People who use words do so for a particular purpose. Thatās what I mean by design. The n-word had one and only one purpose: a humiliating slur against a group of people.
Since this is obviously not the case with the word āretardā or āmoron,ā etc., I find the comparison obtuse at best and bad faith at worst.
Ultimately, people will use terms to call each other stupid. This is inevitable since people are, in fact, stupid.
I listed so many ways in which the word "retard " was used as a humiliating slur against a group of people. How is this not obviously the case? Because it had other purposes?
The word was used as a humiliating slur against a vulnerable group of people. This is indisputable fact. It is a word specifically referring to a group of people, and it was used against that group of people to belittle, demean, and yes - humiliate them.
It was also used as a diagnostic criteria. That history doesnāt change the context for the better - it makes the whole story worse. It was a bad diagnostic criteria. Psychology, psychiatry, and neurology are young fields of study that are going through some serious growing pains - in this case, the usage of overly broad umbrella categorizations of deeply nuanced and complex disorders.
People will always use words to cause harm. But have you noticed the thing thatās missing in everyoneās misguided defense of this word? How everyone complains about āwhatās next?ā when they refer to idiot, imbecile, and moron?
Nothingās next. This particular euphemism treadmill appears to have stopped on the word āretardā. Why? Because the fields of psychology, psychiatry, and neurology are outgrowing their old habits, and taking society with them.
We understand these disorders better now. Weāre trying to find ways to treat them. Weāre diving deep into all the intricate little details about symptoms, and causes, and care, and prognosis.
We donāt have one broad catch-all term like āretardā. We have dozens if not hundreds of diagnoses to replace it. And each ānewā vernacular replacement-of-the-week is more awkward than the last and doesnāt gain remotely the popularity or ubiquitousness of its predecessor.
The euphemism treadmill stopped. Other terms will be used, and weaponized, and cause harm. But theyāll never be used by everyone, everywhere the way the word āretardā once was, nor will they ever be used in quite the same way. They will never carry that same weight of shared, mistreated identity. And because of that it will be immortalized - because it was used as a diagnosis and as a humiliating slur by the generations that began to understand the truth. That society has treated our most vulnerable populations so unbelievably bad for so, so long, and we can do better.
The thing is, youāre not entirely wrong in your reasoning. It is just a word. If the treadmill had continued for another generation, and a new word had successfully replaced it, it probably wouldnāt be a slur. It might be forever used as casually and as apathetically as we use terms like āidiotā and āimbecileā and lose most of its weight and implications (words, by the way, that Iām not defending usage of - Iām just not elevating them to the morally repugnant status of slur)
But that didnāt happen. This word still holds a terrible number of memories for the living. The word āretardā has - as you defined and continue to fail to dispute - a specific history of targetting a specific group of people. A specific group of people who are mostly still alive today and have fresh memories of this harm, unlike anyone who was ever diagnosed as an āimbecileā. And it was used with the particular purpose of cruelty and humiliation of that specific group of people. It satisfies all of your stated conditions of a slur.
The problem with playing devilās advocate, as you suggested you were? Itās a philosophical device in which you defend a position that you wouldnāt normally commit to, for the sake of challenging your beliefs or the beliefs of others.
But you seem very commited to this position. Why? Because people donāt like the words you use? Have you ever, truly, played devilās advocate against your own belief here? Have you ever genuinely challenged yourself on this the way other people have challenged you, and thought āwhat if itās not their fault that theyāre offended by this word? What if that offense - those feelings of pain, and anger - what if that was something forced upon them? What if itās easier - in literally every sense of the word - for me to avoid using this word, than it is for them to avoid hearing it?ā
The word doesnāt need to survive. Plenty of incredible insults have died out from everyday usage for literally no good reason - language just evolves constantly over time. Whatās the harm in letting this one die for plenty of very good reasons?
You - any of you reading this, anyone who needs to hear this - you donāt need to die on this hill with this word. It continues to wither away, and thereās genuinely no personal or societal value in trying to keep it in use. No history needs to be preserved in your vernacular, and certainly not such a troubled history.
No one is trying to take away your speech. No one is coming for your words. But you will upset people with your words throughout your life. Youāll upset people with the truth, and youāll upset people with lies. Youāll upset people with words carefully chosen, and youāll upset people with off-the-cuff remarks.
But in this case, you will upset people by carelessly using words that carry painful memories. You are not being bold or rebellious. You are not standing proudly against some nebulous tide of societal overcorrection for past mistakes. This is not some last stand for sanity in a world gone mad. There are many places to make that stand, many worthy causes to fight for - this isnāt one of them.
Youāre just using the last word that many people remember being used for cruelty and humiliation against a specific, vulnerable group of people. That will upset people. Please try not to blame them for that.
I am not fully committed to this position. That said, I just think we disagree on the extent to which intention and context matters when measuring blameworthiness for language acts. For instance, the n-word as repeated by black people might be harmless, whereas its utterance by anyone else is unacceptable. Similarly, using the word āidiotā against a neurodivergent person is very bad. If used against me, though, thatās fair game.
I also donāt know the extent to which people are entitled to control what others say because theyāre offended. Christians are constantly offended, Muslims are offended, apparently some folks in the special Olympics are offended.
Look, unless a word is linked to a hateful ideology, I see no reason to be scared of it quite so categorically.
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 just 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.
People who use words do so for a particular purpose. Thatās what I mean by design. The n-word had one and only one purpose: a humiliating slur against a group of people.
Since this is obviously not the case with the word āretardā or āmoron,ā etc., I find the comparison obtuse at best and bad faith at worst.
Ultimately, people will use terms to call each other stupid. This is inevitable since people are, in fact, stupid.
I listed so many ways in which the word "retard " was used as a humiliating slur against a group of people. How is this not obviously the case? Because it had other purposes?
The word was used as a humiliating slur against a vulnerable group of people. This is indisputable fact. It is a word specifically referring to a group of people, and it was used against that group of people to belittle, demean, and yes - humiliate them.
It was also used as a diagnostic criteria. That history doesnāt change the context for the better - it makes the whole story worse. It was a bad diagnostic criteria. Psychology, psychiatry, and neurology are young fields of study that are going through some serious growing pains - in this case, the usage of overly broad umbrella categorizations of deeply nuanced and complex disorders.
People will always use words to cause harm. But have you noticed the thing thatās missing in everyoneās misguided defense of this word? How everyone complains about āwhatās next?ā when they refer to idiot, imbecile, and moron?
Nothingās next. This particular euphemism treadmill appears to have stopped on the word āretardā. Why? Because the fields of psychology, psychiatry, and neurology are outgrowing their old habits, and taking society with them.
We understand these disorders better now. Weāre trying to find ways to treat them. Weāre diving deep into all the intricate little details about symptoms, and causes, and care, and prognosis.
We donāt have one broad catch-all term like āretardā. We have dozens if not hundreds of diagnoses to replace it. And each ānewā vernacular replacement-of-the-week is more awkward than the last and doesnāt gain remotely the popularity or ubiquitousness of its predecessor.
The euphemism treadmill stopped. Other terms will be used, and weaponized, and cause harm. But theyāll never be used by everyone, everywhere the way the word āretardā once was, nor will they ever be used in quite the same way. They will never carry that same weight of shared, mistreated identity. And because of that it will be immortalized - because it was used as a diagnosis and as a humiliating slur by the generations that began to understand the truth. That society has treated our most vulnerable populations so unbelievably bad for so, so long, and we can do better.
The thing is, youāre not entirely wrong in your reasoning. It is just a word. If the treadmill had continued for another generation, and a new word had successfully replaced it, it probably wouldnāt be a slur. It might be forever used as casually and as apathetically as we use terms like āidiotā and āimbecileā and lose most of its weight and implications (words, by the way, that Iām not defending usage of - Iām just not elevating them to the morally repugnant status of slur)
But that didnāt happen. This word still holds a terrible number of memories for the living. The word āretardā has - as you defined and continue to fail to dispute - a specific history of targetting a specific group of people. A specific group of people who are mostly still alive today and have fresh memories of this harm, unlike anyone who was ever diagnosed as an āimbecileā. And it was used with the particular purpose of cruelty and humiliation of that specific group of people. It satisfies all of your stated conditions of a slur.
The problem with playing devilās advocate, as you suggested you were? Itās a philosophical device in which you defend a position that you wouldnāt normally commit to, for the sake of challenging your beliefs or the beliefs of others.
But you seem very commited to this position. Why? Because people donāt like the words you use? Have you ever, truly, played devilās advocate against your own belief here? Have you ever genuinely challenged yourself on this the way other people have challenged you, and thought āwhat if itās not their fault that theyāre offended by this word? What if that offense - those feelings of pain, and anger - what if that was something forced upon them? What if itās easier - in literally every sense of the word - for me to avoid using this word, than it is for them to avoid hearing it?ā
The word doesnāt need to survive. Plenty of incredible insults have died out from everyday usage for literally no good reason - language just evolves constantly over time. Whatās the harm in letting this one die for plenty of very good reasons?
You - any of you reading this, anyone who needs to hear this - you donāt need to die on this hill with this word. It continues to wither away, and thereās genuinely no personal or societal value in trying to keep it in use. No history needs to be preserved in your vernacular, and certainly not such a troubled history.
No one is trying to take away your speech. No one is coming for your words. But you will upset people with your words throughout your life. Youāll upset people with the truth, and youāll upset people with lies. Youāll upset people with words carefully chosen, and youāll upset people with off-the-cuff remarks.
But in this case, you will upset people by carelessly using words that carry painful memories. You are not being bold or rebellious. You are not standing proudly against some nebulous tide of societal overcorrection for past mistakes. This is not some last stand for sanity in a world gone mad. There are many places to make that stand, many worthy causes to fight for - this isnāt one of them.
Youāre just using the last word that many people remember being used for cruelty and humiliation against a specific, vulnerable group of people. That will upset people. Please try not to blame them for that.
I am not fully committed to this position. That said, I just think we disagree on the extent to which intention and context matters when measuring blameworthiness for language acts. For instance, the n-word as repeated by black people might be harmless, whereas its utterance by anyone else is unacceptable. Similarly, using the word āidiotā against a neurodivergent person is very bad. If used against me, though, thatās fair game.
I also donāt know the extent to which people are entitled to control what others say because theyāre offended. Christians are constantly offended, Muslims are offended, apparently some folks in the special Olympics are offended.
Look, unless a word is linked to a hateful ideology, I see no reason to be scared of it quite so categorically.
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 just 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.