Won't somebody think of the retarded children?

[alias_sqbr]

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?

Comments

[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.

[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" :/