Posted on 02/06/2010 12:28:34 PM PST by SeekAndFind
If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success. -Confucius, Analects
I admit that it's fun watching an adroit manipulator of political correctness get hoisted with his own petard and be forced to meekly eat his words. But to be fair, Rahm Emanuel's use of the word "retarded," and the general use of that word for someone who is (in P.C.-ese) "intellectually challenged," is inoffensive and honest.
First of all, the context shows that Emanuel used the word in a reasonable way. He was dismissing a proposal that the administration attack moderate Democrats in public ads. He was simply pointing out the stupidity of publicly offending people you want as future allies -- which is in fact a stupid thing to do. And he said it privately, not as a public insult. It took a backstairs gossip to make a public issue of it.
Next, his use of the "f-word" is lamentable but common in the debased milieu of politics, especially Chicago/White House politics. Nowadays, as someone once explained about the British use of "bloody," the f-word merely means that a noun or adjective will follow. I was brought up to believe that it should be avoided as being offensive to ladies. However, NOW does not seem to have complained -- perhaps because, as Judge Craig put it a century ago, they have ceased to be ladies but not yet learned to be gentlemen, and they probably use the word themselves. So let's give a reluctant pass to the f-word.
Now let's consider "retarded" carefully. According to my dictionary, it comes from the Latin word for "slow" and means "hindered from a typical or expected rate of change." For example, the term "retarded potential" is frequently used in physics, and no electromagnetic wave has ever complained about it.
This sounds pretty inoffensive. The connotation is that a "retarded" person will take a little longer to get where he is going, but that he will get there -- which sounds to me like a fair and hopeful statement of the situation. The alternative use of "slow," as uttered in hushed tones by teachers to parents, is a bit precious, but it really means the same thing. And so, from a logical point of view, there doesn't seem to any justification for complaining about the use of "retarded."
Unfortunately, reason has nothing to do with the decrees of P.C. Like the story of Al Smith at Sing Sing, P.C.ers have a ludicrous talent for replacing a fair term with a worse one. Consider "handicapped," a word once used for people with a deficiency in physical ability. It was a good word, honest and yet optimistic. As in its popular racetrack use, it implied that someone had a difficulty that others didn't have, but that with courage and perseverance, he could overcome it and win. But P.C. decreed that it could cause discrimination (another useful word that was exiled to verbal Siberia) and demanded that it be replaced by "disabled" -- a much more pejorative word that, as used in modern electronics, implies total incapacity. But then "disabled" was proscribed and replaced with "challenged," a condescendingly hypocritical euphemism that has become the butt of countless jokes.
In the same Pecksniffian spirit, "retarded" -- now called (I'm not making this up) "the r-word" -- is has been declared offensive. You may visit a website where you can sign a pledge to eliminate this word from your vocabulary. (A chastened Emanuel has already done so.) Attempts are being made to obliterate the word from all federal laws. I assume that this also means that thousands of physics and engineering texts will have to be recalled and reprinted.
What is the excuse for this idiotic lack of acumen? It's the fact that the word is used as a common insult. According to Special Olympics Chief Executive Tim Shriver:
Every day our community hears this word -- in schools and workplaces, in print and in movies, on radio and television. And every day they suffer its dehumanizing effects -- mockery, stigma, ridicule. This is a word that is incredibly damaging -- not only to the seven million people with intellectual disabilities in the United States, but also their friends, family and to all of us.
This distress is commendable but futile. I envy Mr. Shiver and his colleagues their miraculously sheltered childhoods. They seem to be blissfully unaware that we live in a harsh and unfair world in which any word they choose to use for the mentally handicapped will be used as a popular insult. If they insist on replacing the r-word with, say, "gungulous," then bullies will shout "gungulous" in schools and playgrounds and turn it into an insult.
This has already happened. Mr. Shiver's organization chose to replace the r-word with "special." This is an interesting choice because "special" is an auto-antonym that, like "sanction," has two opposite meanings. The term "special students" has been used for both ends of the I.Q. spectrum. But that ambiguity has not stopped "special" from becoming a nasty joke, used by the Church Lady in "Saturday Night Live" and, I fear, by many others. And Mr. Shiver himself has used "disabilities," which, as already mentioned, means something much worse than "retarded" or "handicapped."
The best you can do, Mr. Shiver, is follow the advice of Confucius and use the most honest and accurate word you can find -- perhaps a technical term. Above all, avoid circumlocutions, which make the user look silly, and euphemisms, which always smell of hypocrisy. You cannot stop bullies and louts from mocking your charges any more than we conservatives can stop liberals from unjustly jeering at us.
In any case, thank you for humbling Rahm Emanuel and making him grovel. You made my day.
“What’s Wrong with using the word — ‘Retarded’?”
Nothing. I am so sick of PC from both political sides.
We do have free speech from our constitution.
Those who don’t like it, move to Venezuela
Retard
Retard
Retard
Retard
Retard
Retard is a perfectly good word which means many things. That is probably the problem who do not understand the word “retard”….because they are retards themselves.
How is that?
My best regards.
Agreed. The Republican Party should not become the whining party. Laugh at the hypocrisy, and move one.
that’s move on...not move one.
So...it wouldn't be offensive if I made insulting comments about the "cognitively challenged" or the "IQ impaired" or the "Down's syndrome award finalists"? Works for me.
Haha! The first time I saw a video of a pilot flying one of those, I laughed out loud!
I find it offensive to call people with developmental disabilities, “retarded.” It used to be the clinical term, and it is supposedly not anymore, however, I have seen clinicians use it to describe my son and his cognitive abilities.
However, I use it all the time. I am a child of the 80s, and while I would never ever dream of calling a child or adult with Down Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, or Autism, “retarded,” I use it to describe idiots or situations as really stupid. It means slow (I took French). Much as the African-American community took back the N word or the Gay community took back the Q word, I will take back the R word. However, if I ever catch anyone calling my child or another in his situation that word, they will regret it. I love Sarah Palin, but honestly, I have been in this game (parenting a Special Needs child) a lot longer than her, so I would never apologize to her. I think I remember hearing Axelrod had a kid with Special Needs. Don’t know if it’s true.
Bilnd is now seeing impaired, deaf is hearing impaired , retarded is now "special needs " or learning disabled, Fat is now ample
It is like black people objecting to negro ( spanish for black)
The language is now officially useless
The word itself is not offensive when used in its proper context.
What is offensive is Rahm's usage of the word. Somehow we got sucked into focusing on the word itself when the focus should be on Rahm Emanuel's use of it as a perjorative.
I don't think even a rectum like Rahm Emanuel would call an actual retarded person retarded. That's just plain mean. Rahm used it as a metaphor for stupidity.
And, of course, the newsholes played right along. But we don't have to.
That’s the way I understand what Mr. Emanuel said. The word retarded is just a word, but “retard” is not a word, it’s an insult. Nothing more, nothing less.
Only a retarded gardener would not.
I call them queers. If what they do to each other isn't queer, then nothing is. In polite company I will say homosexual but never "gay".
I disagree with the article except the last sentence.
I explained it to me son the other day, after I heard one of his buddies from using “retarded” as a synonym for “bad.” Replace that R word with “Asian” while you’re playing games with your buddies, some of whom are Asian. “No! Let’s not play that game. It’s so ASIAN.”
He saw immediately how offensive that would be. Same with “Black.” Or “Jewish,” his own minority. Now, if you wouldn’t say that while in the presence of the minority, don’t say it when they are not around, either. And I reminded him that a parent of a special ed kid could hear someone say it and be hurt.
There are still plenty of epithets for guys to call their friends, and say about their enemies, without resorting to their appearance or birth condition or nationality. Exceptions made for adults who love to good-naturedly tease each other mutually.
Sorry. It is not PC that language evolves.
When I was young, there was an extremely CRUDE insult “You suck c*ck.” It was later shortened to “You SUCK.” The verb “to suck” now is used by grandmothers and four-year-olds to mean something is bad.
Grandma does not mean that the movie engaged in oral sex.
Yes. There probably will come a day when none of us will be able to say anything for fear of insulting someone somewhere. Then humans can leave the vocalizing to other creatures. We'll let computers do our talking for us.
*rolls eyes* at the absurdity of all this PC crap
“He who controls the language, controls the people”
Brack Obummer is a retarded marxist.
I hate PC and could care less. But it’s simply a matter of hypocrisy. The left jumps all over any moral failing of a conservative when they damn well wouldn’t care if it was one of their own doing whatever.
AFAIK: He didn’t say “retarded”; he said “effing retards.”
ARAIK: “Retarded” WAS the euphemistic term, originally. “Retard” was ALWAYS a disparaging term, never used by doctors, for instance.
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