alias_sqbr | Won't somebody think of the retarded children?

So, something I've been pondering for a while is the attitudes people have towards "stupid people" and how these relate to attitudes towards the mentally disabled.

Now, some people think it's ok to make fun of mentally disabled people.

Most people, I would say, think it's not. Which, you know, good. I've known a bunch of people with downs syndrome and other cognitive disabilities in my life and they were as deserving of respect and decency as anyone else.

But there's a long and established history of people making fun of others for being "stupid", and this consistently blurs the boundary and coopts medical words for the mentally disabled (ie "Moron", "idiot", "retard") Personally I think this is deliberate, in order to accentuate the insult. I was discussing this with Cam and he said "Yeah, but noone actually uses "retarded" to refer to actual disabled people any more, so it's ok to use it as an insult", but Google disagrees (as do a lot of examples of people using it as an insult) I wonder if it occurs to these people that the mentally disabled do actually use the internet...

And a question that has occurred to me from time to time: if it's not ok to make fun of people with well below average intelligence, why is it ok to make fun of people for having mildly below average intelligence? At the same time, if you can't make fun of that what can you make fun of?

Of course I have a somewhat unusual definition of "stupid" anyway, since on the one hand I'm smarter than most people (certainly most of the kids I knew growing up) but at the same time do a lot of really dumb things. (I guess that answers my second question: you can make fun of me :))

Also, googling found me this interesting youtube video, of a woman with autism talking about being considered "retarded", and why she doesn't deny it as vehemently as a lot of other people in her position.

So, as is usual for me, no point exactly just a bunch of vaguely connected thoughts. What do you guys think?

Current Mood: contemplative

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

purrdence.livejournal.com

Using 'retarded' and/or words such as 'gay', 'dyke' or 'ranga' etc as an insult in my classroom lines one up for a butt kicking. May make me look like a fuddy duddy in some of the little bogan's eyes, but I stand my ground.

From:

alias_sqbr

Eh, they'd probably think you were a fuddy duddy anyway for being over 20 :) When my siblings were pre-pubescent, any time they used "gay" as an insult I'd go "You never know, YOU might be gay", shut them right up :D

Also: got your message, but forgot to listen to it until well past bedtime. I should be home on Saturday. I'll try to remember to ring tonight.

From:

callistra.livejournal.com

Ranga?

From:

purrdence.livejournal.com

From orangatuan.

It's a Ginger insult.

From:

callistra.livejournal.com

Ginger?
As in hair?

From: (Anonymous)

Yup. Apparently it's still a Bad Thing to have red hair. *sighs*

From:

stephbg.livejournal.com

Too tired to be coherent but I haz an theeree.

Consider "level of intelligence" just another way to distinguish groups of people, as you would use culture, skin colour or height. In the current PC climate it's "not OK" to mock different groups, because that would be "insensitive".

So, no dwarf throwing. No mocking the profoundly disabled.

However, most comedy relies on differences between people, so if extreme differences are out, all you're left with is the people who are slightly different, those on the margins of your own group.

Short jokes for 5' people, OK. Dumb people jokes, OK.

From:

alias_sqbr

Hmm....you may have something there (I had a more intelligent reply, but I forgotted it)

From:

stephbg.livejournal.com

Just a spot of applied social psychology. The wonders of the Arts Degree.

From:

gemfyre.livejournal.com

I use the word "idiot", "moron" or "stupid person" for people who should know better. Somebody who does not have the 'excuse' of a mental disability, they're choosing to be goddamn fools. Most mentally disabled people I've met are smarter than the "stupid people" in my world.

From:

stephbg.livejournal.com

well said

From:

alias_sqbr

Yes, that's what I meant by it being ok to make fun of me :)

From:

greteldragon.livejournal.com

I could probably make a better post later, but I've always found when talking to people that are either below average intelligence or bordering on, or actually retarded, its not the words the people are using its how they use them.

For instance calling someone a retard, while being a condescending prat will upset them, just talking them though, they will use words like retard to describe themselves and each other like its a statement of fact. They'll also use it to make fun of themselves or each other, or insult each other, but its really kinda hard to explain and fuzzy in that its not taken in the same way as someone just walking in and doing the same thing..

But then, I have odd people talk to me at bus stops (and most of the rest of the time).

Doesn't really answer any of your points, but its not so much a can you make fun of, but do you have permission and is the right place? This probably also applies to every other insult of an actual group (calling people gay or whatever the latest racism phrase is), but I haven't noticed that one as much.

Make sense?

From:

alias_sqbr

Oh, yes, that sort of thing does depend very much on context. There's a big difference between laughing with someone and laughing at them, and all that.

From:

out-fox.livejournal.com

Interesting.

I think people throw around words like that contextlessly because intellect still grants status, and status facilitates morally superior social posturing. So people using "stupid retard" aren't really concerned with what constitutes an impairment as much as wanting to indulge in the related superior stance.

So stupid/retard is used to mean "Person Who Can Be Mocked for Having Different Relations To Thinking And Knowledge Than My In Group" rather than "I Think This Person Has A Worse Phd Or Disability Than Me For Real".

I still think it's wrong, for both the association of disability with stupidity and stupidity with reduced social respect.

But, that's what I think is going on when a very non-intellectual person freely calls an academic a "retard" because they dislike "chattering classes lefty intellectuals", yet also admits that insulting the disabled is mean. It's about who they think "deserves" challenges to their social status - which is then the person who annoys them, regardless of intellect.

From:

alias_sqbr

Mmm....yes it is about the pecking order isn't it?

This isn't quite what you were talking about, but I've noticed a distinct stupid=lower class thing. Especially any time people start talking about "The March of the Morons" :/

From:

out-fox.livejournal.com

Related point - as seperate comment because my comments, they be wordy.

Sometimes I hear highly educated people who also have mental illnesses complain about being associated with the other types of brain related disabilities e.g. "People are so abelist! Just because I have schizophrenia doesn't mean I'm stupid and retarded!!"

It floors me. Educational level isn't determined soley by intellectual ability anyway - but way to use ableist language when protesting abelism!

Again, I think they're implying that intellect justifies better social status.
Like, having a degree means they *deserve* not to suffer the same patronising attitudes as PWD whose disabilities were too profound to even complete high school. Why not just leave it at "stigma sucks!" ?

From:

alias_sqbr

Did you watch that video I posted a link to? That's what she's talking about.

Though that said, beyond the stigma there's the simple fact that one does treat people with mental disabilities differently, and it would be annoying for everyone to treat you that way due to unrelated disabilities. The fact that there's a stigma attached would just make it more annoying. Also it indicates ignorance and unwarranted assumptions, which are a bad things all round.

I'm just remembering how the guy in "My Left Foot" was treated as mentally disabled for a large chunk of his life due to his paralysis, and how much easier things got for him once people realised he wasn't. Of course, this is possibly a sign that people treated the mentally disabled really badly back then...

I guess there's a line between "Stop misclassifying me!" and "OMG don't mix me up with THEM!!".

From:

out-fox.livejournal.com

Oh, I didn't watch the video cos I use YouTube sparingly re: download quota munching.

Yeah, I can understand the "misclassifying me" thing- the people I'm thinking of had more pronounced scorn for other forms of disability, which I should have clarified.

From:

alias_sqbr

Oh, I understand completely about downloads, so many things to see and so little bandwidth! And it's not the most exciting video ever. I'd look up her profile and try to find a transcript, but work blocks youtube :)

From:

meljane.livejournal.com

Well being the sister of an intellectually handicapped sister I still find retarded just as insulting as I did back in the 80's and 90's .

It even annoys me when one of the guys in IT at work goes "Wow that's so retarded "( I usually squirm but don't say anything) and when I people found out about my sister in high school they called me retarded among one of many things they use to call me.

I know carers would never use the word retarded and other workers that have clients that intellectually handicapped .

Just my two cents .

From:

greteldragon.livejournal.com

I know carers would never use the word retarded and other workers that have clients that intellectually handicapped .

I don't think they'd say it while the client or his/her family could hear, but at least some definitely would and do.

From:

alias_sqbr

Oh, yes, I think it's been a long time since anyone used it in a nice/value-neutral way.

Heh. That reminds me of me and a childhood friend with cerebral palsy confiding in each other that he was a "spastic" and I was a "bastard" and noone at our schools could EVER KNOW :)

From:

out-fox.livejournal.com

back, loving the topic.

A Catch 22 with deeming a disability diagnosis as an "excuse" for being stupid.
Education and income influence whether you get medically diagnosed or assumed to be a criminal and/or a "hopeless lazy idiot".

The well off stay empathetic gimps who "can't help it" the poor stay "f*cking stupid enough to deserve what they get".

Which I say, because I only got a diagnosis for like, 7 disabilties when I finally hit a middle class income in my 30's. I'm very conscious that the economic semi-dependency of many PWD fuels competetive victimhood between us for "deserving poor" status, which is increasingly defined in white middle class language about health.

From:

alias_sqbr

*realises the reason your comment above made me think of class was this one below* Oops :)

Absolutely.

And of course even if you get diagnosed when poor you probably can't get decent treatment. I shudder to think about what my life would have been like if I'd gotten reflux before I could easily afford $60 a month in medication to keep it (barely) under control.

I saw this incredibly depressing documentary about just how large a proportion of America's prisoners are mentally ill with nowhere else to go. And I don't doubt that my schizophrenic uncle would have ended up somewhere like that if my family didn't all pitch in to bail him out of trouble on a regular basis. Disability/illness/social acceptability are so much defined by whether or not you can "get by", and that in turn relies on a lot of external factors like income.

From:

greyreviews.livejournal.com

Rule 1.
EVERYTHING is funny.

Handicapped, Terrorism, Race, Fatties, Rape, Animal Cruelty, Murder, Holocaust, Paedophilia, White Middle-class Males, we are all hilarious to someone.

Seriously there is no subject that someone cannot make a joke about. The secret is not worrying about what is or isnt funny, because it all is. Rather all one has to do is keep in mind that not everything is funny to everyone and target your humour accordingly.

For instance, i recently saw the following image done up as a fake motivational poster with the tagline "Patience. Good things come to those who wait." I literally fell of my chair at work laughing, then had to madly scramble back to the pc and alt-tab out before any of my co-workers saw it.

http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/odds_and_oddities/assets/wanting_a_meal.jpg

Its safe for work. but the slogan makes it a joke that certainly will not be universally appreciated. Accepting that not everyone shares your sense of humour is far more important than debating if it is good or ok to laugh at retards. Because after all....

http://www.themadpigeon.com/photos/uncategorized/1_58.jpg

From:

alias_sqbr

I didn't say it wasn't funny, I asked if it was ok. As in, ethical. I fully admit that sometimes it is funny (to me, anyway)

I mean I actually have a really cruel sense of humour, but I don't tend to use it (except on Cam, who's used to it) because I judge my actions by "is it ok" before I ask "is it funny". This may be one of the ways in which you and I differ :P

Of course most people are happiest laughing at those they do not empathise with, so those who care about/are the butt of a joke are less likely to find it funny.

From:

greyreviews.livejournal.com

Well the logic still essentially holds. It is ethical to make the joke itself, the lack of ethics you suggest only applies if the joke is being made directly at or about someone you know it will, or has a high likelihood to, hurt or offend.

At which point you might as well ask is it ethical to punch retards? Punching in and of itself is not a bad thing, you can punch a bean bag all day even if imagining it to be the retard who lives down the street and you are not being unethical. However, as soon as you punch the retard itself (yes I went there) it becomes unethical.

Once again its a time, place and audience issue, even when it comes down to ethics. Ie. Right time, place and audience:

Wrong time, place and audience:

From:

alias_sqbr

Yes, and I'm sorry if I was unclear: I'm not saying that jokes about mentally disabled people, or using the word "retarded", are always 100% unethical regardless of context. I agree, there are contexts in which they would be entirely appropriate.

I'm saying that they are unethical in the context in which they are used. The specific context I was thinking of is online discussions, especially in the culture which has grown up around gaming etc. There are two reasons I think it's unethical:
(a) There may actually be mentally disabled people present (ok, it's unlikely in any given conversation, but I'm sure there's plenty in the gaming etc culture in general)
(b) It encourages a pre-existing belittling and insulting attitude towards the mentally disabled which then manifests itself in society as mistreatment and predjudice. e.g. Anti semetic jokes are still racist and not-ok when there's no jews around :P

However, as soon as you punch the retard itself (yes I went there)

Wow, you're nearly as edgy as Mark Millar :P

Also, was that meant to be a clip from a "Die Hard" movie? Your comment makes a lot more sense to me if I assume you meant to use the clip from "The Office" with that Chris Rock joke in (which illustrates your point quite well)

From:

evil-megz.livejournal.com

As I see it, society generally considers it unacceptable to tease disabled people because they have some physical or social 'excuse' (cause) for their disability which they are unable to help, and it is unfair to laugh at somebody for something they have no control over.

But this brings into question the acceptability of teasing anybody for anything ever. Somebody with an IQ of 80, for example, is not considered mentally disabled but they are 'quite stupid'... and though most will have no 'excuse' they can put their finger on as the cause of their lack of intelligence, they are no more able to help their situation than a person with a specific condition.

As to words such as 'retard' being used as insults, I think this is mainly due to a lack of words suitable for "teasing a non-retarded person about having done something they should normally be smart enough to not do" and thus words are borrowed from similar situations: in this case, descriptions of disabled people/disabilities originally used in a more medical sense. 'Retard' itself however generally means not working quite right, or slowed down, before it came to be used as a term for human mental disabilities. Calling an inanimate object or a situation retarded isn't being inconsiderate to mentally disabled people as it is actually being used quite literally.

From:

alias_sqbr

That said, you have to consider the associations of a word as well as it's literal meaning. I mean, for example, I am literally a "bastard", doesn't mean I don't get offended when someone calls me one. :P