One recent anti-meme is words that you are not allowed to say even to refer to the word. If you didn't know the word, the phrase "the N-word" is not very enlightening, but people have been censured and even fired for using that word just to refer to it as a word[1].
In addition if you search for the actual word (not "n-word") on HN none of the articles are from the past year (there are two submissions from the past year, but the articles are from 1999 and 1971. The submissions have a total of 11 upvotes.
I recently ran into an article that used the phrase "the R-word" and I had to ask my teenage daughter which particular word that referred to. It's now very googleable, but at the time none of the top 5 pages on google indicated what the word might be.
1: One example: a white teacher at a meeting discussing standards for materials used in the classroom. One rule disallowed books with the n-word. The teacher said roughly: "So if there is a book about the black experience, written by a black author, I can't use it in my classroom because it has the word 'n*****' in it?"
For what it's worth, this stuff is culturally relative. The r-word is apparently "retard", and not an unsayable slur within my cultural sphere, to the best of my limited knowledge.
I'd like to disagree with the idea of a "treadmill" because it implies that changing language doesn't anything and leaves us where we started. The wikipedia entry mentions "moron", "imbecile", and "retard" as examples which started as medical diagnoses before becoming insults.
It implies that the medical community moved away from these terms because they became insults. However, these are all terms derived from IQ testing and the concept of "mental age". IQ has been de-emphasized as the diagnostic criterion for a couple reasons: people with mental disabilities aren't the same as younger people without mental disabilities; the focus should be on what sort of help people need rather than what they can't do.
> In current medical diagnosis, IQ scores alone are not conclusive for a finding of intellectual disability. Recently adopted diagnostic standards place the major emphasis on the adaptive behavior of each individual, with IQ score just being one factor in diagnosis in addition to adaptive behavior scales, and no category of intellectual disability being defined primarily by IQ scores.
As for the common use as an insult, you're right that its impact is culturally relative. To me, I would ask why you're using a term which used to be a medical diagnosis as an insult. The wiki section says kids are saying "what are you, 'special'?" in reference to "special needs". Does that mean it's bad to get that medical diagnosis? I'd side-eye someone who says "retard" as an insult because it's not just rude to the insultee.
I agree that sometimes some people deserve to be insulted; particularly for their own good (for instance they were carelessly doing something risky and need to be reminded to take themselves off autopilot and pay attention to what they're doing.)
But I think collateral damage may be unavoidable no matter which word you use for this. Wiktionary tells me that the word 'stupid' comes from the Latin stupidus (“struck senseless, amazed”) So, stupid didn't originate as a medical diagnosis and is ostensibly a 'safe' way to question somebody's intelligence. But I don't think it actually is; when you call somebody 'stupid' you're still framing a lack of intelligence as an undesirable trait. If somebody who earnestly does lack intelligence overhears this, they might be reminded of their own limitation and feel ashamed or inadequate because of it.
Any intelligence-impugning insult can have collateral damage, whether or not that word was originally a medical diagnosis. I think the solution to this dilemma is to be aware of who might overhear you. I avoid any intelligence-impugning insult when I'm in a room with people who are actually intellectually disabled. But if nobody like that is in the room to overhear it, then I think any of the common intelligence-impugning insults are fair game if the circumstances justify it.
> But I think collateral damage may be unavoidable no matter which word you use for this ... they might be reminded of their own limitation and feel ashamed or inadequate because of it.
This issue is that when people use "retarded" as an insult, they are saying people with intellectual disabilities should feel ashamed. When they use r- as an insult, they're saying that their target is acting like they have an intellectual disability, and that that's bad.
This is distinct, though related, to criticizing people's intelligence. When you say something is stupid, you claim you're saying it's bad because it's unintelligent. Is that why you're criticizing it? Should you be criticizing things for being unintelligent? This is a more general point than the use of r- as an insult, but it is indeed a topic which is raised by avoiding r-. I don't think the broader topic should be used to avoid talking about r- though.
> I think the solution to this dilemma is to be aware of who might overhear you.
The type of impacts depend on who hears it, but you don't need a target of the insult for the insult to be bad. You are still perpetuating the idea that people with intellectual disabilities are shameful when you use r-.
Old terms will fall away one way or another, this is just an observation that popular neutral terms for negative things will be continually repurposed as perjoratives, and then fall away in their turn.
Because it’s bad to be stupid. People are ashamed to be stupid because it’s a shortcoming. There is no world in which we can value a trait (intelligence) and not feel proportionately bad about its crippling deficiency. Pretending otherwise is some combination of being purposely obtuse and condescending.
> People are ashamed to be stupid because it’s a shortcoming.
So you are saying that people should be ashamed to be "special-needs" or "retarded"?
"Retarded" is not the same thing as stupid. You are using a similar but distinct concept as a stand-in for stupid. For example, I've heard people who were being socially awkward called "autistic" as a pejorative. They did not have autism, but they were being socially awkward because the two concepts are distinct. You can say it's bad to be stupid or bad to be a dork, but by using "retarded" or "autistic" in this way you're saying this group of people exemplify these traits and are thus "bad" themselves.
The answer to such a question is pretty much always no. (cd. Betteridge's Law)
Being (developmentally) retarded is a a way to be stupid. There a lots of other ways each with their own merits. People with intellectual disabilities aren't inherently bad, or morally bad, or necessarily worse that any person without a diagnosable disorder. That said, the whole idea is that the typical process of cognitive development is slowed or stalled on the way from baby to adult. This has undeniable disadvantages and, all else being equal, nobody should want it.
My feeling is that you must mix empathy with empiricism, and be brutally honest about the practical facts, while obviously not extending that to any unfounded personal judgements.
> People with intellectual disabilities aren't inherently bad, or morally bad, or necessarily worse that any person without a diagnosable disorder ... all else being equal, nobody should want it.
When you call someone r-, you are saying they are bad because they are acting like someone with intellectual disabilities. You are asserting that it's okay, because nobody should want to have an intellectual disability.
> For some reason, school boards are terrible at the use-mention distinction.
School boards are mostly comprised of average enough people, who are generally quite bad at this distinction. Although with school boards it's a bit worse because school board members can selectively choose not to recognize this distinction as a cudgel against their petty opponents (the lower the stakes, the nastier the fights...)
But I think most people know what those words are so somehow the idea is shared very well. Most taboos are probably like this - they're actually well known but talking about them and doing them is discouraged.
I wonder about believing you're wrong about any specific knowledge you have. That's pretty hard. Others can try to communicate it to you but your brain tries to find ways to reject that information.
In addition if you search for the actual word (not "n-word") on HN none of the articles are from the past year (there are two submissions from the past year, but the articles are from 1999 and 1971. The submissions have a total of 11 upvotes.
I recently ran into an article that used the phrase "the R-word" and I had to ask my teenage daughter which particular word that referred to. It's now very googleable, but at the time none of the top 5 pages on google indicated what the word might be.
1: One example: a white teacher at a meeting discussing standards for materials used in the classroom. One rule disallowed books with the n-word. The teacher said roughly: "So if there is a book about the black experience, written by a black author, I can't use it in my classroom because it has the word 'n*****' in it?"