop using those words colloquially.
We struck them from the medical journals, but we didnāt strike them from the social vocabulary. The internet didnāt exist. People werenāt nearly so up in arms about ableism. You couldnāt 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. Itās 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. Youāll never hear someone say āoh, jennifer? Sheās a cretin.ā
(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 termā¦ but did we stop using it for that reason? Then why didnāt 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 donāt 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 donāt think we stopped using cretin for good reasonsā¦ I think we just stopped using it. I think weāll just stop using a lot of words for no good reason, and so itās 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. Thatās 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 doesnāt mean we did a bad thing. But that also doesnāt mean we should stop trying.
You are committed to this position, because you continue to hold it despite the core premises of your argument being disputed without reconsideration. You didnāt change your position when challenged, nor did you hold your position against that challenge - you just changed the terms of the argument.
We have established countless reasons why the word āretardā had a specific target and a very cruel purpose. It wasnāt designed that way, but it was used that way. We have also established that it doesnāt seem to have the same vernacular trajectory as moron or imbecile, because the treadmill stopped, and āthatās so intellectually disabledā has not and will not be used colloquially to mean āthatās so stupidā.
I have also provided numerous reasons why this isnāt something as simple as āpeople making things about themselvesā.
You donāt 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 ādesignedā 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?
āItās for their own goodā, 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?
Again, two main questions I need to figure out (believe it or not, I donāt use āretardā in my everyday speech ā which is hard for me because like 80% of the human population is retarded):
Are we really blameworthy for speech acts independent of our intention and context? Right now, Iām leaning no but maybe.
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 āretarded.ā
We also disagree on the facts I think. You have once again, without a morsel of empirical evidence, equated āretardā with the n-word, which is totally preposterous. So I think we are at an impasse.
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 ābut we know the worst one!ā And maybe they do know the worst slur, or the worst genocide. I donāt 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 āretardā, 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 ān-wordā. What sets those other words apart from the word āretardā?
I really do appreciate your points, because they are reasonable concerns about the nature of human communication and moral philosophy.
Certainly independent of intention, because we as human beings can never truly know anotherās intentions with certainty. We can do our best but thatās 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 āyou should have known betterā, or others can even choose to no longer associate with that person if they want, because thatās their freedom to do so.
But that doesnāt make them a bad person. Other peopleās 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 donāt 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 theyāre 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 doesnāt make them bad people, if they decide to do the wrong thing when their intentions were good. That doesnāt 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.
I know this is terribly apropos, but I have to askā¦ Was the use of neurotic here intentional?
These examples are not control. If you say a word, and another person says āhow dare you!ā and decides youāre a bad personā¦ have they controlled you?
Sure, sometimes these groups get power and exert control. But I want to clarify that thatās not your stated concern here. You didnāt bring up examples of theocratic governments or religious persecution. Your stated concern is āto what extent are others entitledā¦ to getting madā¦ to being offended?ā
The answer is to the fullest extent. Others are entitled to be offended, and get mad. Theyāre not entitled to imprison you or harm you. Thatās 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 theyāre not allowed to feel the way they feel about your behavior, and theyāre not allowed to use the words they want to use to express those feelings?
Or do you think theyāre allowed to be offended, just as much as youāre 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 youāre a bad person for your beliefs, and for the way you express yourself.
I donāt think you are a bad person. But I also donāt think theyāre being bad people when they tell you they donāt like what you have to say.
A slur is an insulting or disparaging remark (according to the dictionary). Our contention is not over the definition of that word (I hope), but over whether the use of offensive language (such as slurs) is categorically unacceptable.
There are lots of slurs, but only a handful cross the line (for me at least), because I consider them to exclusively and belligerently perpetuate some evil ideology (usually racism). I donāt want to list these words here, but I can think of maybe 3 or 4.
Well, history is not a matter of emotion. It is a matter of empirical fact. We can trace the origins and common usage of words, and the n-word is no exception. That body of knowledge is the product of research (historical data). The (mis)use of the medical term āretardā is also well understood. Its transference to colloquial slang is actually unexceptionable. Consider āpsychoā or ācretin.ā In the same vein, the word āautistā is now being used disparagingly among teenagers being goofy or weird, and so on.
āAutistā 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 donāt get co-opted by teenagers looking for creative ways to insult each other.
Well, yes and no. You have a responsibility to be mindful of those around you. But they also have a responsibility to at least attempt to understand what youāre trying to say. If we ignore your intentions, the result is tantamount to willful misunderstanding.
Remember, we are apes. Nothing more. Language is complex, and the average person is painfully, animalistically stupid. Thatās why we have to be charitable to one another and give folks leeway to communicate without losing our shit over misunderstandings.
Thatās not the best thing we can do. We donāt have to waste time trying to avoid giving teenagers ammunition, and we certainly donāt have to do it by giving people with learning disabilities a diagnosis that could be hard for them to remember or understand.
Teenagers donāt need ammunition. The reason āautistā isnāt sticky enough, the reason itās not used colloquially, the reason itās only an insult for teenagers and people with the emotional maturity of the average teenager is because itās 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 āretardā but it doesnāt seem to be doing so. Adults donāt say āthatās autisticā with good intentions. They do say āthatās retardedā with good intentions. Why? Because being a āretardā 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 āvery stupid.ā āAutisticā isnāt synonymous with stupid.
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 theirās 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 theyāre judging you for.
Theyāre 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.
Iām asking you - why should that stop here? Donāt the people offended by a term deserve some charitable consideration? Some leeway? Theyāre 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 wonāt understand or believe your intentions are good. Is that their fault? That they canāt see into the mind of a fellow ape, and know your heart is pure?
The transference of āretardā 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 āstupidā. There were plenty of others beforeā¦ but whatās the next one?
Itās not about disarming teenagers. Itās about trying to learn more. Itās about seeing each otherās intentions, and actions, and needs. And itās 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 retardedā¦ that was it. They just were. For the rest of their life. They were a āretard.ā And the parents just had to deal with it.
When a doctor tells a parent their son is autistic, they follow it with āhereās what that means.ā Hereās a couple of potential reasons why they might be the way they are. Hereās what their life might look like as an adult, based on these studies. Hereās the coping mechanisms you can try to teach them, hereās the educational methods that seem to work best, hereās 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 āretardā, and we as apes and as a collection of apes know so, so much more now. Thatās why āthatās autisticā doesnāt mean āthatās stupidā for most people, and therefore why it also doesnāt replace āthatās retardedā 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 donāt think they were bad people. I donāt 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 doesnāt make them worthy of shame, or bad people. It just makes them human.
I really like your response and I needed a minute to read it. Let me reply later.
But āautistā is used colloquially ā all the time. Thatās my point. I mean that it hasnāt entered wider usage outside of high schools, twitch, and discord. Boomers donāt use it as an insult (yet).
I didnāt say āautisticā is synonymous with stupid. Usually itās used to mean youāre excessively or neurotically detail-oriented.
Youāre absolutely right. You didnāt say that āautisticā is synonymous with stupid, I wasnāt accusing you of doing so. Neither of us believe it is synonymous, people donāt think itās synonymous, and itās no surprise that people will instead use it colloquially to mean āexcessively detail-orientedā.
Is that so terrible? I donāt think so. I wouldnāt use it that way, but I also donāt say things like āIām so OCDā for that same purpose - and I donāt think itās a terrible thing to do that either! I wouldnāt use those terms like that, for the record, nor do I think others should. But I donāt think itās anywhere on the same level, and I donāt think it ever will be.
I think itās insensitive to use āautisticā and āOCDā in this way because it runs the risk of blinding us to other peopleās struggles when we normalize their symptoms as āstandard neurotypical problem but worseā.
But do you see how specific that concern is? Do you see how far weāve come? To even care about the idea of not being able to see someoneās symptoms? To discuss how it might be insensitive to not even know someone else has a mental condition?
Being ādetail-orientedā is not by itself a bad thing. It doesnāt bear any terrible implications of your value or worth to society. It doesnāt suggest that you canāt 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 weāve progressed, when we have to start worrying that people will assume neurodivergent people are too capable?
So calling someone āautisticā when you want to call them ādetail-orientedā is insensitive, sure. It might even be labelled as ignorant - but look how high that bar of ignorance is! āDetail-orientedā 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 werenāt 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 didnāt strongly present symptoms that disrupted their lives, the ones that could mask their behaviors - they were just called ādetail-orientedā. They were just āweirdā.
But most of them? The ones that had trouble speaking? The ones that had trouble looking you in the eye? They werenāt called ādetail-oriented.ā They were called retarded.
Do you see how it might be different to call someone āretardedā when you want to call them āstupidā? How much deeper the implications run? How much worse the associations are?
I agree with everything youāve written, but we are sort of going in a big circle. Earlier I wrote that
For that reason, I can endorse everything youāre saying. However, I thought our disagreement was over whether there should be a concerted effort to banish a particular pejorative term from our vocabularies (namely the r-word). I had argued no, since it seemed like an overreaction, whereas you were in the affirmative, since groups of people were being offended/hurt by the casual use of that term.
So then the question becomes:
Thatās 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 donāt 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 āretardā. And there arenāt many good reasons to use it. I know of plenty of alternatives. So I donāt use the word. And I do have the arrogance to think Iām 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 āretardā in this conversation, or anywhere. I donāt think a fediverse instance or any media platform should just ban the word, or ban people for using it. I donāt think people should be silenced for it.
Even below the level of ācontrolā, of authority figures or systems imposing changes from the top-downā¦
Even down to a personal level - I donāt think I advocate for people to censor themselves or each other. Please forgive me if I have done so here - that wasnāt my intention.
I just want people to be mindful of what they say. To understand what theyāre saying, and why, and what impact it can have and what implications it carries. I donāt think the decisions I make about vocabulary are so severe as your question suggests.
I donāt think Iāll 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 consideredā¦ and they walked away, still saying the word? I wouldnāt want them to lose their voice. I donāt think they should be censored. I might think theyāre 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 āwho gets to decide?ā.
You have a list of words in your mind that deserve to be abandoned. Iām fairly confident we could agree on all of them. But Iām not certain, because I donāt 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 thatās 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 wonāt add to mine, and for reasons I wonāt understand, and I donāt think theyāre 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. Youāve 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 āofficialā words for the same definitions. We actively changed our clinical language each time. But until the treadmill stopped on āretardāā¦ we didnāt actively stop using those words colloquially.
We struck them from the medical journals, but we didnāt strike them from the social vocabulary. The internet didnāt exist. People werenāt nearly so up in arms about ableism. You couldnāt 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. Itās 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. Youāll never hear someone say āoh, jennifer? Sheās a cretin.ā
(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 termā¦ but did we stop using it for that reason? Then why didnāt 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 donāt 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 donāt think we stopped using cretin for good reasonsā¦ I think we just stopped using it. I think weāll just stop using a lot of words for no good reason, and so itās 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. Thatās 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 doesnāt mean we did a bad thing. But that also doesnāt mean we should stop trying.