It simply blows my motherfucking mind to continually encounter on
liberal blogs... people complaining about and wishing to curtail profanity on
liberal blogs.
(The one I've linked to is merely the most recent example. It is NOT the most egregious example, not by a long shot -- and I have absolutely no opinion of the person who started it. In fact, I do not even recognize the handle.)
To those people:
Have NONE of you any concept of the IRONY of being on a LIBERAL blog and asking that people
stop using particular words or phrases because they "offend" YOU?
YES, I said "irony." As in, you CAN call yourself a liberal AND complain about profanity and irreligiosity on this blog... but it sure as hell is fucking CONTRADICTORY.
Look, you wanna make a snide offhand remark about someone's use of profanity, that's your business. You wanna whine that it's yucky to see a perfectly nice thread ruined with someone's use of a term you find offensive, that's your call.
Me, I find it rude as hell to derail a conversation by remarking on the STYLE rather than the SUBSTANCE of the arguments... but maybe I'm in the minority on that one.
But when you start interrupting those discussions to opine that you think we'd all be so much better off if we just didn't SWEAR... or when you start DOWNRATING people because they use curse words in an emotional manner... or when you whisper, "Wouldn't we all be better off if the rules included a moratorium on profanity?" -- well, sorry. I gotta call bullshit. Ironic, huh?
As for this absolute CROCK regarding "what other people who aren't like US but read this blog" may think of all the profanity and sacrilege -- frankly, if someone comes to this blog, reads a sampling of its offerings -- and decides to leave -- not because of the content, but because s/he is offended by the way the content is PRESENTED, I'm sorry to burst your little bubble, but there's no fucking way that kind of person (the kind of person who would be sufficiently offended by CURSE WORDS to leave a blog with whose content they agreed or could be persuaded to agree) was ever going to stick around.
Know how I know this? YOU are offended… but you keep coming back. You remain to engage in discussions, even though you're offended by the language sometimes. So don't tell me that we could be persuading wingnuts if we'd only stop using fucking profanity. These people aren't offended by our use of profanity - these people are offended by our existence. They don't want us to stop using profanity - they want us to shut up -- or, even better, to be made to shut up. Preferably with force, and maybe tortured to make sure we'll STAY shut up after they leave the room. So, pardon me if I blow a giant fucking raspberry sound when that particular boogeyman of an argument gets plopped into the discussion about profanity on a liberal blog.
There is a very special and sacred and important place for "profanity" in this world and in the liberal cause and on this blog. Have NONE of you ever seen
Lenny Bruce's work? Or read it? Have none of you the vaguest familiarity with his career, with his struggle, with the resulting seismic shift in the American culture?
How about Jim Morrison? How about the plethora of arrests made in the past 100 years for "profanity?" "Indecency?" "Immorality?"
How about Jack Johnson? (Yeah, I know, this one isn't so much about censorship, but bear with me)…
Jack Johnson was arrested and convicted and eventually jailed for "transporting a woman across state lines for purposes of immorality." He was the first black heavyweight champion of the world. He married a white woman and crossed state lines with her. The law they used to nail his black ass to the wall, the Mann Act, was purportedly about interstate commerce.
"Whoever knowingly transports in interstate or foreign commerce, or in the District of Columbia or in any Territory or Possession of the United States, any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose, or with the intent and purpose to induce, entice, or compel such woman or girl to become a prostitute or to give herself up to debauchery, or to engage in any other immoral practice...
Laws like that exist because people insist on enshrining their idea of what is "decent" and what is "indecent" in the legal system. Ostensibly concerned with regulating commerce, the people who crafted this law and scores like it managed to bury within its labyrinthine paragraphs a myriad of ways to screw anyone who crossed their own personal boundaries of "decency."
Johnson's conviction under the Mann Act, on the other hand, carries a stench that lingers to this day. Also called the White Slavery Act, the Mann Act was passed to prevent foreign women from being smuggled into the United States for purposes of prostitution. It wasn't meant for the all-too-average American men of all races who crossed state lines to pick up prostitutes, or who had a fling with their mistresses. But the U.S. Justice Department and the Bureau of Investigation - the forerunner of the FBI - had other plans for Johnson. When Johnson took up with an 18-year-old white girl named Lucille Cameron, it pushed the protectors of white feminine innocence and virtue over the edge. Cameron was slapped in jail as a material witness. When she was hauled before a grand jury, she denied that Johnson was involved in an interstate prostitution ring. Cameron was sent back to jail until Johnson's persecutors could find a more pliable witness.
Enter Belle Schreiber, a white prostitute who had been one of Johnson's lovers. Schreiber was more than willing to tell Bureau agents and U.S. attorneys what they wanted to hear. Based on her testimony, an all-white, male jury convicted Johnson.
Author Randy Roberts, in his book "Papa Jack: Jack Johnson and the Era of White Hopes," said one of the Bureau of Investigation's agents admitted one of the jurors "was strongly prejudiced against Negroes." That juror, Roberts said, was typical of the ones who determined Johnson's fate.
blackamericaweb.com
My point in including the Jack Johnson story is this: They can craft any law to suit their particular ideas of "morality" and "decency." It can all happen again. Sure, it won't happen exactly the same way. They know we'd be on them in a heartbeat. But how about a law that regulates "hate speech" suddenly being applicable to Muslims who speak out against aspects of Christianity that offend their religions? Could sedition be applied? Could a blogger denouncing Bush and WISHING ALOUD HE WERE DEAD be accused of plotting something? Hmm. What does the Patriot Act say, anyway...
So, what's my point, really? I know none of the people complaining about profanity are advocating for censorship. And if it offends them, shouldn't they be free to say so, just as free as others are to use profanity? Sure. I'm not agitating for the censorship of complaints about profanity. Even I couldn't be that accidentally ironic.
Christ, how inarticulate can I BE?
This is a bizarre and Byzantine topic, really. Far greater minds than mine have struggled for millennia and failed to arise from the muck with anything resembling a definitive resolution.
When is a word or phrase so universally offensive as to merit banishment from the lexicon of all living beings?
Never. There will always be a context for all words, even the worst of the worst.
When is a word or phrase so universally offensive as to merit banishment from the lexicon except in cases of appropriate context (and don't let's even TRY to delve into THAT question)?
I really don't think there are such words. I can think of a few that many people would argue deserve inclusion in the category:
* nigger *
* kike
* rag head
* wetback
* cunt
* faggot
There are more, but not as many as you might think. After all, "chink" is an epithet for Chinese (and, for the more ignorant, anyone of Asian descent) -- but you can use it to describe armour, so it doesn't fit in the above category.
* Nigger is odd man out, though. Not acceptable for casual use for whites, but the jury is definitely not back on whether blacks should be "allowed" to use it casually without rebuke. I'm none too fond of the word "cunt," either. If it weren't for that word, however, The Vagina Monologues would be worthless.
There is no such thing as universally offensive language that should simply be stricken from the lexicon. I despise the word "nigger." I cannot listen to most rap music without hearing it, though, and I'm pretty sure I could be lynched for telling a black person she is not allowed to use it. (AH. See what I did, there? Used the term "lynch" in the context of discussing a "black issue." Some people would take high offense at that. Some might even say I, a Caucasian, should really abstain from using the word "lynch" except in its historical context. Aaaaand we're off. )
When is a word or phrase so arguably offensive to a segment of the human population (and how large should that segment be) as to merit a debate over whether it ought to be banished and in what instances it is acceptable for casual OR only-in-appropriate-context usage?
Ah. This one is otherwise known as "To PC or not to PC?"
* cocksucker - beloved epithet of many, recently targeted as an admittedly negative characterization of an activity engaged in primarily by gay men and heterosexual women; ergo a negative characterization of gay men (straight women by association, but generally not intention).
"Cocksucker" is a sideways dig at homosexuals. Using it continues the demonization of gay men, even when the context is nothing to do with gay men (which is almost always the case - "cocksucker" is something you call a straight man when you want to impugn him… as being gay. Meaning, being gay is something so vile as to merit being an insult to straights.)
* bitch/bitch slap -- oh man, this is getting tiresome. You know what this category means. Native American mascots. Phrases that are innocuous now but derived from "offensive" situations (recent example: "beyond the pale").
And the question that inspired this diary:
When is the use of "profanity" (as so reliably defined by George Carlin in his Seven Dirty Words landmark Supreme Court case) tolerable, intolerable or laudable? And who decides these questions?
The FCC has apparently decided that the 7 Words List ("Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits") has effectively been reduced to a 4 Word List, 4 Words You Will Never Hear on Television (Unless it's cable): "Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker and motherfucker."
(Because, in case you hadn't noticed, broadcast, mainstream, prime time television has seen, on multiple occasions, the use of the words "piss," "tits" and more rarely, but still enough to merit banishment from the Always Verboten List, "shit.")
It is with this last question that these complaints on Daily Kos are primarily concerned, I think. Most of the people doing the complaining would not advocate making it illegal to say "motherfucker." Nor would they advocate the social ostracizing of someone who occasionally peppers his conversations with "shit," "Jesus Christ" or "asshole."
Unless I am wrong, here's what I think they want: They want a world where people just don't use language like that, because there are more powerful ways of expressing oneself than using "bad words." (At least, they believe there are more powerful ways, and, in fact, when speaking to them, people who use profanity actually have less power of persuasion than do people who eschew it.)
And therein lies the essential weakness of those who wish to avoid profane language and who try to cajole, coax, coerce or shame others into joining them on the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City of Clean Language: they cannot or do not recognize that they are wrong about profanity.
Note: I did not say, "They MAY be wrong." I said, "They ARE wrong." People who wish others would stop using offensive language (that is, language that THEY find offensive) seem incapable of recognizing an unavoidable consequence of this Beautiful Dream of theirs: That way madness and silence lie.
How many people make up the quorum that decides when and where other people may use certain words or phrases? Who decides which people get to make which decisions about which words or phrases?
I'm not being deliberately obtuse, man. They call them "fine lines" and "slippery slopes" because that's what they are.
And sure, you could try to make the case that the people arguing on liberal blogs about all the icky profanity and how much more EFFECTIVE we could be without it and how they're not REALLY trying to CENSOR the people using profanity may have their hearts in the right place and all…
But they wouldn't want ME on the jury deciding the case. Because it comes down to one word, man. FREEDOM. Yeah, isn't it fucking DISGUSTING what they've done to that beautiful word? I almost get physically ill when I hear it in its original context, because they've been shitting all over the word "freedom" and all its lovely relatives ("liberty," "justice," democracy" - all those beautiful words and their conceptual heritage, covered in Bushian feces) for so fucking long, the Orwellian transformation is almost complete.
I know you mean well, those of you who bitch about the profanity and try in vain to make the case that our arguments could be so much more effective and reach so many more people if we'd just stop saying "motherfucking" and "goddamned" and "Karl Rove sucks Bush's pus-filled festering cock and eats the dickcheese for dessert" and -- well, no need to belabour that point.
But you're just... your complaints ring hollow to me. Because, while you may think you're just asking for decorum and moderation in the application of strong language and a more universal appeal -- what I see down the line is a group of well-meaning women getting together and deciding the whole world would be much better off if alcohol were outlawed.
What I hear, rumbling in the distance, is Terry Rakolta demanding that Married with Children be taken off the air because the television is all the way across the room, the remote's batteries are dead and why should she have to get up, walk ALL the way across the room and MANUALLY turn OFF the television? Besides, she likes the glow it gives off. Far better to demand that the content of television program adhere to her own particular sensibilities, avoid offending her with what she considers offensive and generally consist of what most "decent" people would agree is "appropriate."
But don't ask her to tell you what isn't appropriate, because while she could give you a few obvious examples, there's a whole world of filth and pornography and politically incorrect material out there, and it's HER job to just keep picking up that phone and swatting at those pornographic flies one by one until finally everyone around her gets so fucking tired of listening to the relentless whine that they give in and program 24 hours every day of Leave It to Beaver reruns.
Until some well-meaning soul points out that "beaver" is slang for "cunt" -- and that's the end of the Beav.
No, I don't think any of you are that far gone. Probably never will be. But that's the thing, see -- how the hell do *I* know which one of you is going to turn out to be the marketing genius who goes over to the dark side and transforms these innocuous complaints about propriety into a big fat fucking book burning party?
I actually got BITCHED AT in a motherfucking C & J discussion (months ago, my Guest Poster stint) at Daily Kos for my use of profanity. While most people were busy defending the use of HTML brightly coloured text boxes, the complaints about the use of the word "motherfucking" in my Guest spot as C & J diarist were almost overlooked.
And frankly, while bitching at each other in C&J is an unspoken no-no, I think the ones bitching about the text boxes were harmless, except for a few hurt feelings (and they also had a point). But if it weren't C&J and if it wouldn't have made me a TOTAL hypocrite, boy oh fucking boy would I have liked to have lit into the ones complaining about the "motherfucking."
I'm all for intellectual debates on the usage of profanity and where it is and isn't effective. But if someone uses profanity in a diary or a comment... and someone responds with a plaintive whine about being OFFENDED by the use of said profanity... Pardon me while I puke plaid motherfucking goo all over the floor.
I'M offended by your need to TELL me you're offended. AND I'm sure you're offended by my seeming desire to stifle your right to SAY you're offended. We're an easily offended BUNCH, it would seem. So what say we all just say what it is we need to say in our discussions, and unless someone calls someone else a steaming pile of worthless Republican shit who should be fucked in the ass with a rake... what say we all just lighten up on the motherfucking WHINING and just IGNORE something if it makes us go "ewww." Eh? What say?
And if THAT'S too fucking hard, what say we take the time to write a DIARY about it, instead of invoking Maryscott's Law® and derailing a goddamned diary that's NOT ABOUT OUR WOUNDED SENSIBILITIES AND WHAT WOUNDED THEM? At least in a DIARY about Profanity and Why We Just Don't Like It Because It Makes Us Feel Icky, those of us wishing to defend its usage can feel free to do so without feeling guilty for derailing some hapless diarist's efforts.
Oh, ye of little faith. I TOLD you this was a rant.
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