He's fine. Perhaps you shouldn't police people's language whether it takes 5 seconds or not.
"There is one person in charge of every office in America, and that person is Charles Darwin..."
"You don’t call retarded people retards. It’s bad taste. You call your friends retards when they are acting retarded."
Is it worse to have some condition of your birth used as a casual insult -- a reminder of your misfortune? Or is it worse to be constantly patronized, often behind your back by throngs offended on your behalf?
The answer depends on your culture and outlook on life I suppose.
These don't happen because they're fun fashion choices. They happen because people are becoming aware. The dynamics may resemble whimsy, but it's more than aesthetics underlying.
All describe generally disfavored conditions folks don't have much control over. Referencing that disfavor abstractly doesn't bring it into being. Ignoring it doesn't make it go away.
This isn't about awareness in my opinion. We're pretending status doesn't exist. We're assuming folks with some condition will be offended and won't be able to handle those emotions with their own agency, so we're patronizing them by carefully policing language. That is, in my opinion, as ableist as it gets.
Bringing Charles Darwin into the conversation does not help your point.
"Is it worse to have some condition of your birth used as a casual insult -- a reminder of your misfortune? Or is it worse to be constantly patronized, often behind your back by throngs offended on your behalf?"
This is a false trade-off. The whole conversation started because someone used a harmful word, knowing full well it was harmful. If they refrained from using the offensive word they knew was offensive neither condition would have happened (casual insult or patronization).
Come now. At the root of all of this is an ableist, patronizing assumption: People with mental disabilities must have the language used around them carefully policed because they can't handle the implied disfavor and emotional harm that language may communicate via their own agency, not like the rest of us.
It's hypocritical virtue signaling.
It's clearly controversial, and the commenter very well knew it would be before they commented, and after they got the replies they did.
It takes less time than it took for them to reply justifying their choice. As I said, be better.
I like to think we’re not kids here, and some level of off color talk can be somewhat interpreted as humor at best, sardonic, sarcastic, dark humor, and at worst, appropriately inappropriate - as in, we aren’t kids, and I hope you got me.
So for example, let’s not worry that I used the word, because those who are truly retarded are actually retarded enough to not be offended. Imagine if you took what I just literally. Or did I say it to make a point?
What is adult levity, I guess, is my question? What is non pc, non safe for work (within reason) conversation, among adults? Is it a constant “watch what you just said, but I won’t even consider the context of it”.