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

[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.

[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