This post reminded me of that old Louis CK bit on not liking the term “N Word” because it transfer the burden of saying the actual word from the speaker to the listener’s brain
Comment on Based Red Dead
Zwiebel@feddit.org 4 weeks agoAssuming OOP said ‘retarded’, that doesn’t fit their message well does it?
glimse@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
jballs@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Louis CK’s bit on the word “retarded” is pretty damn good too.
rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Joke’s on him my brain is always saying it 😎
crowbar@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
How about your heart?
rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Speaking sumerian.
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
depicted as
Ummdustry@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
it’s called context switching, within 4chan the r-word is an honorific rather than a slur.
AlexisFR@jlai.lu 4 weeks ago
There is nothing wrong with the world retard, don’t let corpos implement their double speak.
yeahiknow3@lemmings.world 4 weeks ago
Americans and their hatred of random words. Lmao.
brbposting@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
I’ve grappled with “retard” & “bitch” (made a thread about it a couple months ago too, trying to form/reform my opinion).
Clearly we have to be careful with any messages industry pushes. With that said -
What do you think about these statements from Special Olympians?
Image
CC: @yeahiknow3@lemmings.world
yeahiknow3@lemmings.world 4 weeks ago
I appreciate your good faith response. I see and empathize with your perspective. To play devil’s advocate, you can’t control whether a group of people decide, out of the blue, to internalize hurtful language that isn’t aimed at them. The N-word had a very specific target and a very specific history. The word “retard” does not. It basically has the same vernacular trajectory as “moron,” or “idiot.” Why aren’t those synonyms verboten? I don’t like inauthenticity, and I don’t like people getting offended at things that have nothing to do with them.
Cypher@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
To break down my response to this
There are people with high intelligence and those with low intelligence, bandying about with different words will never change that. Intelligence is crucial in social, economic and evolutionary terms. They are correct no one would ever want to be lacking in intelligence because it would only make life worse. There will always be a need for a word to describe someone of lower intellect, or describe an argument or position as being thoughtless, in order to dismiss the person or idea as quickly as possible with as little engagement possible. Preferably while using small words so they understand.
You can still say they have a room temperature IQ but they might not get the meaning…
I agree, and I would not want someone with an IQ of 70 to be in the military, or to be a teacher, or a doctor, as each of those scenarios would likely result in disaster not just for the 70 IQ individual but for everyone impacted by them.
Yea no. This “everyone is special” bullshit just isn’t how the world works. The universe doesn’t care about you, the world is a harsh place where the unfit died early deaths until really intelligent people worked out how to increase food production, developed medicines, surgeries and hygiene.
You only need to look up the etymology and history of clinical usage of both dumb and stupid to realise they were used to describe the same groups of people and behaviours during different time periods. More bullshit on the treadmill.
I refuse to censor the word retard while moron, stupid, dumb and idiot are considered fine. To censor a synonym of acceptable words, is to put it bluntly, fucking retarded.
AlexisFR@jlai.lu 4 weeks ago
That is true, if you use it against disabled poeple. I only use it against moronic able poeple who should know better.
Initiateofthevoid@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
Are the corporations in the room with us now?
It was used and is used to cause harm to vulnerable people. It is the last and likely immortalized step of this particular euphemism treadmill.
The treadmill stopped here. There is no one-size-fits-all diagnosis to replace “mental retardation” because that was a terrible disgnosis 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 this word.
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.
AlexisFR@jlai.lu 4 weeks ago
I certainly did learn something out of this!
I’ll note use that word this way then, I understand now.