I'm not trying to fight a battle against society. I was trying to express exasperation at your explanation.
A thought experiment. Imagine that everyone in the 18th century (including 60 year old men and women) jokingly called each other "retard". Would this strike you as immature? What if I expressed this sentiment aloud, and someone responded "There's a confounding social factor. If one were to object to such a social norm, he or she might be called a square and thus ridiculed! Maybe it's not right, but we can never stop being people."
This response bothers me. To call it a "confounding" rather than "additional" factor implies that risk of reputation somehow funges against the immaturity of the social norm. I would argue that calling people "retards" is immature regardless of the mechanism driving the social norm. On top of this, you seem to be implying that I think myself "superior" to those calling other people retards.
(Now replace every instance of "retard" with "evil democrats". That is my original argument.)
(By the way, your comment frames things as if you're 100% the good guy, and I'm obviously a villain. This is the exact behavior the Robinson article criticizes.)
A thought experiment. Imagine that everyone in the 18th century (including 60 year old men and women) jokingly called each other "retard". Would this strike you as immature? What if I expressed this sentiment aloud, and someone responded "There's a confounding social factor. If one were to object to such a social norm, he or she might be called a square and thus ridiculed! Maybe it's not right, but we can never stop being people."
This response bothers me. To call it a "confounding" rather than "additional" factor implies that risk of reputation somehow funges against the immaturity of the social norm. I would argue that calling people "retards" is immature regardless of the mechanism driving the social norm. On top of this, you seem to be implying that I think myself "superior" to those calling other people retards.
(Now replace every instance of "retard" with "evil democrats". That is my original argument.)
(By the way, your comment frames things as if you're 100% the good guy, and I'm obviously a villain. This is the exact behavior the Robinson article criticizes.)