@BP
Don’t lie, I posted about it many moons ago before in this very thread and you replied to it.
I BET IT WAS YOU!
You did? I must have forgotten. Excuse me…
[quickly throws all the merch in the back of a dumptruck and drives to the cliffside]
@Crash
To use an analogy, you seem to say it’s like swordfighting: If someone tries to attack you, you can block or parry. From my experience, it’s been more like someone firing a gun at me, not a damn thing I can do unless they miss
When someone shoots you, do you blame the bullet?
No. You blame the person who fired.
That's what you should be doing. Stop focusing on the words used themselves! That takes focus away from the actual problem: People who don't respect others
@DP
Those are all good points and I cannot really disagree with you. Getting back to the original subject matter, there is still no reason for me to suddenly take offense at "Autism", the word itself. Let alone take seriously the aimless ramblings of netizens misappropriating it
Why do you need to try to ‘take back’ a word?
Because it's being taken away from it's actual place in the english language. Autism is not an offensive word. It is not an insult. It is a medical term that describes a condition
It's exact definition is as follows:
"a mental condition, present from early childhood, characterized by great difficulty in communicating and forming relationships with other people and in using language and abstract concepts."
This meaning can only be insulting when incorrectly applied to those that cannot be proven to meet it's definition. Again, context. So theres no contest that all the people using the word as an insult are being offensive. Yet this is squarely no more or less offensive than using any other insulting word. To which all of them I can easily dismiss
To lay special focus on how offensive the use of "autism" is, compared to any other insult is to staple on additional weight and meaning onto the word itself. Thus making the word "autism" itself an offensive term than, like "nigger", cannot be used at all in any formal [IRL] context by those with too much privilege
And I refuse to do this.
Here's the kicker. It's not 4chan who are taking the word away. You are right that they aren't trying to change the definition of the word
It's everyone else who chooses to take so much offense by the word who are taking it! They are the ones changing it's definition into a pure derogatory term
Frankly I am more offended that a completely innocent word in the dictionary is being made into something horrible and bad that shouldn't be uttered because people allowed kids, kids who using it incorrectly, to commandeer its implications. Turning it into a terrible insult when it was perfectly PC to say 5 years ago
Truly the last thing I want is for the word to become offensive for no reason other than "4channers tagged people they don't like with it", that's why I choose not to be offended by the word at all.
Shouldn’t the goal simply be to encourage society to move past the hatred associated with the word?
How is that accomplished by using it more?
It seems like actually robbing a word of its power would almost inevitably lead to that word being used less often.
Yes, yes it should be. And we should encourage society to move past hatred associated with a word. But society is not perfect. It wont all use common sense all at once. The way I see it, society won't move past hatred in a word until someone starts proving that it wont upset the people it involves. Often this must first come from the people it involves
Autistic people don’t need to go around saying ‘What up, my autist!’ to all their friends, they just need to continue trying to educate people on the actual definition of autism until dumb kids find some new superultraedgy thing to throw around endlessly.
Thank you! That's the point I've been trying to make!
And where did I say autists should go around talking like that?
I would much prefer to see people simply stop reacting to those words at all since, as xTSGx said, the ones using it are almost always just looking for a reaction.
Don’t give it and the use will stop.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Also the point I have been trying to make You said it better than I did as well.
See everyone? Stop reacting to it. It's that simple. Heres a test:
Did you take offense to this? No? Good, were on the same level.
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