Nobody’s “associating” anything. Nobody who’s calling someone retarded has any thoughts in their head about people with the mental disorder. If you called them a downie, then you would probably have a point; as it’s specifically worded to relate to downs syndrome.
But “retard” has come to be an amplification of the word “idiot”. It’s like the words big, bigger, biggest.
It’s the “biggest” of “idiot”.
So if I’m gonna call someone an idiot, my levels of idiot are: Idiot, Dumb-ass, and Retard. I’m just calling them the word that corresponds to being a gargantuan idiot. You can’t use “gargantuan” because they don’t even know what the words mean; so you use retard.
hey I have a question: how does everyone feel about “fucktard”? is that acceptable? it’s not a direct insult to persons with developmental disabilities, but it does have a fairly specific connotation that could be useful in certain situations, plus it throws out an F-bomb to emphasize your anger.
but if that’s too offensive for some folks I guess I can just keep using “fuckmouth”, if that’s easier on the ears.
They stopped using that word because it wasn’t descriptive. The same reason they stopped diagnosing women as “hysterical”. That’s the cool thing about the sciences; they evolve and change over time to be more descriptive, not less.
And now, we use the word hysterical to describe certain things…kinda cool how that works, right? When I call something hysterical (extremely funny) - people don’t get offended and say I’m using a slur.
Or when someone is losing their shit, you say they’re acting hysterical. It’s become a descriptor.
if someone is stupid, and making objectively stupid decisions, it would be fair to call them “developmentally challenged” especially if that person is donald trump, and the stupid decision is tariffs.
Would it also be fair to call him a retard? Yes.
should you? Probably not, would it be justified, yes.
It’s only really fucked up if you’re using it belittle and demean someone, though there are also situations where this is deserved. Morals and ethics aren’t really a solid ground to stand on, more so a floating mass of garbage in the ocean, that just sort of, showed up one day.
i don’t even necessarily disagree with that argument. I just don’t think it’s really all that relevant. I’m not even sure most people would disagree with it.
Obviously you should be nice to people, you probably shouldn’t be an asshole, and you should help them as much as possible, but like, how many of us actually do that?
It’s sort of like telling someone who smokes, that it’s bad for them, they know, you don’t need to remind them.
Maybe try to come up with a more creative way to insult people than by using a slur?
This is the same logic behind saying the f-slur is okay if you’re not using it to describe gay people, you’re just using it to insult a straight person… by comparing them to gay people. See the problem?
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Nobody’s “associating” anything. Nobody who’s calling someone retarded has any thoughts in their head about people with the mental disorder. If you called them a downie, then you would probably have a point; as it’s specifically worded to relate to downs syndrome.
But “retard” has come to be an amplification of the word “idiot”. It’s like the words big, bigger, biggest.
It’s the “biggest” of “idiot”.
So if I’m gonna call someone an idiot, my levels of idiot are: Idiot, Dumb-ass, and Retard. I’m just calling them the word that corresponds to being a gargantuan idiot. You can’t use “gargantuan” because they don’t even know what the words mean; so you use retard.
hey I have a question: how does everyone feel about “fucktard”? is that acceptable? it’s not a direct insult to persons with developmental disabilities, but it does have a fairly specific connotation that could be useful in certain situations, plus it throws out an F-bomb to emphasize your anger.
but if that’s too offensive for some folks I guess I can just keep using “fuckmouth”, if that’s easier on the ears.
fuck mouth might be too insensitive for those of us who have or don’t have sex, so basically all of humanity actually.
I’m rolling dude! haha
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“Retarded” isn’t a medical definition under IDC-11, so they aren’t retarded, as the medical definitions have changed.
Also Retarded has another standard definition – Being held back or stunted of which applies here.
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They stopped using that word because it wasn’t descriptive. The same reason they stopped diagnosing women as “hysterical”. That’s the cool thing about the sciences; they evolve and change over time to be more descriptive, not less.
And now, we use the word hysterical to describe certain things…kinda cool how that works, right? When I call something hysterical (extremely funny) - people don’t get offended and say I’m using a slur.
Or when someone is losing their shit, you say they’re acting hysterical. It’s become a descriptor.
Hey hey hey, let’s not use incontinence as an insult my dude.
Fuck. Foiled again.
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Lmao, that’s a stretch.
if someone is stupid, and making objectively stupid decisions, it would be fair to call them “developmentally challenged” especially if that person is donald trump, and the stupid decision is tariffs.
Would it also be fair to call him a retard? Yes.
should you? Probably not, would it be justified, yes.
It’s only really fucked up if you’re using it belittle and demean someone, though there are also situations where this is deserved. Morals and ethics aren’t really a solid ground to stand on, more so a floating mass of garbage in the ocean, that just sort of, showed up one day.
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yeah, probably shouldn’t doesn’t mean you can’t though.
Just because you probably shouldn’t yell at people, or swear at them, doesn’t mean you can’t or won’t.
Not everything in this world is a binary, sometimes it’s situationally appropriate, sometimes it’s not, sometimes it’s in between.
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i don’t even necessarily disagree with that argument. I just don’t think it’s really all that relevant. I’m not even sure most people would disagree with it.
Obviously you should be nice to people, you probably shouldn’t be an asshole, and you should help them as much as possible, but like, how many of us actually do that?
It’s sort of like telling someone who smokes, that it’s bad for them, they know, you don’t need to remind them.
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that’s factually incorrect and misinformation, so yes, it should be challenged.
I’m not saying that the word retard is a good thing for society though.
Maybe try to come up with a more creative way to insult people than by using a slur?
This is the same logic behind saying the f-slur is okay if you’re not using it to describe gay people, you’re just using it to insult a straight person… by comparing them to gay people. See the problem?
No, because I’m not calling anybody a faggot.
Just so you know. (I’m guessing you weren’t removing it yourself for a joke.)
So you understand why it’s bad to use a slur that way?
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Reclaiming a slur to describe oneself is a very, very different matter from using it to insult others.
i dont always use it to insult others, and nothing would stop me from using the f slur with my friend group either, gay or not.
You could make the argument that it is offensive to use the word, but that’s kind of the point. (not to any specific group of people though)
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It’s honestly very disappointing to see this here on Lemmy. I’d expect this from Reddit, but I thought people here were better than this.
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Yes. This place and this post in particular is in dire need of mod action.