Every single word which has been used to refer to a mentally disabled person will, eventually, become a slur.
“Idiot” and “moron” used to be technical medical terms. There actually used to be a whole spectrum, with “idiot” being a pretty profound level of disability, meaning that someone’s mental age was around two years old or younger.
“Retarded” was a new invention, to introduce a new term which didn’t overlap with the slurs for a non-disabled person who was being stupid. Eventually, it came to be used as a slur, at which point we couldn’t used it for actually disabled people anymore. This cycle will repeat, I think, without end.
Probably the best thing to do is use terms which are too cumbersome to easily become slurs. “Mentally disabled” is one.
I just had a comment removed for using the M-word. I replaced it with stupid, hopefully that passes the purity test. It occurred to me that dumb could easily be construed as offensive to those who are unable to speak, much more justifiably than the R-word, in my opinion.
Mentally disabled is already quite unacceptable according to some, the current cutting edge of political correctness is probably persons of/with intellectual disability. Which will probably last a couple years before we need to come up with something else.
It’s eerily reminiscent of Orwellian themes of doublespeak and Newspeak. Limiting the functionality of language in order to prevent the expression of undesirable or socially disruptive thoughts.
All of this is also massively complicated by the fact that languages other than English exist. This rapid lexical treadmill that we are currently on is quite certainly discriminatory towards non-native English speakers, because they will inevitably inadvertently use outdated terminology and be judged for it, while those who are privileged enough to be close to the sources of political correctness such as they exist will have an inherent social advantage due to that.
We live in an extremely highly regarded society, congrats all around 👏
*stupid, please avoid ableism when you can.
Every single word which has been used to refer to a mentally disabled person will, eventually, become a slur.
“Idiot” and “moron” used to be technical medical terms. There actually used to be a whole spectrum, with “idiot” being a pretty profound level of disability, meaning that someone’s mental age was around two years old or younger.
“Retarded” was a new invention, to introduce a new term which didn’t overlap with the slurs for a non-disabled person who was being stupid. Eventually, it came to be used as a slur, at which point we couldn’t used it for actually disabled people anymore. This cycle will repeat, I think, without end.
Probably the best thing to do is use terms which are too cumbersome to easily become slurs. “Mentally disabled” is one.
I just had a comment removed for using the M-word. I replaced it with stupid, hopefully that passes the purity test. It occurred to me that dumb could easily be construed as offensive to those who are unable to speak, much more justifiably than the R-word, in my opinion.
Mentally disabled is already quite unacceptable according to some, the current cutting edge of political correctness is probably persons of/with intellectual disability. Which will probably last a couple years before we need to come up with something else.
It’s eerily reminiscent of Orwellian themes of doublespeak and Newspeak. Limiting the functionality of language in order to prevent the expression of undesirable or socially disruptive thoughts.
All of this is also massively complicated by the fact that languages other than English exist. This rapid lexical treadmill that we are currently on is quite certainly discriminatory towards non-native English speakers, because they will inevitably inadvertently use outdated terminology and be judged for it, while those who are privileged enough to be close to the sources of political correctness such as they exist will have an inherent social advantage due to that.
We live in an extremely highly regarded society, congrats all around 👏