Bad Words: Language and the Politics of Naughtiness

by CG, Arts & Culture Editor

Illustration by Frances McDowell, Layout Assistant

I want to begin this article with a disclaimer, and I promise that I’m not just trying to cover my ass here. I sincerely believe that the subject I am about to discuss is a sensitive one that should be handled with tremendous care. I am, admittedly, a rather flippant person with an off-color sense of humor, and that is often reflected in my writing; nevertheless, I want to approach this article in a way that is congruent with the gravity of its subject matter. I will be using the word that I am writing about here, not out of a desire to be “edgy” or subversive, but because we are adults and I believe that we are all mature enough to talk about this topic without using any cutesy euphemisms. To any (understandly) skeptical and/or social justice conscious readers who have humored me so far, I’d like to strike a deal: I’ll do my best to talk about this topic in a thoughtful way, and you can do your best to read my article charitably. Capiche? Okay, let’s go.

People are saying the word “retard” again, and it’s not just the usual suspects. A slur that was once employed almost exclusively by Redditors, gamers, and 13-year-old boys is now back en vogue among Zoomers, even here at the Democratic People’s Republic of Oberlin, aka Woke Mecca. Whether it’s in left-wing circles online or among ostensibly progressive twenty-somethings IRL, it seems like the word has wormed its way (back) into the vocabularies of people who probably would've scolded you for using it five years ago. 

I’m not really interested in engaging in some elaborate philosophical debate about whether it’s “okay” to use the word retard; at the end of the day, I think most people can admit that it’s kind of childish and mean-spirited and we probably shouldn’t say it. Nevertheless, the reality is that people are saying it, with increasing frequency, and as such, it seems important to think about how we got here and how we should approach the issue moving forward. As it pertains to the question of why we’re experiencing an “r-word” renaissance right now, I think the phenomenon can be attributed to three factors: the cultural conservatism of the current political moment, a decade of largely ineffectual (and at times, actively alienating) language policing, and Gen Z’s fascination with transgressive humor. 

It would be obtuse not to acknowledge the ways in which the resurgence of this word is a symptom of the country’s rightward sociopolitical shift in the wake of Trump’s reelection. In an article published in New York Magazine last year, journalist Brock Coylar asked young adults why they voted for Trump; many interviewees replied with something along the lines of “[I] wanted the freedom to say ‘faggot’and “retarded.”” If Trump One ushered in a cultural landscape preoccupied with performing “inclusivity” and  “calling out” the “problematic” behavior of others, then Trump Two has ushered in a cultural landscape in which the casual cruelty exhibited by the current administration has seeped into everything. It seems like the dominant culture, which was once oriented in direct opposition to Trumpism, has finally acquiesced.

Of course, it would be equally disingenuous to pretend that the past decade or so of (socially) liberal cultural hegemony didn’t precipitate the current reactionary moment. As I said before, in the late 2010s and early 2020s, many of the people who shaped culture—influencers, bloggers, celebrities, artists—became very invested in identity politics, social progressivism (as opposed to economic progressivism), and most importantly, policing the way that other people speak. Now, look, I’m a writer; if I didn’t believe that language shapes and structures reality, I wouldn’t do what I do. That said, I think it’s fair to say that in the past 10 or 15 years, some people have conflated the use of vulgar, hurtful or bigoted language with real, material violence, while expressing a total disregard for the context in which said language is used, and both the intentions and actions of the speaker in question. This attitude towards language undoubtedly alienated a lot of people who were otherwise sympathetic to progressive causes, and created a social climate in which individuals were incentivized to punish those who weren’t “in the know” about what words were now verboden. As such, I think it’s safe to say that much of what is occurring now culturally is a reaction to the needlessly punitive approach to “social advocacy” that became popular when we were tweens. 

With all of that in mind, I think that Gen Z’s renewed interest in this word can in many ways be chalked up to the fact that we find inappropriate, fucked up shit funny. We are the first generation to be truly molded by the internet, and it’s clear that spending your formative years consuming a steady diet of anime pornography, deep-fried memes (remember those?) and ISIS beheading videos tends to warp your sense of humor in a weird way. Moreover, I have seen a number of neurodivergent Oberlin students argue that they are actually “reclaiming” the word retard, and while I’m not particularly sympathetic to this argument (all love, but I don’t know that people with ADHD attending elite LACs have historically been on the receiving end of this particular slur), I think this unholy synthesis of the identity politics of yesteryear and the edginess of the current cultural moment speaks to Zoomers’ unique political and comedic sensibilities. 

To be honest, though, I think that most of us just get off on being a little bit naughty. I was subjected to a “Just Say No” style campaign regarding the use of the word retard in middle school; there were posters, an assembly, the whole nine yards. I have a very vivid memory of a friend of mine calling the initiative stupid, and saying something to the effect of “When you tell someone not to say something, they just want to say it more.” I recall chastising him at the time, but in retrospect, it seems obvious to me that this impulse informs a lot of what’s been happening culturally over the past few years. If you tell a little kid not to stick their fingers in an electrical outlet, they’re gonna stick their fingers in an electrical outlet; if you tell a teenager or young adult not to use a “bad word,” they’re gonna  use the “bad word.”

I’ll end this article by addressing the good people of Oberlin College, all of the edgelords with hearts of gold out there: I see you. I know you’re probably a recovering woke-scold who started saying retard some time in the past two or three years because it’s funny and a little risque and you’re ashamed of your past as an unrepentant SJW. Your time as a member of the PC Police taught you that reprimanding others for the way they talk is a great way to turn normal people into reactionaries, and as such, you’ve given up on evangelizing, which is probably for the best. I’m not going to get on my high horse and act like there isn’t anything fun or cool or compelling about invoking taboos from time to time, especially when you’re just shooting the shit with your friends. But unfortunately, divas, we know better, and if we keep it up, we might start sounding like Dasha Nekrasova or some other ghoulish 35-year-old “nymphet” stalking the streets of Dimes Square. So knock it off! Or don’t! Just remember that we could all try a little harder to stand in solidarity with people who may not be able to stand up for themselves.