(December 9, 2015 at 8:08 pm)Clueless Morgan Wrote:(December 9, 2015 at 7:35 pm)bennyboy Wrote: How about using negative words like "retarded?" I'm perfectly comfortable using this word when I think someone/something is stupid, exactly because a retarded person is stupid. But then I have to listen to the outrage from my aunts, and how her special-needs students are "differently abled" and all that. Fine, let them help my daughter with her calculus homework, then. I don't like it when the simple reality of the human condition, and the words about it, take a backseat to a kind of condescending "support."
I don't personally advocate using words like "retarded" pejoratively.
When you criticize someone, you criticize them for something that, in your eyes, is dysfunctional.
With respect to at least one person in this thread, if a driver bumped into my car in the parking lot, I'd likely ask, "Dude, are you blind?" That means neither that I really think the person is blind, nor that I have a general disrespect for people who really can't see well. But the analogy is clear enough, and fair enough.
It is true that retarded people don't think as well as others. When a normal person acts in a way in which they aren't processing ideas as they should, then I am likely to ask "Dude, are you retarded?" Again, that means neither that I really think the person is retarded, nor that I have a general disrespect for people who really can't think well. But the analogy is clear enough, and fair enough, in my opinion.
