Unpopular Opinion

Ironically, the term "mental retardation" was introduced by medical and educational professionals as a less derogatory and more objective replacement for older, highly stigmatizing terms like idiot, moron, and imbecile, which themselves were previous medical classifications.

slurs are useful.

they are an escalation step that are words instead of physical violence.

making slurs illegals removes that step and leads the escalation straight to violence.

That is an unpopular opinion.

When you stop being offended by letters on a page and direct that hate towards the individuals that use the word as a slur or out of context on purpose, you'll be a lot happier.

Lol you fucking spastic - can't say that, its offensive

Are you retarded - can't say that, its offensive

Damn bro, you mentally disabled?

This will continue onward, to think otherwise is retarded.

OP, I just gotta say, I really agree with you, and I find it really disgusting the amount of people in this thread trying to renormalize it or argue that it's not problematic. This thread has been one of, if not the, most frustrating threads here over the past two years. Like I'm genuinely feeling gaslit by some of these comments. Do people not remember the voice people would use? Do people not remember the motions people would do? Those weren't just a mild way to call someone stupid. It was always ableist and still is today. Maybe in five to ten years I'll feel differently, like language really has moved on, but it doesn't feel like that's what's happening. It feels like people just being more comfortable being edgy.

I thought it was widely accepted that you shouldn't use this word outside of, like, quoting old medical diagnosis from when the word was used in that context. It is not an okay insult.

Maybe I just hang out with nicer people.

Retarded is a word that is now used exclusively to talk about people who are not mentally ill acting like dumb fucking cunts. Like, its totally retarded to see people getting upset at Trump being called a retard... If you hear the word, and you think about actual disabled people. Thats a you thing. Cos I promise you, no one else is.

No one is looking at this, and thinking that anyone else, but Trump, is a fucking retard.

i'm austistic and love the word retard, really don't understand peoples need to be offended for others. it's not remotely close to the n-word, saying "r-word" just makes you seem like a tool imo

These stupid wars on words IMHO is the reason why "liberals" were regarded as a joke prior to trump election

Like banning "master" in github as well as dumb, regex based words filters in chats. Oh you want to mention the "beta version"? Too bad, a social justice warrior decided that "beta" is now offensive, you have to change your language so that you wont affect the hypothetic easily offendable persons

Policing the hell out of language, while well intentioned, creates a backlash effect that I think actually hurts us more these days. Look at how they originally attacked "political correctness" in the 90s - because we were trying to code some improvements into language. Now people openly laugh at us for not having a solution to homelessness besides renaming them "unhoused."

Be far easier to just let the R word become the word it has become, which doesn't describe mental illness or disability anymore, much like "idiot" and "moron" and "imbecile" were once used as medical terms, and now they have none of that meaning.

There's a historical cycle where the helping professions rotate the terminology out, as the wider culture overloads the old terms with insulting usage. Eventually the new vernacular leaks out into general parlance and the cycle cycles. "Retarded" was once acceptable clinical terminology because "idiot, "moron", and "imbecile" had accumulated cultural baggage. The latter terms were, themselves, once politically correct alternatives to even older terms.

I think it's naive to think that THIS time is special, and today's politically correct terminology won't ever leak out into common usage as a slur too.

+1

Maybe y'all haven’t experienced it as a slur. I grew up around jerks that did, and it leaves a nasty taste. I’ve caught myself using it, and felt awful afterwards.