Well, I think anyone who recommends violent solutions should be drawn and quartered.
Anyway, this thread seems to have two conflicting views. (1) It’s still a clinical term, so it’s insulting to use it as a pejorative (unlike “idiot” and “moron”, which have lost their clinical value), (2) It’s no longer a clinical term, so it’s insulting to use it as a pejorative.
(1) I get, but (2) baffles me. Once it’s no longer used clinically, it seems like it can be used as an inoffensive put-down, like “idiot” and “moron”. It stands on its own as being a word for foolish person or action.
Anyway, practically speaking, it’s probably a lost cause to get offended by it.
Who exactly gets hurt by the use of the word retarded?
And Sarah Palin was pissed at Maher because he went after her son in public, not just because he used the word retarded. The guy who called Maher out for this is a friend of mine. It was a ten minute diatribe that he said was outright wrong.
Ron is a good guy. If it pissed him off enough to heckle Bill Maher, chances are it was pretty bad.
This kind of baffles me. Do you think that if Maher had referred to a five-year-old cognitively disabled child as an “idiot” or a “moron” that would have been inoffensive?
In current conversational usage, that’s what calling the kid “retarded” meant and I imagine Maher knew that perfectly well.
At least in my experience, the use of “mentally” ahead of retarded is usually what differentiates pejorative usage from more clinical usage.
If you hear someone say that some other person is a “retard” or something is “retarded”, it’s a safe bet they’re using it pejoratively.
On the other hand, if you hear someone describe someone as “mentally retarded”, it’s usually a more specific description of some special needs person. For example, my mother used to teach special needs children, so “mentally retarded” was the general term for children who weren’t physically handicapped, autistic or who had cerebral palsy, or some other more specific issue. It wasn’t ever a pejorative term in that case.
huck, I think Maher was being an asshole and trying to duck behind the clinical use of the word while attacking Palin by picking on her kid. That’s not actually the point of this thread, though, right? That was what prompted the thread, but the OP asks, “Is the word ‘retarded’ offensive?”
And, bump, lots of words are used pejoratively, without being separately offensive to a whole class of people. I don’t think anyone disputes that calling someone an idiot or retarded is pejorative. I think the question is, is calling them retarded also offensive to the mentally retarded, or developmentally disabled, or whatever the proper term is.
Okay fair point, but can we at least agree that when I call someTHING retarded such as wearing pajamas to a restaurant that I really don’t require a lecture from somebody just because they have a brother who has a blah blah blah. I really do believe there are things in this world that are best described as RETARDED. That doesn’t make me a meanie to Jerry’s kids.
If only to me, “intellectual disability” would also seem to umbrella various types of learning disabilities and cognitive impairments such as those caused by stroke or brain damage that would not be included by “mentally retarded”.
The last time I worked for a mental health agency was ca. 2000, and while it was with the mentally ill as opposed to [the population previously known as mentally retarded], DD-MI-MR (for “dual diagnosis-mentally ill-mentally retarded”) was still used for some patients.
A close friend who until recently worked in a group home said that the concept of “intellectual age/mental age” sets many people into hysterics as an offensive and outdated concept. His particular agency, though, was among the most egregiously mismanaged and thinskinned I’ve ever heard of, so this might have been just a “them” thing.
Context is important of course and I think there are uses of the term “mentally retarded” that aren’t intended to be offensive.
But I think everyone knows that because “retarded” has been an insult for a long time it is hurtful to people with cognitive disabilities and their families. Insisting on using a hurtful term, which isn’t even particularly clinically useful, makes no sense to me.
More than 20 years ago, when my disabled brother was seen by an unfamiliar neurologist in clinic, the guy referred to him as “retarded.” My brother (to whom the term "mentally retarded doesn’t technically apply, but who then had cognitive abilities mostly in the age-10 range) asked the doctor whether the doctor would like to be called that. The neurologist acknowledged that he would not like it at all and said he wouldn’t use the term in the future.
Why are people’s feelings involved in things that have nothing to do with them? I have a brother with disabilities. One might call him retarded, but if somebody calls my friend’s shirt retarded I don’t think they were being offensive toward me or my brother.
I think people’s “feelings” are often more about getting attention than about actually being offended. Either way, as adults our feeling are our responsibility - not everyone else’s.
You’ve brought this up a few times now, but I think your insistence on the “sepcificity” of “mentally retarded” is misplaced.
Whatever gains in specificity we have isn’t due to the use of the term “mentally retarded” over “intellectually disabled,” it’s due to, in our context, the specific criteria of Listings 12.05/112.05. Namely, significantly subaverage intellectual functioning with deficits in adaptive functioning, with onset before age 22, and with (a) a reliance on others for basic personal needs and an inability to follow directions such that standardized testing is precluded, (b) a valid verbal, performance, or full-scale IQ score below 60, (c) a valid verbal, performance, or full-scale IQ score between 60-70 with an additional severe impairment, or (d) marked limitations in two of ADLs, social functioning, CPP, or extended-duration episodes of decompensation.
So, given that that is where the specificity comes from (which could just as easily appear under the heading “Listing 12.05. Intellectual disability with onset before age 22.” (to distinguish it from intellectual disabilities occasioned by organic brain conditions or TBIs, Listing 12.02, which can have onset after age 22), and not the use of the terminology “mental retardation,” I am perplexed as to why you insist that term is so necessary to ensure precision, when it most certainly is not.
Personally, I don’t understand why so many people as as confused by 12.05 as they are. Given that so many are, however, and have been for so long, I don’t see this change as doing anything other than causing more confusion. In short, there are plenty of things that could well be improved. IMHO - this ain’t one of them.
If you don’t see the potential confusion caused when folk who experience “intellectual disability” are nevertheless not “disabled”, well, you must have dealt with a far more sophisticated cast of characters across the board than I.
I wasn’t talking about Bill Maher and neither was the post I was responding to. That post said
I was speaking of people getting bent out of shape over the use of the word retarded when not directed at the person they choose to project the remark on to.
Ah, sorry. I was confused because Dinsdale’s post was intended (and labeled as) sarcasm.
I’d say that while one can certainly choose not to be offended by something but that doesn’t make the thing inoffensive. In the same way that if something smells offensive, one may hold one’s nose, but it still smells bad. And in context (not an older neurologist who finds it easier to use familiar terms for example) Maher’s comment is offensive.
As to calling one’s shirt “retarded” it obviously has no meaning except that the shirt is really bad. Your shirt doesn’t have an intellect or cognitive development to be delayed. So you are using “retarded” to mean bad. If my brother hears you, he might not be offended (because it’s really too stupid to be offended over, even now that his cognitive abilities have declined further). But that doesn’t mean it isn’t offensive.
Of course it could be said that “retarded” is now like “imbecile” in that it no longer really refers to people with cognitive problems but is just a general insult. That’s obviously problematic when there are health care professionals still using it and advocating for its continued use, and lay people who think it is just PC nonsense to object to the term.
