There’s a clear campaign against the mentally ill with the global rise of fascism. Lots of it shows up in anti homeless rhetoric, but you can see it in the MAHA and anti vaccination movements.
There’s no reason to use the word “r-tarded” to describe someone. As someone who’s worked with the intellectually challenged, it’s an insult to them to compare them with people who are willfully ignorant.
So it seems like we are going to have to wait until impaired, challenged and disabled are turned into slurs by the overly-sensitive so removed can achieve the neutral status of idiot, dumb, stupid, moron and imbecile - words that removed used to be considered the politically correct alternative.
I don’t think anyone is saying that clinical language doesn’t have a use. If anything, it’s the use of these words as general-purpose insults that makes them unfit for clinical use, not the other way around.
I think the argument is whizzing over your head too.
The logical breakdown here is pretty simple:
Argument #1 (OP): It’s probably not good to use disadvantaged groups as a slur.
Argument #2 (You and most others): Well if we do that then I don’t have words to degrade people.
These are completely orthogonal arguments, and I sincerely have sympathy for both. I genuinely do think there is communicative value in having words that illicit the intended response of calling someone’s argument “retarded”. I know what I mean. You know what I mean. It actually has nothing to do with people who are actually handicapped. It’s effective communication… it just has an unfortunate BYPRODUCT.
But not having slurs isn’t a counter-argument to the thesis that using disadvantaged groups as slurs is bad.
Strawmanning it as “PC gone mad” is just a convenient way to avoid actually addressing the concern head on.
Like, just be a fucking man: “Yeah, it probably isn’t good to use disadvantaged groups as slurs, but I’m at a loss for language that satisfies that while also effectively getting the content and TONE of my communication across, so I’m going to use it anyways. Not everythingi do is ideal.”
As soon as you abandon the ego-sheltering delusion that you don’t do things that are probably not great, you can actually think about things objectively without hitting a mental panic button the second you’re forced to evaluate a legitimate position in which your current behaviors would be evaluated as bad.
This post was probably the first time I used the word “removed” as a swear word in a long while. As I mentioned somewhere else around here, in my language it’s an actual word that means delayed, and I do prefer other swear words for the exact same reason I avoid using swear words that are rooted in sexual moralism - like judging someone for sexual behavior, even though I might not actually be doing that or even considering that person’s sexual behavior when using that word. However, if you want to use a word to describe someone as being “not-intelligent”, it is very hard to disassociate it from a group of people who actually have a clinical condition causing that, ESPECIALLY when people forcefully make that association.
The main argument here against that word seems to be that you can’t say “removed” because mentally impaired people are removed. If we were to agree that mentally impaired ≠ removed, as has already been done for all the previous words associated with them, then “removed” is not a word used to degrade them. It only becomes one if people like OP keep insisting they are removed - which is quite ironic, and we just keep repeating the euphemism treadmill cycle.
How hard is it to stick to idiot, dumb, stupid, moron, and imbecile?
If you think “removed” is wrong for degrading people with an actual clinical condition, except for “stupid” which seems to be something like calling that person drunk, I think you shouldn’t stick to those either, because they do the same thing.
No, they used to. Nobody cares about them anymore.
I agree entirely, you cracked the code: stop caring, and “removed” won’t be associated with the mentally impaired. People like OP, who care too much, are what keep it a slur used to degrade people with an actual clinical condition.
As someone who grew up with a very close friend with a sister who has down syndrome who really disliked people using the word as an insult I strongly disagree with you.
So if I, as an ugly person, dislike people using “ugly” as an insult, should that mean everyone is not allowed to use the word?
It’s already considered particularly hateful to insult people based on their appearance as opposed to their actions, so I’m not sure what your point is.
Also specifically disagreeing with this
Which is unrelated to what you said so I think you may have misunderstood me. I’m saying that people with down syndrome and people with family members with down syndrome telling people to not use that word as an insult are not degrading themselves/their family member by doing so.
Well that’s the thing, the word is not being used to insult people who are actually afflicted with the condition.