There's a longstanding observation that people who lack empathy are unfortunately the people who tend to rise to the top of leadership roles in society specifically because they are willing to do anything to anybody. A functioning democracy in theory should mitigate this because normal empathetic people should still be in control, but people are still susceptible to fear and propaganda
FWIW, I found Brian Klaas's book _Corruptible_ an interesting summary of whether (a) power corrupts vs bad people seeking power and (b) there are ways to make it less likely that people without empathy will be attracted to (specific) positions of power.
They're all shitheads, and the thing about Yglesias or Noah Smith is that they're actually as ignorant as shit, which is directly related to their discipline of economics, which are intellectually bankrupt and exist mostly to provide a bloodless numerical justification for pointless cruelty in the name of profit.
The economics they practice is not based in science. It really is more like a state religion, and they are the enforcers, and that state religion has always had some very unpleasant eugenicist attitudes.
The thing about these kinds of words is that they aren't funny. They aren't clever. And if you're around my age (which I think is similar to yours, based on context), they aren't shocking either, because we grew up saying them (except the N word, natch.) As such, they are exceptionally easy to purge from your vocabulary and live without. Then, when you wanna rip on your friends, you actually have to think about what you're gonna say. You may then come up with some sort of absurdist insult, something like calling some a dispirited root vegetable. Such insults express derision and disdain in a way that can actually make people laugh, which I think is better.
Most of the best insults I can think of were directed at Jordan Peterson. "Putin's useless idiot", "a stupid person's smart person", "off-brand lobster Kermit"...
I'm sorry, but in which pretentious Eton neigbourhood did you grow up in (and what do the butlers cost in this area) where calling someone a "dispirited root vegetable" is A) a good insult and B) makes people laugh?
I don't mean this as an insult, because there is no other way for me to frame my incredulity that you thought that phrase was somehow a like-for-like replacement for "retard" or other coarse insults.
Either a posh Eton boy, or I am talking to a 17th century pirate, where phrases like that would seem similarly fitting when said by Blackbeard.
Opinions on whether the word itself should be taboo aside, "retard" was never meant to be some witty and grand quip. It is a coarse word said as an insult. No one thinks "idiot" is clever or 160IQ. That's not the point of this category of words.
I don't know what an Eton neighborhood is (I live in a small city in the middle of the rural southeastern NC) but I'm sorry you aren't moved to laughter by my objectively witty rejoinders.
I also I didn't mean to imply that my (objectively, remember) rejoinder was a like for like for the coarser insult. I myself are more likely to use simpler (and yes coarser) insults like dumbass or idiot or moron or dummy or jerk, often paired with a fuck or two.
I am entertained at the idea that I may be a 17th century pirate, but it does make it seem as though you are in fact insulting me, despite your claim otherwise.
Never the less, I do think your broader point is true - people aren't trying to be witty. And that's fine.
If ever there was a time to use the word "retard" not only as an insult but as the term was originally used, it would be to describe the person who spends 4 paragraphs to admit they brought an orange to an apple fair.
To me there is a critical difference between "retard" and other words that on the surface mean roughly the same thing. The "R word" very specifically refers to a disability and incapacity, in contrast to words like "stupid", "dipshit", "dumbass", "fool", "jackass", and even "moron", which are just as easily, and more commonly, used to refer to a moral and attitudinal defect, a lack of curiosity and imagination. (Indeed I would argue that the most catastrophic, abominable stupidities are the work of people with an abundance of intelligence and an absence of curiosity--case in point, Elon Musk.) Thus it is on a completely different level of offensiveness to other words for stupidity.
I don't think this is static. The term, I believe, is the "euphemistic treadmill", where we keep inventing new words to describe something when the previous one becomes too offensive. I don't think "retard" is the first, nor the last, word in stupidity-related insults that will face this treatment.
I don't think "retard" is unique in that it's a medical term. Idiot used to historically refer to something similar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot. That page lists words like "moron" and "imbecile" as other examples. We still use these words, though.
Ultimately, I think the word "retard" had just recently caught flack by the same type of people who prefer to say "unhoused" instead of "homeless", and managed to become a distasteful word in large corporations and institutions via things like socially-plugged-in and overly-cautious HR departments, which is why the semi-taboo against it currently sticks. It is not really a slur in my opinion; it is still used by a large enough subset of the population for an innocuous-enough reason. Once the word has taken refuge in solely the worst corners of society and had its meaning transformed into a more sinister thing, I don't think a taboo against it is enough that others are judged for using it. I know that growing up, it was used liberally without any kind of sinister connotation — just a word that would indicate stupidity.
Excellent post. I quit social media when the apartheid a-hole bought Twitter, so I wasn't aware of the normalization of this word by some of the "elite" pundits. In addition to vice-signalling, it's way for them to stress that they're beyond accountability.
Interesting that right before seeing your comment I was reading that apparently Kanye West blew up overnight in a tirade about how we need to bring back R and F
I never really liked Kanye. I'm not saying that to be all "oh I knew he was full of shit way back when cause I'm so cool" or whatever. I am most assuredly not cool. I just never really cared for his music.
Then it became increasingly obvious that he's a giant asshole and yeah, I feel kinda vindicated.
I'm pretty sure all these people have been atrocious toward disabled / immunocompromised people with regard to pandemic mitigations or virus precautions. I think the correlation there is clear. There's also the E-word that's associated with all this.
‘Empathy’ increasingly doesn’t mean anything productive, or even empathizing with an actual, live person. But just capturing the aesthetic of the eggshell-walking pussy ideal, like how some women would wear ‘Lolita’ to capture the aesthetic of being a kid again.
And it’s all so infuriating. So; so much emotional labor sunk down the drain for *nothing*.
The only thing better than saying slurs would be the ability to use slurs to force out the annoying people who want them censored, instead of as usual the other way around
It is crazy they think empathy is a bad thing instead of the basis for a functional civilization.
There's a longstanding observation that people who lack empathy are unfortunately the people who tend to rise to the top of leadership roles in society specifically because they are willing to do anything to anybody. A functioning democracy in theory should mitigate this because normal empathetic people should still be in control, but people are still susceptible to fear and propaganda
FWIW, I found Brian Klaas's book _Corruptible_ an interesting summary of whether (a) power corrupts vs bad people seeking power and (b) there are ways to make it less likely that people without empathy will be attracted to (specific) positions of power.
This is great.
They're all shitheads, and the thing about Yglesias or Noah Smith is that they're actually as ignorant as shit, which is directly related to their discipline of economics, which are intellectually bankrupt and exist mostly to provide a bloodless numerical justification for pointless cruelty in the name of profit.
The economics they practice is not based in science. It really is more like a state religion, and they are the enforcers, and that state religion has always had some very unpleasant eugenicist attitudes.
I haven't seen this word used so much since the '90s when pretty much everyone I knew was using it, and even then we knew it wasn't really nice.
The thing about these kinds of words is that they aren't funny. They aren't clever. And if you're around my age (which I think is similar to yours, based on context), they aren't shocking either, because we grew up saying them (except the N word, natch.) As such, they are exceptionally easy to purge from your vocabulary and live without. Then, when you wanna rip on your friends, you actually have to think about what you're gonna say. You may then come up with some sort of absurdist insult, something like calling some a dispirited root vegetable. Such insults express derision and disdain in a way that can actually make people laugh, which I think is better.
Most of the best insults I can think of were directed at Jordan Peterson. "Putin's useless idiot", "a stupid person's smart person", "off-brand lobster Kermit"...
Those latter 2 are perfect.
I'm sorry, but in which pretentious Eton neigbourhood did you grow up in (and what do the butlers cost in this area) where calling someone a "dispirited root vegetable" is A) a good insult and B) makes people laugh?
I don't mean this as an insult, because there is no other way for me to frame my incredulity that you thought that phrase was somehow a like-for-like replacement for "retard" or other coarse insults.
Either a posh Eton boy, or I am talking to a 17th century pirate, where phrases like that would seem similarly fitting when said by Blackbeard.
Opinions on whether the word itself should be taboo aside, "retard" was never meant to be some witty and grand quip. It is a coarse word said as an insult. No one thinks "idiot" is clever or 160IQ. That's not the point of this category of words.
I don't know what an Eton neighborhood is (I live in a small city in the middle of the rural southeastern NC) but I'm sorry you aren't moved to laughter by my objectively witty rejoinders.
I also I didn't mean to imply that my (objectively, remember) rejoinder was a like for like for the coarser insult. I myself are more likely to use simpler (and yes coarser) insults like dumbass or idiot or moron or dummy or jerk, often paired with a fuck or two.
I am entertained at the idea that I may be a 17th century pirate, but it does make it seem as though you are in fact insulting me, despite your claim otherwise.
Never the less, I do think your broader point is true - people aren't trying to be witty. And that's fine.
If ever there was a time to use the word "retard" not only as an insult but as the term was originally used, it would be to describe the person who spends 4 paragraphs to admit they brought an orange to an apple fair.
Or, moreso, to come down to your level and engage in this nonsense.
To me there is a critical difference between "retard" and other words that on the surface mean roughly the same thing. The "R word" very specifically refers to a disability and incapacity, in contrast to words like "stupid", "dipshit", "dumbass", "fool", "jackass", and even "moron", which are just as easily, and more commonly, used to refer to a moral and attitudinal defect, a lack of curiosity and imagination. (Indeed I would argue that the most catastrophic, abominable stupidities are the work of people with an abundance of intelligence and an absence of curiosity--case in point, Elon Musk.) Thus it is on a completely different level of offensiveness to other words for stupidity.
I don't think this is static. The term, I believe, is the "euphemistic treadmill", where we keep inventing new words to describe something when the previous one becomes too offensive. I don't think "retard" is the first, nor the last, word in stupidity-related insults that will face this treatment.
I don't think "retard" is unique in that it's a medical term. Idiot used to historically refer to something similar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot. That page lists words like "moron" and "imbecile" as other examples. We still use these words, though.
Ultimately, I think the word "retard" had just recently caught flack by the same type of people who prefer to say "unhoused" instead of "homeless", and managed to become a distasteful word in large corporations and institutions via things like socially-plugged-in and overly-cautious HR departments, which is why the semi-taboo against it currently sticks. It is not really a slur in my opinion; it is still used by a large enough subset of the population for an innocuous-enough reason. Once the word has taken refuge in solely the worst corners of society and had its meaning transformed into a more sinister thing, I don't think a taboo against it is enough that others are judged for using it. I know that growing up, it was used liberally without any kind of sinister connotation — just a word that would indicate stupidity.
Excellent post. I quit social media when the apartheid a-hole bought Twitter, so I wasn't aware of the normalization of this word by some of the "elite" pundits. In addition to vice-signalling, it's way for them to stress that they're beyond accountability.
Just to make a prediction, I'd say F probably comes before N in this whole thing. Not sure where K falls; we've already more or less got T.
Interesting that right before seeing your comment I was reading that apparently Kanye West blew up overnight in a tirade about how we need to bring back R and F
I never really liked Kanye. I'm not saying that to be all "oh I knew he was full of shit way back when cause I'm so cool" or whatever. I am most assuredly not cool. I just never really cared for his music.
Then it became increasingly obvious that he's a giant asshole and yeah, I feel kinda vindicated.
I'm pretty sure all these people have been atrocious toward disabled / immunocompromised people with regard to pandemic mitigations or virus precautions. I think the correlation there is clear. There's also the E-word that's associated with all this.
‘Empathy’ increasingly doesn’t mean anything productive, or even empathizing with an actual, live person. But just capturing the aesthetic of the eggshell-walking pussy ideal, like how some women would wear ‘Lolita’ to capture the aesthetic of being a kid again.
And it’s all so infuriating. So; so much emotional labor sunk down the drain for *nothing*.
The only thing better than saying slurs would be the ability to use slurs to force out the annoying people who want them censored, instead of as usual the other way around