Very close, but not quite. It’s like showing up on a post sometime in the future celebrating an end of Palestinian genocide… and saying “it’s good that Jewish genocide stopped”.

That wouldn’t be wrong, it is good to stop genocide, no matter the kind. But it’s suspicious that someone felt the need to show up and say that particular thing in that particular place. That additional context seems to be placed there to implicitly communicate something in particular.

Autist” 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 don’t get co-opted by teenagers looking for creative ways to insult each other.

That’s not the best thing we can do. We don’t have to waste time trying to avoid giving teenagers ammunition, and we certainly don’t have to do it by giving people with learning disabilities a diagnosis that could be hard for them to remember or understand.

Teenagers don’t need ammunition. The reason “autist” isn’t sticky enough, the reason it’s not used colloquially, the reason it’s only an insult for teenagers and people with the emotional maturity of the average teenager is because it’s 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 “retard” but it doesn’t seem to be doing so. Adults don’t say “that’s autistic” with good intentions. They do say “that’s retarded” with good intentions. Why? Because being a “retard” 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 “very stupid.” “Autistic” isn’t 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 you’re 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 their’s 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 they’re judging you for.

They’re 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.

I’m asking you - why should that stop here? Don’t the people offended by a term deserve some charitable consideration? Some leeway? They’re 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 won’t understand or believe your intentions are good. Is that their fault? That they can’t see into the mind of a fellow ape, and know your heart is pure?

The transference of “retard” 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 “stupid”. There were plenty of others before… but what’s the next one?

It’s not about disarming teenagers. It’s about trying to learn more. It’s about seeing each other’s intentions, and actions, and needs. And it’s 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 retarded… that was it. They just were. For the rest of their life. They were a “retard.” And the parents just had to deal with it.

When a doctor tells a parent their son is autistic, they follow it with “here’s what that means.” Here’s a couple of potential reasons why they might be the way they are. Here’s what their life might look like as an adult, based on these studies. Here’s the coping mechanisms you can try to teach them, here’s the educational methods that seem to work best, here’s 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 “retard”, and we as apes and as a collection of apes know so, so much more now. That’s why “that’s autistic” doesn’t mean “that’s stupid” for most people, and therefore why it also doesn’t replace “that’s retarded” 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 don’t think they were bad people. I don’t 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 doesn’t make them worthy of shame, or bad people. It just makes them human.

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 “but we know the worst one!” And maybe they do know the worst slur, or the worst genocide. I don’t 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 “retard”, 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 “n-word”. What sets those other words apart from the word “retard”?

I really do appreciate your points, because they are reasonable concerns about the nature of human communication and moral philosophy.

1. 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 another’s intentions with certainty. We can do our best but that’s 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 “you should have known better”, or others can even choose to no longer associate with that person if they want, because that’s their freedom to do so.

But that doesn’t make them a bad person. Other people’s 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 don’t 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 they’re 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 doesn’t make them bad people, if they decide to do the wrong thing when their intentions were good. That doesn’t 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 “retarded.”

I know this is terribly apropos, but I have to ask… Was the use of neurotic here intentional?

These examples are not control. If you say a word, and another person says “how dare you!” and decides you’re a bad person… have they controlled you?

Sure, sometimes these groups get power and exert control. But I want to clarify that that’s not your stated concern here. You didn’t bring up examples of theocratic governments or religious persecution. Your stated concern is “to what extent are others entitled… to getting mad… to being offended?”

The answer is to the fullest extent. Others are entitled to be offended, and get mad. They’re not entitled to imprison you or harm you. That’s 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 they’re not allowed to feel the way they feel about your behavior, and they’re not allowed to use the words they want to use to express those feelings?

Or do you think they’re allowed to be offended, just as much as you’re 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 you’re a bad person for your beliefs, and for the way you express yourself.

I don’t think you are a bad person. But I also don’t think they’re being bad people when they tell you they don’t like what you have to say.

The issue is Grice’s “maxim of quantity”. It’s a linguistic model of how we speak to each other - we provide the appropriate amount of information, and no more. Providing a surplus of details “for context” immediately puts people on guard because it quite literally is suspicious.

Breaking the maxim of quantity in this way is like saying “asbestos-free cereal!” It’s a detail that wasn’t necessary for context, and so its inclusion seems intentionally designed to communicate some implicit information that we’re meant to understand.

No, you don’t need to say “all slavery is bad” when someone says “slavery is bad” because that was an unnecessary detail to add in context.

People don’t need to defend themselves to you and say “you’re right, indentured servitude and prison labor are bad, so white slavery is bad too” because they weren’t talking about those things. They were talking about slavery as it is protrayed in RDR2 and you seem to be trying to change the conversation.

You are committed to this position, because you continue to hold it despite the core premises of your argument being disputed without reconsideration. You didn’t 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 “retard” did not. It basically has the same vernacular trajectory as “moron,” or “idiot.” From medical diagnosis to non-specific pejorative. Why aren’t those synonyms verboten? Because people like to make things about themselves.

We have established countless reasons why the word “retard” had a specific target and a very cruel purpose. It wasn’t designed that way, but it was used that way. We have also established that it doesn’t seem to have the same vernacular trajectory as moron or imbecile, because the treadmill stopped, and “that’s so intellectually disabled” has not and will not be used colloquially to mean “that’s so stupid”.

I have also provided numerous reasons why this isn’t something as simple as “people making things about themselves”.

You don’t 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 “designed” 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?

“It’s for their own good”, 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?

There will always be a need in language to describe people who are less intellectually capable so I absolutely disagree with this claim. Retard is simply still the word of choice despite efforts to censor its usage.

Still the word of choice? Published in the DSM-IV 30 years ago? Not the words that came after? The DSM-V, the ICD? These don’t quite fit in the vernacular? They don’t satisfy your language needs?

That’s the entire point. The treadmill stopped on that word. The diagnosis-turned-slurs have stopped churning out. You can call something idiotic. You can say that’s moronic. You can even argue, perhaps, that it’s imbecilic. And finally, lastly, immortally, you can say, “that’s retarded.”

I’m not saying you need to say any of these things, mind you. But I do understand that you want to find a word that’s just a bit more satisfying than saying “that’s stupid.” It sounds childish, I know. So you want to say “that’s retarded” because it really works, y’know? And people get upset when you say it.

But would you say “it’s disabled” to mean “it’s stupid”?

Would you say “that’s so handicapped”?

The catch-all term that said “you’re stupid” also said “these people are all the same” and has been pinned down and stuck in place in your mind and the minds of society, and words like “disabled” or “handicapped” just doesn’t quite cut it. Oh, people use them the way you know they’re going to be used. Mean and ignorant people will use the words the way mean and ignorant people will always use words.

But you’ll never use them that way.

But you, and your family, and your doctor, and your classmates, and your coworkers, and your friends, and your government… they’ll never say “that’s so disabled” when they want to say “that’s so stupid.”

And sometimes people will make mistakes, and other people will say inappropriate things like “what are you, handicapped?” And that won’t be okay. Not because of the word itself - even when it is outdated. but because of the association with a medical condition.

It isn’t okay to call your friends handicapped or disabled or whatever the next term will be because of the implication that the same word should be used to describe your niece who is nonverbal whose voice you wouldn’t even recognize and your brother who forgot to save your video game.

What comes next shouldn’t satisfy what you seem to want. We probably won’t settle on an easy answer, and the current “safe” terms will probably fall out of favor in their time. Because they become slurs, like “retard”? No. Because they become outdated? Probably.

If we as a society keep moving in the right direction, nobody will ever use the next “safe” terms the way you freely use the word “retard”. That’s the entire point.

There is no need to set an arbitrary line on some poorly designed IQ chart and say the people below this line are inferior and cost money and the people above this line are human and can have rights oh and then also use that line to call other people stupid.

There are synonyms that you can use for vernacular that absolutely fill the needs that you’re suggesting are crucial for the english language. There are plenty of words to call your friend when he left his keys in your car and his phone at his ex’s. If they don’t satisfy you, be the next shakespeare and write your own.

There are also plenty of words to describe a vulnerable group of people. There will always - of course - be a need to talk about them, and a need to have certain codified terms whose definitions we agree on for the purposes of professional care and legal protections. These don’t need to be the same words anymore, and if we do our jobs right they never will be again.

And yes, the word may and probably should be allowed to forever bear the stain of that history of linguistic injustice. The use cases for “That’s so stupid, dude” and “The results came back. I’m sorry to tell you this, but your son may never develop the ability to read.” don’t need to overlap ever again.

“Retard” was the last one, and therefore the worst one. No, being new is not somehow morally relevant. It is the worst one because it is the one that was still in living memory when we learned how to do better.

The treadmill stopped, and you’re still standing on it, upset that people are leaving you behind and blaming them for having the audacity to move on. You’re not pushing people away to save time. You’re just hurting yourself and others.

Saying the word “retarded” does not have to be inherently offensive. Describing something that is slowed or hindered as retarded is accurate. Using retarded as a pejorative term makes you a dick, sure. But if I go through all the effort to change “retarded” to “intellectually disabled” guess what happens? The same thing that has happened for the past 175+ years. The people who have used the terms in the pejorative sense will quickly adapt, making your efforts to police language pointless unless you intended to enrich their lexicon.

I have addressed this argument elsewhere in this post, but please forgive me rehashing the message here, because your comment is prominent, informative, and based in historical fact.

The word “retard” was used and is used to cause harm to vulnerable people. So was idiot, cretin, and moron. The difference is it is the last and likely immortalized step of this particular euphemism treadmill.

The treadmill appears to have stopped. There is no one-size-fits-all diagnosis to replace “mental retardation” because that was a terrible diagnosis 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 the word “idiot”.

Will other diagnostic terms be weaponized? Certainly. Will they ever be as prevalent or as ignorant in their origin and usage? Unlikely. I certainly hope not. And each new vernacular replacement is more awkward and holds less power than the last. That’s why you’re not here defending any term that came after this one.

That’s why - despite you mentioning it specifically as a spiritual successor to the word “retarded” - “intellectually disabled” is not successfully replacing it. It doesn’t bear the same emotional connotations, it never experienced the same popularity, and it shows no signs of ever coming close. Is it used in problematic ways, by people in good faith and bad? Yes. But terms like it are unlikely to ever even approach the moral repugnance of “retard” because they won’t carry quite the same history of professional ignorance and casual abuse.

The word “retard” - alone among these ableist terms we’re discussing - will forever bear the moral weight of all of them. Because it will be remembered as the last term used to humiliate and exclude a vulnerable group of people by a society that should have known better. A society that should have done better. A society that still needs to do better.

Other terms won’t be promoted to the same level of societal consciousness, because they hopefully won’t be promoted to the same level of professional malpractice at such a staggering scale. The word was misused and caused harm by doctors, and parents, and peers, some who used the word in good faith and watched helplessly as it became twisted, and others who used the word from a place of ignorance and later learned how much harm could be done by a simple word.

By a diagnostic label that was never enough to even describe the people it hurt, let alone help them.

Is it okay to use the term for purposes other than causing pain and perpetuating discrimination against vulnerable people? No. Because those vulnerable people are still alive and with us, and those wounds are still fresh. Will it ever be okay, long after they’re gone? Perhaps, but probably not.

The word’s abandonment will be a milestone on a path fraught with systemic and systematic abuses, and will probably never recover it’s original meaning. But that’s okay, because language constantly evolves, and we have plenty of old words to say what we mean, and we will find plenty of new ones along the way.

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, while also knowing that there is still so much more work to be done.

I appreciate you!

Yes.

Profess: 1) To affirm openly; declare or claim. 2) To make a pretense of; pretend.

If one makes a pretense of holding beliefs, feelings, or values that one does not hold, one is a hypocrite.

Whether anyone else understands the pretenses of the hypocrite or not does not change the definitions of the words.

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 diagnosis 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 the word “idiot”.

Will other diagnostic terms be weaponized? Certainly. Will they ever be as prevalent or as ignorant in their origin and usage? Unlikely. I certainly hope not. And each new vernacular replacement is more awkward and holds less power than the last. That’s why you’re not here defending any term that came after this one. They were never elevated to a shared identity and a humiliating slur. They were never promoted to the public consciousness the way “retard” once was.

Not by corporations. By children abandoned and abused by the system who survived to become adults, and by the people that witnessed this abuse and worked to change it. By doctors, and parents, and peers, some who used the word in good faith and watched helplessly as it became twisted, and others who used the word from a place of ignorance and later learned how much harm could be done by a simple word. By a diagnostic label that was never enough to even describe the people it hurt, let alone help them.

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, while also knowing that there is still much more work to be done.

Hypocrisy: The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess

Having no values or beliefs and being self-consistent with ulterior personal values does not change the definition of the word.

If one professes beliefs, feelings, or values that one does not possess, one is a hypocrite.

Headline from fox news: “Oliver North: Israel will have to put people on the ground and it will be bloody”

Reality is truly stranger than fiction. If any writer continued to use a character like him for so long in such obvious ways without suffering any consequences, readers’ suspension of disbelief would be shattered.

He was there for Iran-Contra. He is still here for Israel-Hamas. The exact same playbook. Place political gain over national interest. Put lives needlessly in danger and extend suffering for an easy win.

Hypocrisy: The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.

Holding a position when politically convenient and reversing your stance on that position due to political convenience is hypocrisy. It may be typical and expected, but it’s still hypocrisy.

Copying most of my response to a similar line of reasoning elsewhere in this thread - 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 humiliate them.

It was also used as a diagnostic criteria. That history doesn’t 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 that’s missing in everyone’s misguided defense of this word? How everyone complains about “what’s next?” when they refer to idiot, imbecile, and moron?

Nothing’s next. This particular euphemism treadmill appears to have stopped on the word “retard”. 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. We’re trying to find ways to treat them. We’re diving deep into all the intricate little details about symptoms, and causes, and care, and prognosis.

We don’t have one broad catch-all term like “retard”. We have dozens if not hundreds of diagnoses to replace it. And each “new” vernacular replacement-of-the-week is more awkward than the last and doesn’t gain remotely the popularity or ubiquitousness of its predecessor.

The euphemism treadmill stopped. Other terms will be used, and weaponized, and cause harm. But they’ll never be used by everyone, everywhere the way the word “retard” 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, you’re 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 wouldn’t be a slur. It might be forever used as casually and as apathetically as we use terms like “idiot” and “imbecile” and lose most of its weight and implications (words, by the way, that I’m not defending usage of - I’m just not elevating them to the morally repugnant status of slur).

But that didn’t happen. This word still holds a terrible number of memories for the living. And it doesn’t need to survive. Plenty of incredible insults have died out from everyday usage for literally no good reason - language just evolves constantly over time. What’s 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 don’t need to die on this hill with this word. It continues to wither away, and there’s 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. You’ll upset people with the truth, and you’ll upset people with lies. You’ll upset people with words carefully chosen, and you’ll 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 isn’t one of them.

You’re just using the last word that many people remember being used for cruelty and humiliation against a vulnerable group of people. What is that worth, to you? What makes the word hold such value, that you would use it even though it upsets people?

Do you use it because it upsets people? Why? What purpose does that serve? Do you honestly think that this word - of all words - will provide some personal or societal benefit? Will you change the future for the better by using it?

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 doesn’t 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 that’s missing in everyone’s misguided defense of this word? How everyone complains about “what’s next?” when they refer to idiot, imbecile, and moron?

Nothing’s next. This particular euphemism treadmill appears to have stopped on the word “retard”. 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. We’re trying to find ways to treat them. We’re diving deep into all the intricate little details about symptoms, and causes, and care, and prognosis.

We don’t have one broad catch-all term like “retard”. We have dozens if not hundreds of diagnoses to replace it. And each “new” vernacular replacement-of-the-week is more awkward than the last and doesn’t gain remotely the popularity or ubiquitousness of its predecessor.

The euphemism treadmill stopped. Other terms will be used, and weaponized, and cause harm. But they’ll never be used by everyone, everywhere the way the word “retard” 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, you’re 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 wouldn’t be a slur. It might be forever used as casually and as apathetically as we use terms like “idiot” and “imbecile” and lose most of its weight and implications (words, by the way, that I’m not defending usage of - I’m just not elevating them to the morally repugnant status of slur)

But that didn’t happen. This word still holds a terrible number of memories for the living. The word “retard” 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 “imbecile”. 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 devil’s advocate, as you suggested you were? It’s a philosophical device in which you defend a position that you wouldn’t 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 don’t like the words you use? Have you ever, truly, played devil’s advocate against your own belief here? Have you ever genuinely challenged yourself on this the way other people have challenged you, and thought “what if it’s not their fault that they’re offended by this word? What if that offense - those feelings of pain, and anger - what if that was something forced upon them? What if it’s easier - in literally every sense of the word - for me to avoid using this word, than it is for them to avoid hearing it?”

The word doesn’t need to survive. Plenty of incredible insults have died out from everyday usage for literally no good reason - language just evolves constantly over time. What’s 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 don’t need to die on this hill with this word. It continues to wither away, and there’s 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. You’ll upset people with the truth, and you’ll upset people with lies. You’ll upset people with words carefully chosen, and you’ll 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 isn’t one of them.

You’re 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.

What do you mean by “designed”?

The euphemism treadmill is a known issue. The reason this ableist slur is offensive is, yes, because it is the most recent turning of the wheel. It is the word used in living memory to both refer to patients with poorly understood medical conditions and as an insult to people deemed intellectually inferior.

There is no designer of words. What matters is how they are used. The word “retard” was used to cause harm. It was used by people to broadly and injustly categorize a group of vulnerable individuals by genetic and environmental conditions outside their control.

It was used as a vicious insult by peers and authority figures, it was used in schools and workplaces, it was used by doctors and parents. It was used - yes - to be cruel and humiliating. Of course it was.

Nobody designed the word to cause harm. But anyone who remembers the schoolyard knows that there are countless kids with very real conditions that were mistreated and misunderstood by professionals, parents, and peers. Some may have used the word in good faith. But many more used it in bad faith. They used it as a tool to be cruel and humiliating, and of course they used it on children and adult who could have been diagnosed with a wide variety of very real (and sometimes treatable/manageable!) mental and behavioral conditions that we are still barely scratching the surface of to this day.

It caused harm. It continues to cause harm. And the people who were and are harmed by it are still alive today. Those children grew up to be adults.

People don’t choose to be offended. People are offended by any number of things for any number of reasons. It’s usually not a conscious choice. It’s often a result of injustices experienced or injustices witnessed. In this case, it’s because many of us remember when people used the word “retard” specifically to be cruel and humiliating to vulnerable people.

The parallels between the ableist slur and the racist one run deeper than your argument seems to acknowledge. The word “retard” actually does have a specific history and a specific target. It wasn’t just common vernacular - it was a medical diagnosis.

The reason medical practice has completely abandoned its use is the same reason society should abandon it - it has a history of exclusion, prejudice, and measurable social harm.

By using an outdated (and objectively terrible) diagnosis as an insult for people who we deem intellectually inferior, we continue to associate developmental and behavioral disabilities with being inferior, and perpetuate the systemic and systematic injustices that some of our most vulnerable population still face to this day.

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