Mental Retardation and Religion
Offline Stopping by a local coffee shop to check out a small airplane that had crashed yesterday afternoon (this happened pretty much right outside its' doors!) I began a conversation with a woman and her son; who happened to be mentally retarded.
She and I talked about the weather, the economy and of course the plane crash. During our plane conversation her son became agitated and kept interrupting asking if anyone died (over and over) until the mother patiently explained A-how it isn't nice to interrupt B-Nobody died, everyone is safe and healthy. She continued to tell him that god was watching out for the 2 people in the plane. The boy seemed to be thinking? and looked up into the sky and then just turned away.
I steered the conversation away from the crash and onto her dedication as a mother and asked what the biggest challenges are for her and her family regarding her son. She went through her entire life story and in the end explained that 'god has a plan' for everyone: including one for her and one for her son.
For the first time in a long time I explained (to a complete stranger) that I don't hold a belief in a god and in wondered how hard it was for him to grasp the concept of her belief. She said she gets quite a bit of support from her church and of course - god(and prayer and friends etc) We continued to chit chat and after they left I really started to wrap my head around what I just experienced.
Has anyone read anything regarding Mental Retardation and religion? I found a few sites online , this one specifically for Clergy:
-Certification Process for Pastoral Care
My questions regarding the mentally retarded and religion:
-Do they have the capacity to understand the concept of a god?
-Beyond building a good routine (church, prayer etc) what are the benefits for them?
-Could there be any harmful effects?
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I was puzzled to find this thread locked. Seeing nothing particularly offensive in the content, and no notes about it in the mod forum, I enabled it. If it needs to be locked again, just let me know why and I'll do it.
I don't know a ton about the science behind mental retardation, but I do know that it is a triarchic generalization applied to a set of symptoms, not a medical description of a cause/effect. In other words, when we say someone is mentally retarded, we are saying that their thinking processes are far enough below average to warrant the name. We're not addressing why their brains aren't functioning normally.
Triarchic theory of intelligence was proposed by Robert Sternberg, and largely replaced psychometrics. In short, intelligence is defined as "mental activity directed toward purposive adaptation to, selection and shaping of, real world environments relevent to one's life." By this definition, it's hard to avoid the prediction that anyone with mental retardation would be less able to direct their mental activity towards purposive adaptation, etc. So, on the "no brainer" side of things, yeah, it's harder for them to deal with religion, god, etc, because it's harder for them to deal with most everything.
In real life, there are lots of different kinds of retardation, and it's impossible to say anything beyond generalizations. Some people can do math and geometry just fine, but can't grasp social interactions. Some can't follow routines, and need help with daily living, but are keenly aware of the emotions of their caregivers. We're beginning to understand that in some ways, the brain is quite compartmentalized, and it's definitely possible to damage one area (or, alternatively, for one area to be malformed during growth) while leaving others relatively intact.
So, the short answer is that just from the term "mental retardation," there isn't enough information to answer your questions effectively.
Personally, I can't think of a reason to impose religion on the mentally retarded any more than I can think of a reason to impose it on the sound of mind. Whatever harmful effects it might have wouldn't be canceled out because of mental retardation, generally speaking. I'm certain that there are many people who don't have the capacity to reason through the god concept, and so take the word of their caregivers. (In reality, how many "normal" people do this? Haven't we proven pretty conclusively that the god concept is incoherent?) As far as routines go, I'm pretty sure atheist parents with mentally retarded children manage to find routines that don't involve gods.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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Perhaps someone made an assumption based on the topic title.
At any rate, there are so many different kinds of brain disorders that it's impossible to answer the question definitively. Some people would be able to understand the concept, while others wouldn't.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Thanks for unlocking, like Vastet said, maybe it is the title.
I appreciate the time you took to respond to my post (I never would have known who Robert Sternberg was!)
As I thought about what happened earlier this afternoon, I began to realize that maybe I am more curious about how they view what god is. What goes through their mind, do they think of 'god ' as a man that lives up the street?
I will probably never know
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Can I just say the the term "mental retard" is considered, at least here in Europe, as not only so general as to be meaningless clinically, but also very insulting?
But that said, I know what you're getting at, even if I question how you're getting there.
When I was in my teens I did voluntary work in a children's hospital which (run by good christian nuns as it was at the time) facilitated families who had produced a "dud" and now wanted to stick them somewhere far away so as not to be an embarrassment etc etc. A very sad place.
Or so you would think. Mixed together in this home ("hospital" is too grand a term for what was really going on) were people with intellectual disabilities, autistic people, hypertonics, paraplegics, quadriplegics, and even quite "normal" people who were born "out of wedlock" - enough for the god brigade at the time to deny them status as "real" people. Anyway, as you can imagine in a facility attached to a convent, these people were subjected from their admission (often at birth) to a level of catholic indoctrination which would have terrified even the most "holy joe" or "mary" of our town, yet it was to my intense pleasure on getting to know these same people that they shared a profound happiness and sense of community that had nothing - absolutely nothing - to do with the values their mentors were force-feeding them. In fact the opposite was true - they derived their values from a realistic apprisal of the real sickness they could recognise, that of those same nuns and priests who constantly attempted to explain that they were who they were because god wanted it that way.
The number of times I heard the phrase "that fucker god" while I was there was not only refreshing, but represented an honesty quotient that I have never seen reproduced elsewhere or since in my lifetime. The phrase was used by people who did not have the ability to question the existence of this entity but had more than the ability to analyse its character, just as it was also used by more "intelligent" patients who could do both - and had good reason to do both based on their own experience. Those whose intellectual abilities fell below these categories were simply blissfully ignorant of the whole god thing anyway, despite the attempted brainwashing, so it lent a liberating air of total atheism to the whole joint.
Best of all were the autistic ones. They tended more than the rest to buy into the deity concept (since they are suckers for certainties and this was delivered as the greatest certainty of all). But they weren't fools, and one guy - who was then in his early teens - has since written a remarkable and popular book in Ireland about how autists are in fact more intelligent than the average person, once the communicative barrier that separates them from the average person is discounted. At the time I knew him he was still regarded as a "retard" however, even by the clinical staff, who had confined him to a wheelchair for no reason to do with his legs but all to do with his propensity, having realised the purpose of a gate, to open it and go out occasionally. However, being autistic, and told that he certainly had to use it, he had taken to it with a vengeance - which made talking to him even more difficult since he tended to propel himself along at mach 1 on our excursions out to the beach (part of my duties as "normal" was to escort people fully capable of the task in hand - which was great as I often wasn't).
Anyway, once he asked me out of the blue (all his comments tended to be out of the same blue) if I believed in god. I replied that I didn't believe in the catholic one anyway (where I was "at" at the time). He replied that he did, and when I asked him why he replied (with certainty) that man was made in god's image and man stank.
It was one of those seminal moments in one's realisation that the bullshit has to stop. He was right of course, as he knew.
Anyway, careful who you call "retarded".
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
I have a nephew who has been diagnosed mildly autistic. He is six or seven now and a wonderful kid. Having difficulty learning in some areas, very bright in others. I would love to get my hands on the book you mentioned, Nordmann, if you can recall the title. I have about 4 or 5 books on the topic and regularly borrow other titles on the subject through my local library and the library network. Fascinating to learn about.
Actually I was quite surprised that the mother used that term to describe her son.
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Umm, all humans are retards ... I know this, as I too, am a rather "lucky" human ....
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"Retard" is an insult, but "Mental Retardation" is very much a clinical term and is in the DSM IV.
it means
1. IQ below 70
and
2. Difficulty in living a normal life caused by this.
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It is in America.
Elsewhere the notion of "retardation" (slowing down or being pulled back) is considered inappropriate to use for mental conditions that are aberrations from a norm rather than quantitative comparisons.
Intellect is not something that can be so easily deduced, measured or qualitatively compared in any case. The term "mental retardation" is now dismissed as a subjective and inaccurate expression of a whole group of clinical disorders, few of which have causal or symptomatic similarities except in the sense that they were once all lumped together as "mental retardation".
In some ways the US lags behind other countries - impossible to believe I know, but true.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
As Nordmann suggests, the US is lagging behind the rest of the world when it comes to mental health. I'd go on about this (it's a growly-making subject for me) but I don't want to hijack Renee's thread.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
The DSM IV is international. This would be a surprise to local agencies such as MHMR (Mental Health Mental Retardation) as well as advocacy groups such as ARC (Association for Retarded Citizens. ) Most people here see using the word "retard" as an insult the same as they do using "gay" as an insult.
Autism and retardation are definitely not the same thing. I'm technically considered autistic but have an IQ in the "very superior" range (as measured in the hospital after suicide attempt this past November. )
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Autism and retardation are most definitely not the same thing, you're right. One describes a brain disorder which can be clinically placed within a group of five PDDs. The other describes nothing in particular but was coined at a time when people with intellectual disabilities, PDDs, acute mental disorders and just about anything which might radically and adversely affect their ability to relate to and/or comprehend their environment led others to believe that they were being kind when they called them "slow". Worse appellations had been used before. At this moment in time about the best that can be said for its use in the US is that it represents a smaller group of distinct disorders than before, but that in no way lessens its unsuitability on a descriptive level.
The US is really the only english-speaking nation left which still insists on applying the term in a clinical sense. Others have long since moved on from that, not least out of a sense of respect for the afflicted parties. I have assisted in preparing papers and lectures delivered by US psychologists to European audiences where the word has needed to have been edited out of the initial draft (at the psychologist's own insistence - they acknowledge the perceived insensitivity of the phrase abroad even if they don't at home) and where it has been replaced with more sensitive, and more accurate descriptions of the actual disorders referenced.
If international organisations allow its perpetuation it can now only be because the US has been rather intransigent in following suit. The French too tend to persist in using "retards mentaux" as an umbrella term for nearly all mental or brain disorders affecting comprehension and communication skills but in France the term has never been deemed insensitive (they did however go through a similar experience excising "empote" from clinical jargon).
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
They did back around the '60s replace the terms
I'm not making this up:
Mildly retarded (IQ 55-70) used to be officially designated "moron"
Moderately (40-55) was "imbecile"
and Severely (25-40) and profoundly (below 25) was "idiot. "
The variations of retarded was considered SENSITIVE when I was in college (degree in psychology 1996) and I never heard of anyone having a problem with it (other than the people who irrationally have a problem with labels of any sort. )
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Which indicates to me that the US lies roughly a full generation behind the rest of the world in this respect.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
Yes. Can I say that every region of the world has their own ideas about what's considered insulting and what's considered ok? In some American circles, "intellectual disability is preferred. The UK prefers the term "mentally handicapped," or so I'm led to believe. The Scotish used to say "mental subnormality." In schools, we often say that children are "learning disabled." I'm told that the UK prefers the nomenclature "learning difficulty" to the American "learning disability." "Mentally impaired persons" is the popular way of saying it in several well meaning groups.
Out of curiosity, can you think of any term, when applied to a non-retarded person, that is not insulting?
But, you gotta admit, it sounds a lot better than insulting someone by saying, "You developmentally disadvantaged person!"
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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Autism and most forms of retardation are in the same category, though. At least they are in the states. They're all known as "developmental disabilities."
I think if you went around the US to various doctors, clinics, and mental hospitals, you'd find that your making a huge sweeping generalization that is only true in the most general sense. Almost every health professional uses nomenclature that they feel is gentler than "retard." True, the books are a bit behind, and certainly there are medical professionals who aren't "with it," but for the most part, I think you'd find much more sensitivity than you think.
Realize that I'm usually one of the biggest critics of American sensibilities, but I think you've got it wrong in this case.
Like I said, we're certainly not all on board with the European plan. Personally, I don't think there's a nice way to say, "Gee, dude, you're really not very smart, are you?" I get a little bored with quibbles over things like this. In another twenty years, somebody will decide that the whole thing needs an overhaul, and they'll change all the words again.
See what I mean? It's all about what it means in your own culture. I'm curious... if you're ok with the fact that the French don't consider "retards" to be insensitive, isn't it possible that maybe some elements of American culture also don't deem it insensitive?
I'm not trying to bust your head over this, I'm just trying to point out that there is a really big pond between us, and there are a lot of words that have significantly different contexts, even in English, when you get off the boat on the other side. As an example, ever notice how the English giggle at the word "fanny" when Americans say "fanny pack"?
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Other potentially embarrasing problems with language differences in US/UK
Rubber:
UK = eraser US = condom
Napkin:
UK = female hygeine product US= paper or cloth object silverware is placed on on table, used to wipe hands
Ass:
UK = donkey US= can mean donkey but usually means buttocks or anus. (no American says "arse. " unless parodying a British person)
knock up
UK = wake up US = make pregnant
John Thomas
Uk = penis US= not that uncommon a name (true - a man by that name is a coworker of my dad. He never believed people when they told him what his name meant in British slang until one time he needed to call British Airways about a trip. When he gave his name the woman hung up on him. )
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I used to work at a genetic research laboratory with a focus on "X-linked mental retardation"; we did good work there, we helped people and we published in Science frequently. The term "mental retardation" was never used in a derogatory sense while I was working, but it was used to describe the applicable condition--Matt's already highlighted the DSM IV definition. The fact of the matter is that there are so many genetic disorders that adversely affect the development of the brain that we need blanket terms. We used "mentally retarded" when we really meant it. Not when we were talking about autism. Just because the word has bad implications in the social sphere, don't imagine you can take it away from scientists. We need clear and unchanging language to do our jobs.
Oh and finally... behind the rest of the world? Let's try Europe, Canada, Australia and Japan, please (If you're counting, that's about 900 million people altogether, hardly "the rest of the world" ). Don't paint the US as backward and elevate sub-Saharan Africa or the People's Republic as wonderful, humanist utopias at the same time, kay? That's what retards do.
"The whole conception of God is a conception derived from ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men."
--Bertrand Russell
In Ontario the term I believe is 'special needs' and they're put on IEP (Individual Education Plan.) and/or 'classes for everyday life'
For example "Math for everyday life', 'Science for everyday life' etc...
Which are pretty much special ed classes.
I've noticed that some "retarded" children have a grasp on things that most people don't. Especially in the case of autism, which isn't mental retardation, it's as if these kids view the world in a way that's not "below" our view of it but simply different and interesting in its own right. I think people tend to be arrogant, assuming that intelligence is simply based on how much knowledge one can obtain and apply to the world. But I feel like a lot of "normal" people's evolutionary benefits are also our shortcomings. For instance, we are capable of mental and emotional calculating which might lead to very specific acts of violence ; we rely very much on our frontal cortex so that if it malfunctions it can have devastating consequences.
*Our world is far more complex than the rigid structure we want to assign to it, and we will probably never fully understand it.*
"Those believers who are sophisticated enough to understand the paradox have found exciting ways to bend logic into pretzel shapes in order to defend the indefensible." - Hamby
My step-nephew, Josh, is "learning disabled." He has a very hard time with school, especially reading. He's--Jesus, exactly how old is he?--about ten, small for his age, cannot read, tends to tell "stretchers" (lies) and has a speech impediment (trouble with R's and L's, mostly).
On the other hand, he's a very sweet kid and seems to understand people and their needs much better than the average person. Once, I had come in from the heat and was feeling rather nasty, sitting with my head in my hands and listening to the usual family banter. Josh got me an ice-cold water from the refrigerator, saying, "Here, Wawa." It's just what I needed. This is not unusual for him. He sees people's needs and does exactly the right thing. Me? I tend to be so focused on myself--mostly because I don't want to look like a fool while simultaneously impressing others--that I don't notice others' needs. Seeing the way my step-nephew functions has made me aware of this fact and I'm trying to be kinder and more focused on others. It isn't easy because I'm not used to it. Josh outscores me by far when it comes to interpersonal relationships.
Josh is receiving a thorough indoctrination through a local fundy church. The church has a water slide, has rented an entire fair complete with rides, offers a "boot camp" in the beautiful high country here in the Sierra Nevadas. This church does its best to ensnare others, especially children. Josh loves church and goes as often as he can.
When my mother and I picked him up from "boot camp" a few weeks ago, I asked Josh what he had done and his main answer was, "We learned about Jesus." My mom was out of earshot, so I said, "I'd rather learn about real things, like those ospreys flying up there. Did you know they are very good at catching fish? They have a 50-80% success rate [he probably had no idea what I was talking about] and bald eagles often steal from them."
After I said Jesus wasn't real, I felt kind of guilty. Josh is probably too learning disabled to ever function without religion after being indoctrinated so thoroughly. Hell, I don't always function so well after my thorough indoctrination. It's a total mind-fuck for those of us who weren't considered "learning disabled." Just think what a number it must do on those who are more susceptible.
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retard: 1.to make slow; delay the development or progress of (an action, process, etc.); hinder or impede.
'Nuff said.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
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While we're talking about retarded brains (see dictionary definition above) I'm curious why we even felt the need to talk about the social implications of using the word "retarded" instead of "developmentally disabled" or whatever else is currently en vogue. Weren't the original questions primarily concerned with the impact of religion on people with less than average brains? Is there any debate that people with less than average brains do exist? Is there anyone who would like to talk about how religion might affect them, depending on their specific condition? I think that would be a lot more appropriate to the OP.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
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I don't think there's really an 'average brain.' Pretty much everybody can fit into the dictionary definition in one form or another.
Thanks for sharing Iruka
This is what I was hoping to see from the OP!
Even the way it is understood by him has to be different, don't you think? That is what I am so darn curious about...what his mind does to 'understand' the story and how (or if ) it effects the way he acts..?
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Of course there's an average brain. You take all the brains in the world, pick an attribute, quantify it, and add up the totals from all the brains in the world, divide it by the number of brains, and there's your average for that attribute. In theory, you could do this for every quantifiable attribute of the brain and then get an average for all of them.
Your point, I think, is that "normal" is kind of outdated in cognitive science. If that's what you mean, then you're correct. Most mental attributes, like cognitive ability, are somewhat independent of most other attributes, so that you can have one person who's wickedly good at math, reasonably intuitive, terrible at art, and has no ear for music, while another person consistently misspells even simple words, has a profound ability to understand spacial interactions, and can fix anything if only he gets to tinker with it for a minute or two to see how it works.
The question, though, is what effect religion has on people who are specifically and demonstrably low on the scale of cognitive reasoning skills, or possibly, those who are dependent on others to remind them to wipe their ass after taking a dump. These people most definitely exist, and they are most definitely not average in those specific ways.
Why is this question so hard to grasp?
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
By the way, I realized just now that my own opinion is kind of buried in my parsing of the question for other people. I think that nobody actually understands the concept of god, so I don't think any given mentally retarded individual would have a vastly different concept of God than an "average" individual.
Speaking for myself, when I was a Christian, I recall having lots of feelings about God, but very few concrete concepts. It's fine to say, "God is a supernatural being that created the universe," but those are just words, and if someone had put me in an intellectual bind back then, I'd have been unable to coherently explain what I believed in. I suspect that it's really not much different for anybody, regardless of mental acuity. In a way, I think maybe your question isn't well formed. The concept of god is incoherent, so it's kind of meaningless to ask if anybody, retarded or not, can understand it.
In all brutal honesty, I can't think of anything more harmful to the mentally retarded that isn't done by people who are supposedly not retards. I speak, of course, of fundamentalists, who ought to all be categorized as retards, regardless of what their IQ scores say. Anybody who can believe the bible literally in this day and age of science and literacy is NOT very good at thinking.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
I would say they would be more likely to believe due to the lack of ability to think critically. It's well established that the higher someone's intelligence is the less likely they are to be religious.
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Perhaps the question isn't well formed, I know very little about how the mind works and specifically how it works in the mind of someone challenged. I agree that the concept of god is incoherent and it is obvious that the concept impacts those that believe differently (the phelps for one)
As far as how someone that is challenged mentally would process any information, I would assume that there are differences since there is an effort to categorize them as such. So why is it such a stretch to think that they may process and even understand the concept differently?
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Yes, but even here, we have problems. The god concept requires several different types of ideas:
* Infinity (which might be difficult for someone having difficulty conceiving of abstracts.
* Love (difficult for those with social interaction problems)
* Mercy
* Supernatural (difficult for those with autism)
etc, etc, etc...
My point was that anyone who believes in god has formed an incoherent concept, and any other understanding by a lesser mind will be equally incoherent. Coherence is an on/off switch, not a level of degree. It's either coherent or not.
I think the only functional limitation you'll find is one that steals from the material -- something a challenged person can't understand about nature or people, he won't understand about god.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Hi Hambydammit. The "pond" between the US and the WHO isn't as large as the one you describe above (wasn't aware there should be one at all actually), and that organisation too seem to be at variance with the US on this issue of the terminology in question (I know - as WHO material was the data-source preferred by US psychologists who employed me to edit their material for audiences elsewhere). English is the international language of the profession so "rest of the world" does actually apply here, by the way. For example, the last time I was thus employed was for an international composium on mental health held in Malaysia, organised by Asian and Australasian governments, and attended by people from every continent. The lingua franca was English, and the terminology used that which pertained to the majority of attendants.
The reason it's important of course is that if someone hadn't stepped into the thread early and highlighted just how offensive the currently acceptable US jargon is outside of the US, then you have essentially a question that can only be guaranteed to be comprehended and answered in the spirit of the enquiry by Americans or people extremey familiar with US nuances. I was just helping things along, as I was also when I related my own experience of working with "retarded" people and their attitude to deity (something you and Renee seem to have overlooked and was an answer in the spirit of the enquiry, was it not?).
Final clarification - the US is also undergoing a revisionary process with regard to the matter of clinical classifications of mental disorders. The process is one that mirrors similar developments in Europe a while back, and the conclusions being reached also mirror that older process. In that sense the US is "behind" and by a full generation. I did not mean to infer in any way that US psychology and psychiatry as a profession or field of study was in any way inferior or less worthy - just realigning to standards already set elsewhere.
Now, I'll back out from clarifications of a side-issue and promise to address only the discussion in hand - where apparently referring to fundamentalist christians as "retards" is perfectly acceptable, I notice!
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
I think you are quite right, Renee. One thing I have noticed is that the presentation of the "god" thing to people with limited abilities of comprehension is to pitch him as a "pal" (essentially the same pitch as given to children). The "Your Pal Jesus" persona is stressed to the point that the "superbeing" persona almost doesn't figure. This is something many of the subjects can relate to.
The upshot in the hospital I worked in was that "Jesus" or "Baby Jesus" (the fourth member of the trinity) ended up as a literal invisible friend to a lot of these people. "He" was spoken to, allowed a seat, allowed to join in games etc (though he was crap at throwing the ball back, I noticed) and generally considered an all-round good egg. The fact that several of "him" might be out and about at any one time did not phase the logic, and nor was it encouraged to investigate the logic in any case by the brainwashers.
Cognitively speaking dfferent people had different rates of development in this respect and some none at all. "God" therefore underwent several different ongoing adaptations at different rates amongst the group and it wasn't unusual for people to "compare" their invisible pals or even introduce them to each other as one would with strangers. After a while it was not too difficult to see how what was happening, though expressed simplistically when it was expressed, was simply the same as what others with more developed intellectual abilities also tend to do. Ecumenical councils often sprang to mind.
Some people even ended up losing interest in the "pal" and invested their mental efforts into more relevant and rewarding pursuits. Ironically their perceived status as "retarded" helped them enormously here as the normal response employed by the religious to counter such defection was considered inapplicable in their cases.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
No, because that's the way language works. It doesn't matter which phonemes you string together to represent a given idea--if the idea or concept as it relates to a real situation in the world is inherently sad or negative, then the word you use to represent it will necessarily become sad or negative over time despite the initial novelty.
For example, take the word "special" as it relates to our topic (notice how I deferred, ha ha): the word was used as a substitute for "retard", and initially it felt like calling a person "special" rather than a "retard" changed our conception of the entire situation. But over time, "special" became almost as much of an insult as "retard". Used colloquially especially, if you sarcastically say "that guy sure is special", it's almost as much of an insult as saying "that guy sure is a retard" was back in the day.
I say almost because the words we're using here, "retard" and "special", were already submerged in meaning through everyday use when they were adpoted to double as technical (or at least semi-technical) words. That is to say, they weren't invented specifically for the situation. "Retard", as Nordmann pointed out, inherently carries a sense of slowing or impeding, which is itself inherently negative or problematic. "Special", on the other hand, inherently carries a sense of being exceptional, unique, or "something extra". This isn't as inherently negative as "retard", but there is a certain ambiguity that at once allows it to sound slightly less offensive than "retard" while allowing for it's fairly rapid adaptation of a negative connotation.
The thing is, it doesn't matter much if the word carries inherent positivity or negativity--when a series of phonemes are strung together to represent anything, the resulting word necessarily reflects the situation, not vice versa. Another good example is the word "bad". In the 1980s, the word "good" had been overused to the point of being meaningless, therefore young people started saying "bad" in it's place. Older generations were understandably baffled by this phenomenon, but it served it's purpose quite well.
So if instead of referring to this situation as "mental retardation" you referred to it as "lollipop daydream", it would eventually adopt a negative connotation. Ultimately, we're going to use whichever words most aptly and succinctly represent objects, situations, and "things" in the world in a given place and time. All that to say:
Hamby: good point.
Nordmann: I think it's a bit flat-footed to assert that America is decades behind in this respect. Language at this level (and most levels) isn't dictated on a large scale, but rather a relatively small scale. That is, Americans construct meaning out of language not based on the way people in Europe are constructing it, but rather based on the way the Americans closest to them (not in the emotional sense, but rather the people they are most in dialog with) are constructing it.
Americans will stop using the phoneme "tard"* to refer to this situation when it is no longer apt in context (i.e. America right now).
*I'm not using the word "tard" here in the slang sense, but rather referring to the Latin root tard which means "slow".
This is true. Note how a common insult recently is saying someone "rides the short bus" (in refernece to the fact that in most places in the US a minibus or large van is used to transport students to special ed classes instead of the large bus normally used for students in regular classes - even though not all are retarded - some are in for behavioral problems, severe physical disabilities, etc. )
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
Exactly. "The short bus" was originally a nominal group which referred to a relatively neutral object, but over time "the short bus" came to represent a situation in a roundabout way through a neutral object.
This shows us that #1 objects can never be neutral, as they are inherently and necessarily tied up in conceptual situation, and #2 that people tend to bury their true intentions grammatically (in this situation, a neutral object taking on the negative connotation through the subject).
Points well made, but you're both missing mine. Any phrase or term can come to be applied as an insult in the sense you mean based on its widely perceived connotations and the manner in which it's used, as you say.
I am talking about the rejection of a term on professional grounds because it fails to adequately apply to the condition it was coined to describe, leaving only the insulting use of the term remaining in the vernacular (at least outside the US). Just this year the APA published an article highlighting how behavioural scientists, as opposed to those with more orthodox medical training in the subject, are already questioning use of the term "retardation", citing it as confusing and even pejorative in some circumstances - not necessarily because of its use as a commn insult but because it can lead to preconceptions on teh part of psychologists themselves and catastrophically wrong diagnosis in certain patients' cases. This parallels a similar initiative taken in the 60s in the UK and from the same quarter.
The problem is in the notion of being "slow" or "slowed down" implicit in its use. While it has a limited perfunctory correctness when discussing certain mental disabilities it also places stress on an assumption that alacrity of thought equals intelligence, and is even more wanting when it applies to a group of conditions. Its opposite "a quick thinker" is also an unsound description of how the brain works, and you will never hear that expression employed professionally by a psychologist to describe a person of higher than average IQ, for example. This is the basis of the true objection to its continued employment in clinical jargon, and as this objection gains adherents the effect is to amplify the insulting aspect to its other usage in the vernacular as a derogatory term. US psychologists realise this when they are abroad, I have found, and adapt their terms accordingly. Soon, if the APA's article is accurate, they will be inclined to do the same at home.
Which is why I thought I was being helpful alerting US contributors on a messageboard open to non-US contributors. I accused no one of being intentionally insulting, but I warned how fraught this term has become outside the US in the specific issue of sensitivity to insult.
I'm sorry I did now - it seems to have offended people's national pride or something.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
Interesting. Go go communication evolution. The g-o-d word is a duzzy. (an over simplification) Atheist FAR EAST: You, me, all is god. Atheist WEST: There is no god.
All earthlings are all retarded, but slowly evolving. The brightest possess "common sense" (oxymoron)
Atheism Books.