Discussing The Usage of "Retarded"

I made this video a while back talking about why I felt awkward telling someone they shouldn't use the word "retarded." The point of this video was really to talk about my thoughts and insecurities in potentially lording my beliefs over the other, but because this is the internet virtually every comment was actually about whether or not the word "retarded" should be considered bad.

A while back someone e-mailed me with a lot of interesting points about the usage of "retarded" and I responded with what I were thought were my most articulate ideas on the subject. I'm posting them here so others who wish to engage in this conversation can see my full view on the issue that the video wasn't really about. Enjoy!

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Initial E-mail

Hi Matt, I am a new viewer (just watched last week's PBS Idea Channel where he linked to an interview of him by Go VERB a NOUN, who I had never heard of and from that channel, I just found you) and just back logged your YouTube channel. Upon doing so I stumbled upon a video ('Telling people about the "R-Word"') that isn't... The video isn't "wrong," per say but it doesn't have any footing and here is why.

(At the very bottom there is a numbered (i) - (iv) TL;WR. Otherwise the email is roughly 1,300 words - just a heads up)

A co-worker of mine and I recently had a debate (possibly still on going, we meet once a week so who knows if new revelations will occur) about the 'R-Word' where in I expressed the fact that the claim, "it shouldn't be used on the grounds of offensiveness" is (i) ridiculous and (ii) incorrect.

As to why I found it to be ridiculous, first off we immediately come across a slippery slope where in even if we agree that it is offensive (which I strongly oppose that notion and will argue momentarily), can we not then use it? And the reason I ask the basic, "Can we use offensive words?" is more on the idea of... avoiding red tape.

Who decides what words are offensive and is there any context where they can be used even if they are offensive? What happens when the offended are absent, and can anyone claim offense to any word and ban said word? If yes, one can see a problem where in all words become banned; and if no [meaning no one can simply claim a word offensive from thin air (if you will)] then what is the process by which a word becomes offensive (or no longer offensive)? Who regulates that and what does the process consist of?

And those are just the issues my brain immediately runs into as to why I find the premise ridiculous, but more importantly I think it is inaccurate. To state that a word is offensive requires that the particular word in question (if not 'all of the words') holds a value. In this case, a presumably 'negative' value as we are calling it 'offensive.' To which I think I can dispute outright or at least bring anyone to the mindset of, "Well, I guess I do not know" (Meaning I think I can get you away from "This word is offensive" and land on "I am not sure as to whether or not it is offensive" at the very minimum).

1. To claim that a particular word/words, as an thing that exists, hold(s) value(s) is an objective truth claim. And as such you will have to prove it. Otherwise a Christopher Hitchens quote comes to mind, 'That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.'

2. Supposing you say, "I cannot prove a particular word/all words have value, but I suspect they might still," I would just like to fall back on a Occam's Razor style approach. It is more likely that there isn't this hidden thing we cannot pin down (in the form of value being intrinsic and words) as that is a much simpler state of reality than the existence of this complicated thing.

3. You may fall back to an idea of 'social definitions' (if you will) where in, sure the WORD 'retarded' isn't negative inherently in and of itself, but as a people we have place this value on it after the fact which we must now all recognize. To which again I say no (or perhaps, 'not quite'). Undoubtedly people do attach meaning to words, it is very clear from the nature of your video that the word 'retarded' has a negative value (or at least, can have a negative value) but the onus is on you.

To see why the onus is on the offended I want to look at the idea of placing value on words after the fact (which does assume the value isn't inherent to the word in the first place), I want to look back at the 'social definition' idea.

First we would want to narrow down to whom the social definition applies. A first reasonable restriction I would like to apply is all people who speak the language in which we are speaking when we use the word (this is to prevent me saying "thank you" to someone who hears the sound I make when I 'say' 'thank you' and hears in their language, (enter 'disrespectful' phrase here). And to go one step further, maybe one even needs to have the language in question be their native language. Perhaps another restriction we could add are people from the same (or very close generations). We could go on to exclude people from too different of socioeconomic backgrounds, etc. But regardless of who we include or exclude in our 'society' which now shares these 'social definitions,' we are assuming that they agree... and they don't have to (a little Hume's Law-ish)

I concede that people can agree on values for words and elect not to use them because of it. Meaning, suppose you and I are hanging out and I use a word you are uncomfortable with. You then say, 'Hey man, I am uncomfortable with that, it offends me, could you please not use it.' Supposing we're cool with each other, I say 'Sure man, no problem. I didn't mean it in that way at all, I can pick my words more appropriately (to the situation).'

This is (i) perfectly fine, (ii) happens all the time and (iii) does not oppose my point. In this example all parties came to an agreement which resulted in a desirable state for one, and a neutral state for the other. But the important thing of note is that just because two people speak the same language (and if they are hanging out, are probably from similar socioeconomic backgrounds, from the same generation, and all the other things that we agreed earlier put them in our 'society' where in a 'social definition' could thrive where it a useful thing) they won't inherently come to the same word to value placement.

But to argue social definitions at all is to assume all people in the social bubble we just defined will come to the same conclusion, that word 'N' has meaning 'P' and so on. But this isn't the case by the very fact that people like the cashier in your story exist. Some people are not offended by the same word as other people because they have not placed the same value on the word as the offended people have. What exactly does that mean? That social definitions aren't a useful tool for determining whether or not a word is 'offensive' and so my point '3.' goes in my favor as well.

And this idea to me applies to every word you can ever think of, not just 'retarded.'

To sum up:

(i) There is a slippery slope in even suggesting certain words should be restricted because they are offensive.

(ii) But in order to even assume they are offensive requires evidence that the word in question (or all words) hold value intrinsically.

(iii) If one cannot prove the existence of the intrinsic value of words, they shouldn't still assume it exists as it is less likely to exist than not to exist.

(iv) Conceding to intrinsic value not existing but supposing 'social' definitions take the place of 'IV' and make words offensive and wrong to use is a claim that won't stand enough scrutiny.

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I hope this made any sense at all and I'd love to hear what you think. This is merely my opinion and I am open to being wrong.

Regardless, my name is [NAME], it was a pleasure to stumble upon your channel, and keep it easy killer.

My Response

Hahaha I get so much flak for this video. Hi [NAME].

So frankly, this was one of my earliest videos and I was still learning how best to articulate my point. In fact there are a bunch of things that I didn't represent well or flat out changed my opinion on later. Given the chance, I definitely wouldn't do it again, haha. But it's worth keeping up there to have these types of interactions.

Anyway, I'll run over the main things I was trying to get across in this video, and hopefully those'll address your points—

1. I don't think the word retarded should be banned. It has actual meaning: "Its growth was retarded." "That person is retarded." What I referred to as the r-word" was the word retarded when used in a way I deem inappropriate.

2. So now let me define that way! So when people use "gay" to mean stupid or bad or whatever, what that does is strengthen the association between "gay" and "bad." Obviously we (or at least I) don't want that because it makes people more likely to associate being gay with something wrong or bad. That being said, I don't think we should ban "gay" because it is a helpful description for many people. But in the same way that I called retarded the r-word out of appropriate context, one might call gay the g-word when it's not used to describe someone's sexual orientation. 

So just as using gay inappropriately reinforces the notion that gay = bad, using "retarded" inappropriately reinforces the notion that retarded = stupid. And maybe by conventional standards like IQ tests you could claim that is true, but I would not call retarded people stupid—they have very different abilities and many people who are retarded in some form are much better at certain things than us "normal" people are. 

In fact, now that I'm writing this out, I don't even like using "retarded" in its appropriate context, because it still ultimately implies that these individuals are slow when in reality they are simply different and are better and worse in different areas than we are.

So ultimately the incorrect usage of "retarded" (and frankly, maybe even the correct one) strengthens our association between those people and the concept of "stupid," which is not good because it makes us more likely to believe these individuals to be stupid or wrong before we understand them.

3. Finally (and I think this is funny): the point of the video wasn't to discuss what the definition or usage of "retarded" despite virtually everyone thinking/complaining about that. The video was just about the internal debates I hold when someone says any word with which I disagree. But that's so long gone by now, haha.

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Anyway, I'd love to hear your opinion on this, too. Hopefully you stick around on my channel, even though future videos may be less controversial :)

Also, just curious: how'd you find my channel through Peter's?

Thanks [NAME],

Matt

His Response

Hello again Matt,

First I want to address your last point, which was that the point of the video ('Telling people about the "R-Word"') wasn't to have this type of discussion. And with fear of being Captain Hindsight, I would image a lot of the people who you said gave this type of criticism (including myself) probably knew that. For me, my desire to write in was (i) because this topic was very recently on my mind and more importantly (ii) I view'd it as a very... bad/inaccurate way to think about words.

Humorously enough however, I feel you have thrown a huge wrench in my mindset though. While I am not at all swayed towards the idea of words having a value, I cannot dispute with you that on a large scale (not all of the time, but perhaps most of the time) when words like 'retarded' or 'gay' (as you brought up) are used, they are (i) getting a descriptive point across for the user but also (ii) furthering/keeping-alive the notion that 'retarded/gay' means something is wrong/bad. And I sort of subscribe to a combination of desirism (http://desirism.wikia.com/wiki/Desirism) and for a lack of terminology, the type of ethics found in Sam Harris's, 'Moral Landscape,' and taking your point that using them (the words in question) directly or indirectly furthers a undesirable state/outcome, despite the words being perfectly fine per my original argument, we may want to avoid using them. You definitely gave me something to consider.

As to how I found you through Peter's channel, it was either directly through his interview with Mike (of PBS Idea Channel) or in the suggested scroll on the right hand side of YouTube; I do not remember exactly how unfortunately but it had to have been one of those two.

I'll definitely be around regardless of controversial topics - I am a digital native which won't be leaving YouTube anytime soon. Still a pleasure to 'meet' you and your channel. Keep it easy killer.

My Second Response

Hey! I'm glad this was ultimately a civil discussion. You never know with people on the internet (and I've been the non-civil one before). Yeah I guess to try to put my point more in your words, though words may not have inherent value, or usage and linkage of them creates a value. The word still carries no inherent value, but after our usage we individually/societally create one. 

Also you appear very learned, what with quoting different philosophies and texts I've never even heard of before haha.

Glad to hear I could stretch your mind—you did the same for mine. 

Have a great day, [NAME]!

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So there you have it. My view on this, as well as another interesting one. With all YouTube comments addressing this I'll likely link this post. Feel free to discuss it further in the comments of this post. 

theories: translating phrases

Theory: When we write translated phrases in ways that we’d be more likely to say, we’re more likely to remember and use their foreign counterpart. 

e.g. if I translate “non farne un affare di stato” as “no big deal,” I’m more likely to remember and use that italian phrase than if I translated it as “don’t make a mountain out of a mole hill.” This is of course dependent on what phrase is most familiar to the user.

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theories is a series of psychological theories I have thought up. I don’t have the means to test many of them, but if you do and want to, send me an e-mail or reply to this post :)

Education E-mail

Here is an email I sent to a professor of mine. I thought I'd post it here, too.

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No problem! Also, here's a short reading on the flipped classrooms I mentioned before: https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2013/03/flipped-classroom-will-redefine-role-educators

The point isn't necessarily to flip your classroom but simply acknowledge that students learn best in very different ways (I don't mean auditory, visual, etc—studies have shown that those don't really impact students too differently). What I mean by that is one student might genuinely want or need a lecture to understand the information. Other students, however, might not. Many students, myself included, would much rather learn the subject material on their own because (1) they learn it better when they're the ones working it out for themselves and (2) this provides in-class time for them to do in-depth analysis of the information learned and truly learn it (not forgetting it after the test).

So what does this mean for practical implication?

When you look at classrooms, you see professors almost always teaching through just one style, and it's almost always the lecture-based approach. Maybe it's because of physical class restraints, maybe something else. But that doesn't change the fact that it happens. A simple baby step I think the formal education world needs is more options. Maybe some students are able to work in groups with a TA discussing the learned material while the professor lectures to the other half of class. Maybe some students are lecturing to other students while a TA or prof watches over them to make sure they don't miss any big pieces of information.

I'm not saying you have to implement these ideas in your classes or even this class, but rather I'm hoping to stir up some thoughts about how the style used by many could be improved. When a system is so commonly used that people no longer question its effectiveness, that is the most important time to do so.

Anyway, this has been super long but I hop[e] you enjoyed reading it :) These ideas are ones I hope to explore in my education program here. If you ever want to talk more about them, please let me know!

See you tomorrow,
Matt

i still have things to say

Yesterday I watched a video from Jake Roper after he’d learned he had Sarcoma, a type of cancer. He talked about how his biggest fear isn’t dying, but not being able to make and do and be all the things he wants to. I never thought about death in that particular light, but I realized I share Jake’s fear exactly. I’m worried that, as Jake says, “I'll leave this world at some point with not enough of me left in it.” Whether it’s through YouTube or photoshop or Live Hangouts, or blogs, I have this desire to create things. So I created something last night: a video that was uploaded today. 

I said basically all of those things but in a less digestible way (I recorded the video in the spur of the moment and my thoughts weren’t yet coherently collected). But now that they are I can say them with more clarity: I will be putting out more content because I want to get my ideas out there. 

If I wanted to publish more videos similar to those I do now, I think I’d work myself to death. Because that doesn’t sound fun, I’m instead adding a certain type of video in addition to the videos I normally put out. These videos will differ in two noticeable ways.

1. They’ll have a less tightly-edited style, meaning they’ll be similar to vloggers and the video I just posted.
2. Instead of doing complex analyses of publications and/or science, they’ll be more focused on thoughts and conjecture (haha very funny). For example, is a narrator accountable for the information they read?

I’ve posted these ideas for a while on this blog, but I might as well do it on YouTube, too. I think that’s the best way to get all of this out there :)