Can you really abolish a word?
I recently saw that a friend of mine joined a Facebook group call “Abolish the R-word.” Now I thought as hard as I could of what would would be so bad that they had to use “R-word” instead of the actual word itself. I couldn’t think of a one. So I go and check out the page and I find that it is a group to abolish retard.
Are you serious?
Now, I understand there are people that are uncomfortable with the word and that there have been people to use it in a harshly discriminatory way, but those are not enough justification to basically remove a word from the language. If it were, there would be a hell of a lot of words that would be nixed.
Now, the thing that these proponents of eliminating retard have to get passed is censorship. Our Constitution gives use the right to free speech, not matter what others think of that speech. But there are some limits to that too. And this is where the political and philosophical ideas of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” muddy the waters.
The only restrictions to free speech are hate speech or offensive speech. The former is a true crime as it leads to the endangerment and welfare of an individual or group. The latter is simply, “We don’t like that, thus no one should use it to not offend me.” I have this argument with a lot of people over various subjects, but it always comes down to this. And what so many people don’t realize is that if you want free speech, you have to have things that offend you. The word retard offends people, but it does not harm or incite harm to people by its mere existence. There are words like that, the for most that come to mind are racial slurs. Retard has existed for a long time before people thought it was offensive and to my knowledge i haven’t heard of mobs going off an killing or beating up people because of the word retard being used.
Now, does that mean it can’t be used in such a way? No, it most certainly can, but any word can be used in a harmful way. I’m sure that someone can find a way to make the word tuna offensive and use it in a speech to create a mass tuna fishing incident if they wanted to try. But if the tuna became an endangered species, would we then have to think about not using the word tuna ever again?
No, what any abolishment of a word that wasn’t created with no other purpose but hate or violence is a speech code. It is the evil arm of political correctness that says, “Nothing offensive can ever be done to anyone, anywhere.” Sorry folks, that is not what we signed up for as Americans. Placing any speech code on the country as a whole is direct violation of our rights to free speech. And while I would love to go on a rant about the FCC now, that will have to be another time.
Now many people are like me and don’t think to highly of speech codes. So the retard abolishers want use to be believe that it is hate speech. As per the direct words of the administrator of the Facebook group on a wall post, “This group, along with other causes, is an effort to get the word out that words can, and do, hurt and to encourage others to spread peace and acceptance through their choice of words.” (posted 09/08/08).
I distinctly remember something I was taught as a child, “Sticks and stone may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” How did we go from that idea to to, “How dare you say such words!” I mean, I was picked on mercilessly for most of my life thus far for being fat, sick, geeky, or a combination. Yes, it bothered me. Yes, I wish that the kids and some grown ups never said such things and were more understanding. But my wishes and the reality of the world are two very different things and I knew that what they said could only hurt me a much as I let them. and as I grew up, my tolerance to words grew and I learned to counter attack with wit and sarcasm. So you don’t see me on a cause to ban the words chubby, fat, marshmallow, wheezy, or the others that came at me.
What I see when I see an “Abolish this word” cause is people who care about those that they feel the word is being offensive to being offended more. I sympathize where they are coming from, the want to make the world a better place because they know the it can be harsh to anyone not seen as normal. And in that regards I respect them for it. But to say that we have to make everyone not to use a word because they are offended is not something I can stand for. We need to teach all children that words have power, but that power only comes from the connection of speaker and listener, writer and reader. Any word I have thus far has no more power that you allow me to impart on you. That is the special quality of language and communication that the Constitution protects by giving use the freedom to say what we want and express our ideas to those who want to hear them.
If we can teach that to our children, I bet you will see a difference in society through out the years as those children grow older and become adults and active members in society. You’ll see a better understanding of people in general. And we will never have to think about abolishing a word because we will understand the word in a better way than just it being offensive or not offensive.
And just food for thought: if we were to abolish retard, we would also have to abolish the words:
moron
cretin
imbecile
idiot
spastic
They are all words that were used to describe people with various levels of intellectual disability at the same time that retarded was used similarly. But, I bet no will fuss over them because it’s not the well known and retard is only because of the use of mental retardation.
So, can you abolish a word? Personally, I don’t think so. You can only use the words you want to use and hope to not be offended by others, but not get upset when you are because there is no right to not be offended. The reason being that finding something offensive is purely subjective and different for everyone. Any imposition to freedom of thinking how we want to think, even by abolishing a word, is social conditioning verging on the Newspeak of Orwell’s 1984
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