If You Can't Say Something Nice, For Fuck's Sake Be Up-Front About It
Irradiated by LabRat
I do have several more substantive and less choleric posts in the pipeline, but I’m running on limited time and ranting is easier than constructing “science and you” posts.
There is a phenomenon that I have repeatedly and gallingly encountered, which is of people that want to tear someone a new one but somehow want to do this by Queensbury rules. To wit, it is apparently okay to say any vile and insulting thing you wish to another person, so long as you do it without using any profanity whatsoever. Should the other person’s reaction involve profanity, you have therefore risen above them on the civility scale and anything else they say may be dismissed as the intemperate rantings of a lunatic. (I am interpreting these rules based on inference.) The exchange tends to go something like this:
*issue generating disagreement and friction*
“Your opinion on this issue can only indicate that you were dropped on your head as a child, and furthermore you are a filthy miserable liar who probably spent the last hour before posting on this thread receiving oral ministrations from an entire flock of goats. I hate you and and everyone who resembles your pusillanimous, sheep-faced self.”
“What the fuck does that have to do with (substance of disagreement), asshole?”
“If you’re just going to swear at me I don’t see how anyone can discuss anything with you.”
What the unholy fuckballs is the point of this? It’s not as though people will not understand they’ve been insulted and react like they’ve been insulted if the insult does not, technically, involve profanity. Insult is insult whether you use words you can’t say on television or not, just like an explicit sex scene is an explicit sex scene even if you replace all the “cock”, “prick”, “cunt”, and “fuck” with “penis”, “vagina”, and “thrust”. Granted, one is a dirty phone call and one is a Regency novel, but either way people aren’t going to agree it’s appropriate material for children merely because the language has been rearranged.
Profanity has a purpose, and that purpose is generally to be a verbal shorthand for an underline and a set of exclamation points. When you curse, it’s generally either to indicate strong emotion or to indicate powerful emphasis; it’s also a way of saying “I don’t care who my opinion offends”. Well and good. The point remains, however, that you can achieve all of the same goals in more words without using any profanity at all- it’s a signal device, not a self-contained Insult Missile. As anybody with much of a reading habit knows, it’s entirely possible to grotesquely and elaborately insult somebody without ever once using a word that couldn’t be spoken on Good Morning America.
It gets even more bizarre in my head when I try to look at it from a religious point of view*. Okay, saying bad words is something you’re not supposed to do as a serious practicioner, I get that. I may just be an atheistic rube, but I was under the impression that saying nasty things to people just because you disagree with them and venting anger and spite on them is emotionally satisfying was a bigger sin anyway. You’re not *supposed* to gratuitously abuse your fellow man, and if they aren’t fooled as to your meaning and intent because you didn’t use any Anglo-Saxon four letter words, the odds that God is going to be fooled are substantially lower.
Either way, what really irritates me about the practice is that it’s a game the person using it is playing with themselves and demands other people play too. No one is actually fooled and it accomplishes nothing except make that person feel satisfied because a completely artificial and arbitrary standard has been met by themselves but not by the other person; it’s like declaring that you won a footrace down a corridor because your opponent stepped on a black tile and the black ones are lava.
Throw insults if you mean them, fine. There’s no hall monitor and we’re all adults here. But if you’re going to act like an adult and be treated like an adult, you have to own them.
*One point of theology I have never, ever understood is why certain words are profane. I understand the concept of taking the Lord’s name in vain and why this is bad, but not why you’re not supposed to use certain words as opposed to others because they derive from an Anglo-Saxon root instead of a Latin one. Fuck, shit, piss, and cunt all fall into this category and I can’t for the life of me understand why they’re included next to an exclamation of “BLEEDING CHRIST!” or “OH MY FUCKING GOD! under “profane, don’t do that”.
August 26th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
Oh I just “love” those fuckers that use a $10 word where a four letter word will work, and then play the “I’m SHOCKED” card on me… I was a sailor for 22 years… I needs my cuss words
August 26th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
“What the unholy fuckballs is the point of this?”
It’s simple. Profanity is a crutch for inarticulate motherfuckers.
I heard this 39 years ago (freshman dorm, y’see) and have waited all this time for the proper opportunity to use it.
August 26th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
Now, c’mon. That’s funny right there, I don’t care who you are.
August 26th, 2010 at 7:34 pm
It’s a tactic. It’s used because it works. That you felt compelled to post about it just shows how well it works. The lesson? Don’t let your opponent set the rules. This applies to any conflict, verbal or otherwise.
August 26th, 2010 at 7:58 pm
Short answer from a Christian perspective: Your “atheistic rube” perspective is dead on. There are Biblical arguments for Christians to eschew foul language, but insults even more. Taking others to task over profanity has no Biblical authority but is sometimes seen as a way of setting the Christian apart; I see it as a way of crowing over one’s own supposed holiness.
Longer answer:
The most frequently referred to passage in terms of profanity is this: “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” (Ephesians 4:29, NIV) The context is a list of ways Christians should behave now that they ARE Christians. You are correct in that this and other passages are generally prohibitions of saying nasty things to vent one’s spleen, more than “profanity”. Some other passages, making this clear:
(Colossians 3:7-8, NIV) You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.
(2 Timothy 2:14-16, NIV) Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly.
August 26th, 2010 at 8:53 pm
Thanks, Mousie, that actually settles several years’ worth of “huh”? I’m Biblically literate enough to be (I think) culturally literate, but not on that scale.
August 27th, 2010 at 6:36 am
I find myself accelerating into old man territory. I’m 36.
One of the things that puts a few more degrees on the right hand pedal is people like this. I’m learning that going around these types is better for my blood pressure and relationships with others who can grasp basic fundamentals of human interaction. I’m going around a lot of people these days so the passing speed is helpful. Fuck’em.
August 27th, 2010 at 10:10 am
Well, personally, the absolute best insults are the ones where the target doesn’t even realize they’ve been insulted until a day or two after the comments close, and then they show up sputtering in rage in some other context and make an absolute ass of themselves, flinging wild accusations and getting spittle on their monitor.
Such perfect victims are rare finds, and should be treasured when discovered.
August 27th, 2010 at 10:46 am
I once had a roommate who told me my dead relatives were in Hell. I said “fuck you.” She demanded an apology.
August 27th, 2010 at 4:22 pm
That’s why a lot of laws try and cover all bases, forbidding language (in certain contexts) that is obscene, lewd, vulgar, or profane.
The words you’ve used are certainly vulgar (ironically enough…), and some are lewd. Depending on context, some are even obscene. None are actually profane, though (“piss” is even in the Bible, and not in a “Thou Shalt Not Say” way)
August 28th, 2010 at 6:04 am
Holly, I’m sorry to hear that. That would be a good subject for a post at my blog on why that conclusion is biblically unjustified. Short version is that it’s based on the implicit and unexamined assumption that Christ is powerless except through the mediation of the Church, which is pretty ludicrous to a Christian as soon as you look at it squarely.
August 28th, 2010 at 9:54 am
Holly, appropriate response #1: “Let me get out the sharpie and write ‘SORRY’ across my knuckles real fast, and then I’ll apologize to your face over and over again.”
#2: “Fuck your apology. While we’re at it, fuck your Hell, too.”
August 29th, 2010 at 4:45 am
Dang, Mousie! I just checked out your blog. As a (rather bad) attempted Christian, with some twistedness of my own, I do sympathize with you.
August 29th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
WRT foul language and cultures centered around faith:
I think that, somewhere along the way, there was a confusion between the categories vulgar and profane.
Mousie’s answer is pretty good, but it is good to remember that English has a bit of a split personality. Certain Anglo-Saxon-rooted words are treated as vulgar, while certain Latin-rooted words are not considered vulgar.
The highly-educated part of the culture considered vulgar words “bad”, while the religious part considered profane words “bad”. The fact that the highly-educated and the religious leaders had a large intersection for a long time in the English-speaking world may have led to this confusion.
August 31st, 2010 at 12:21 am
Oh, yeah, Karrde. Fer instance, I think that “penis” started out as low Latin slang, originally meaning “tail” or something. I think all words describing our “parts” started out as joke words in all languages. The subject is funny, when you think about it.