09.05.05
Posted in faith, culture at 9:09 am by
This post started off as a comment on Zalm’s excellent Conversation Peace series. It got much too long for a comment on somebody’s blog, so I brought it over here. To give a bit of background, this series is about the medium of blogging in the process of dialogue. It takes an ethical spin on the way we are to communicate across this medium. In a recent post, Zalm and Kristen (from McCarty Musings) raised a question: Is it okay to be outraged, and then, is it okay to express that outrage. They thought that, yes, there was a place for that…but how, then, should we communicate that outrage honestly, how do we communicate our anger fairly.
Interesting question. What’s the ethic of outrage?
Years ago, my dad led a seminar on feelings at our Junior High. That was back when I was in junior high, so, yeah, that was a while ago. Anyway, the thing I took from that seminar was that “feelings aren’t right or wrong, they just are.” So, to apply that to this situation, outrage itself isn’t the problem.
Rather, the challenge (I’m not really sure it’s a problem) with outrage is how to express it, if I’m understanding the debate correctly. It seems that, if outrage is normal and okay to feel, it must be okay to express that outrage. To me, if there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with a human emotion, there shouldn’t be anything wrong with expressing that emotion, per se.
I think, though, that Zalm was right on the money with virtue number one of his Conversation Peace series. Honesty. I think that in expressing our outrage, we should rise above political tricksterism and foolish rhetoric. Here’s a great example (humbly submitted, because I’m the jackass that pulled off this intentional rhetorical ‘lie’):
In my discussion with Mr. Scott about the hurricane relief debacle over at my blog, I made the comment:
Scott, perhaps folks would take you a tad more seriously if you weren’t spewing partisan rhetorical mis-information and finding the closest black democrat to tack this whole mess on.
Okay, so if you look closely, I’ve basically levelled a deniable rhetorical condemnation of racism on Scott. In responding, Scott was pissed that I played the race card. Now, had I not seen what a jackassety move I’d made, I could’ve responded that I was merely making a statment of fact about the black mayor thing, that I wasn’t meaning to infer that Scott was, in fact, a racist. Of course, I was. And that, to me, is rhetorical cheating. So, if you’re still reading Scott, out of anger, I was unfair and for that I apologize.
I could use any number of other examples, probably looking to Karl Rove for the next bunch (as Rove should have a Ph.D. in this kind of rhetoric) but frankly, I think the fact that I’m dishonest, probably regularly, is humbling and example enough. I think being rhetorically honest in the blogosphere is a HUGE issue. One of the most used rhetorical techniques is often ad hominem. When we can’t really win an argument on reason, we tear down the person we’re arguing with.
So, if we’re going to be honest and not misrepresent individuals or individual’s viewpoints (i.e. any of the family of red herring fallacies,) I think we’ve got to overhaul the way we do dialogue. And, while I’ve clearly represented that I’m no saint, I’d like to share one thing that I feel I do well, too. If we shouldn’t rely on character assasination to express our outrage, what then?
Frankly, I think this is one of the most important reasons that Christians SHOULD be swearing more.
I know. I just lost you there. What do I mean by that? Well, I think that most ’salty language’ conveys a sense of emotion and power that other words cannot convey. If people are going to be telling the truth about their feelings, AND not running around denigrating their detractors, I think it’s only fair that people really use the words they mean.
For example in expressing my anger and frustration about something, I would hypothesize that the more truthful expression of frustration would be for me to say:
Dammit-all, that fuckin’ pisses me off.
as compared to the more angelic but less honest:
Sheesh, that really drives me up the wall.
I might even hypothesize that if one isn’t able to honestly cathart those feelings they have with honest (if more salty) language, they’re probably more likely to participate in dishonest rhetoric (ad hominem, red herrings, etc) to get their point acrossed. Now, that’s a lot of hypotheses, and I don’t have any scientific support for them, yet they seem logical. (Perhaps, if any of you study communication out there you could do a study…oh, wait, that’s me.)
A while ago a commenter commented (and now I can’t find the comment to save my life) that she didn’t realize the value of the ’salty word’ until a friend of hers had been raped. She said that the pat phrases that were ‘commonly appropriate’ sounded trite and somewhat irreverant. (For example, try telling a rape victim what happened to them is, “really unfortunate, a real bummer, that sucks, etc.”) The only words that really captured honestly the tenor of the day were ’salty’ words, words commonly conceived of as vulgar.
Sometimes, honesty requires us to break down the mores of society and just, well, be honest no matter the cost. I don’t have all the answers here, but I think your voices are as important as mine in this discussion, so with that, I turn it over to you. What do y’all think about the ‘ethic of outrage’?
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Posted in faith, culture at 9:09 am by
This post started off as a comment on Zalm’s excellent Conversation Peace series. It got much too long for a comment on somebody’s blog, so I brought it over here. To give a bit of background, this series is about the medium of blogging in the process of dialogue. It takes an ethical spin on the way we are to communicate across this medium. In a recent post, Zalm and Kristen (from McCarty Musings) raised a question: Is it okay to be outraged, and then, is it okay to express that outrage. They thought that, yes, there was a place for that…but how, then, should we communicate that outrage honestly, how do we communicate our anger fairly.
Interesting question. What’s the ethic of outrage?
Years ago, my dad led a seminar on feelings at our Junior High. That was back when I was in junior high, so, yeah, that was a while ago. Anyway, the thing I took from that seminar was that “feelings aren’t right or wrong, they just are.” So, to apply that to this situation, outrage itself isn’t the problem.
Rather, the challenge (I’m not really sure it’s a problem) with outrage is how to express it, if I’m understanding the debate correctly. It seems that, if outrage is normal and okay to feel, it must be okay to express that outrage. To me, if there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with a human emotion, there shouldn’t be anything wrong with expressing that emotion, per se.
I think, though, that Zalm was right on the money with virtue number one of his Conversation Peace series. Honesty. I think that in expressing our outrage, we should rise above political tricksterism and foolish rhetoric. Here’s a great example (humbly submitted, because I’m the jackass that pulled off this intentional rhetorical ‘lie’):
In my discussion with Mr. Scott about the hurricane relief debacle over at my blog, I made the comment:
Scott, perhaps folks would take you a tad more seriously if you weren’t spewing partisan rhetorical mis-information and finding the closest black democrat to tack this whole mess on.
Okay, so if you look closely, I’ve basically levelled a deniable rhetorical condemnation of racism on Scott. In responding, Scott was pissed that I played the race card. Now, had I not seen what a jackassety move I’d made, I could’ve responded that I was merely making a statment of fact about the black mayor thing, that I wasn’t meaning to infer that Scott was, in fact, a racist. Of course, I was. And that, to me, is rhetorical cheating. So, if you’re still reading Scott, out of anger, I was unfair and for that I apologize.
I could use any number of other examples, probably looking to Karl Rove for the next bunch (as Rove should have a Ph.D. in this kind of rhetoric) but frankly, I think the fact that I’m dishonest, probably regularly, is humbling and example enough. I think being rhetorically honest in the blogosphere is a HUGE issue. One of the most used rhetorical techniques is often ad hominem. When we can’t really win an argument on reason, we tear down the person we’re arguing with.
So, if we’re going to be honest and not misrepresent individuals or individual’s viewpoints (i.e. any of the family of red herring fallacies,) I think we’ve got to overhaul the way we do dialogue. And, while I’ve clearly represented that I’m no saint, I’d like to share one thing that I feel I do well, too. If we shouldn’t rely on character assasination to express our outrage, what then?
Frankly, I think this is one of the most important reasons that Christians SHOULD be swearing more.
I know. I just lost you there. What do I mean by that? Well, I think that most ’salty language’ conveys a sense of emotion and power that other words cannot convey. If people are going to be telling the truth about their feelings, AND not running around denigrating their detractors, I think it’s only fair that people really use the words they mean.
For example in expressing my anger and frustration about something, I would hypothesize that the more truthful expression of frustration would be for me to say:
Dammit-all, that fuckin’ pisses me off.
as compared to the more angelic but less honest:
Sheesh, that really drives me up the wall.
I might even hypothesize that if one isn’t able to honestly cathart those feelings they have with honest (if more salty) language, they’re probably more likely to participate in dishonest rhetoric (ad hominem, red herrings, etc) to get their point acrossed. Now, that’s a lot of hypotheses, and I don’t have any scientific support for them, yet they seem logical. (Perhaps, if any of you study communication out there you could do a study…oh, wait, that’s me.)
A while ago a commenter commented (and now I can’t find the comment to save my life) that she didn’t realize the value of the ’salty word’ until a friend of hers had been raped. She said that the pat phrases that were ‘commonly appropriate’ sounded trite and somewhat irreverant. (For example, try telling a rape victim what happened to them is, “really unfortunate, a real bummer, that sucks, etc.”) The only words that really captured honestly the tenor of the day were ’salty’ words, words commonly conceived of as vulgar.
Sometimes, honesty requires us to break down the mores of society and just, well, be honest no matter the cost. I don’t have all the answers here, but I think your voices are as important as mine in this discussion, so with that, I turn it over to you. What do y’all think about the ‘ethic of outrage’?
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MMM said,
September 5, 2005 at 10:32 am
I think I agree that sometimes cussin’ is the only way to let someone know you’re truly mad about something for their sake:
“Shit, man. That’s fucked up.”
And yeah, I fight ad hominem a lot, too. I knew it would be coming, I pray a lot that the anger stays properly focused and doesn’t lash out and burn someone who’s truly not responsible for our state of PO. I know there are times when something starts out as anger at an issue, and then the person expressing the anger says something that pulls that psych string that makes me feel they caused it, and the old ad hominem rears its ugly head, and then all of a sudden, the real reason why we’re mad is buried underneath the torrent of “Why I Hate You”.
Man, that’s fucked up.
Thanks for writing about it.
Scott said,
September 5, 2005 at 12:11 pm
Hey, no problem.
ding said,
September 5, 2005 at 11:40 pm
yes. lately, i’ve been thinking about how i handle those who fundamentally disagree with me on my blog. i was tangled in a long discussion of race that was rapidly deteriorating and making me seriously upset because i kept trying to argue like it was debate team. it’s not debate team. who was i trying to convert with my secondary references and my academic one-upmanship?
not my anonymous commenter, who gleefully pushed all my buttons - until i finally had enough and let loose - and finally got honest. cursing a blue streak might not be polite, but it gets the point across.
Xpatriated Texan said,
September 6, 2005 at 8:50 am
I am of the opinion that there are no “bad” words - there are simply words that are either appropriate or not for the situation. Sometimes those good old fashioned Anglo-Saxon words - “vulgar” because they are in the “common tongue” of old - can just convey different levels of feeling and meaning.
One of the most effective sermons I ever heard was “Right now there are people dying and going to Hell and you simply don’t give a damn about it. In fact, you are more concerned that I said, “Damn” than you are about the loss of salvation to literally millions of souls.”
It was given by a visiting missionary - one who was never invited back, I might add. His point? If you really cared, you would put your faith into action.
His way of saying it made the point much better. So much better that I remember it word-for-word almost thirty years later.
XT
Brandon said,
September 6, 2005 at 9:13 am
The funniest thing, I think, XT, is that phrase you heard in a sermon was actually edited a touch for the hearing. If I’m not wrong the origin of that quote can be traced back to Tony Campolo (who’s got a book out about evangelicalism now, that I’d like to read!).
Tony actually said (or at least this is pretty close):
None of this negates your point, of course, XT. I simply thought it was interesting that even the version of the quote that you had heard had been somewhat ‘churchified’ by it’s use of salvation as the primary focus (rather than starvation) and the use of ‘damn’ rather than ’shit.’
zippy the troll said,
September 6, 2005 at 12:24 pm
Once, a long time ago, in woodshop class at my very Christian high school, one of my classmates used a ‘bad’ word. We were all caught by surprise and looked to the instructor for his response. He was a wise, quiet man. He paused for a moment and then said, “Sometimes you need words like that. Sometimes no other words will do.”
I think it’s important to use the ‘bad’ words. Sometimes nothing else will convey the intensity of the moment or the feeling. But do it carefully. Their power is diminished by overuse. Remember, shit is still shit: while it might be good in the flowerbed, nobody needs it tracked around the house.
Kent Willocks said,
September 6, 2005 at 12:58 pm
I agree with the need to be able to express our outrage in truthful ways that don’t unfairly demean those who disagree, but I think we can find ways and words to do the job without resorting to drivel or obscenity.
Our culture has trained us to think obscenity and profanity are the only way to express strong emotion, I don’t buy it. It is not just that I am a prude about bad language, I care about the meaning of the words I use. When we use the word “fucking” we don’t usually care that we are invoking a word that degrades a holy union to the level of sensual indulgence and or rape. All we want is to say something shocking so you know how strongly we feel it.
Furthermore, when we use vulgar language we risk alienating those who ARE prudish about words and allow them to dismiss us without considering the validity of our message.
Perhaps you just need a new thesaurus.
ninjanun said,
September 6, 2005 at 1:21 pm
The only problem I see with Kent’s suggestion to “use a thesaurus” is that any words one might find in there to express outrage are either not strong enough, or the person you are expressing them to might not know their meaning.
And yes, FUCK literally means “rape.” It stands for For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, and the initials (F.U.C.K.) were put over the doors of prisoners in England who were guilty of that very crime.
But words like “poop,” “crap” and “shit” all have the same dictionary meaning, but different connotations and increasing degrees of offensiveness. If I’m having a poopy day, maybe I got a speeding ticket or stubbed my toe. If I’m having a crappy day maybe I’m working a double shift after a sleepless night and all the customers are being rude. And if I’m having a truly shitty day, my best friend was just molested by an acquaintence, my husband just left me for another woman, and my uncle died of a drug overdose. I know we tend not to parse these words to such a degree (and I don’t do that myself, I was just using those examples as an illustration), but to say you’re having a “poopy” day when in fact you are having a shit storm of a day is to not do justice to the horrible circumstances.
However, I still think such words are appropriate to use in context. When used to convey emotion, they are very effective in getting your meaning across quickly, effectively, and without having to consult a thesaurus in the middle of a diatribe. Obviously, I don’t use words around people I know will be offended by them, and if I happen to, it’s because a situation so greatly offends me that I want to convey how offensive I find it to others by using such words. If they have a problem with me using profanity in light of a certain situation (the rape of a friend, the senseless violence or disregard for human life), then, as Tony Campolo stated above, there is something seriously wrong with their priorities. Maybe if the world was a better place, there’d be no need to use “naughty” words.
Kent Willocks said,
September 6, 2005 at 1:55 pm
Notice I said: “we can find ways and words to do the job without resorting to DRIVEL or obscenity.” If you thought I was advocating the use of NICE words like “poopy” you missed the point.
I think if I say, “I am angry to the point of outrage”, or something like it I can get the point across without having to say I am “fucking mad”. If I say, “I’ve had a terribly exhausting and frustrating day” I can be understood without resorting to “shitty day” OR “poopy day”.
I think the need for bad language is a lazy sellout to the lies of contemporary culture. The bad language is not really more honest, it is actually a euphemism, or an ugly metaphor, when we are actually just to lazy to use words that explain how we really feel.
Brandon said,
September 6, 2005 at 2:08 pm
Well, Kent. I think you’re wrong.
I still reserve the right to like you if you stick around–and I hope you do–but I think you’re wrong.
That’s all.
Kent Willocks said,
September 6, 2005 at 2:40 pm
Thanks,
I enjoy reading you from time to time, and I always prefer people who “reserve the right to like” people they disagree with.
I consider my comments here to be niggling over secondary issues in view of your primary point about the need to communicate our anger honestly and fairly.
Eric W said,
September 6, 2005 at 3:02 pm
Brandon - in “of intelligent design and such” you spoke of the “NASCAR fan” and de-volving.
That’s what I think of when I hear excessive profanity. The NASCAR fan. De-volving.
I think it’s a cop out to say that profanity is the only way to express certain feelings and emotions. It certainly is easier to drop the f-bomb than to really think and come up with a phrase or phrases that express your true feelings. Profanity indicates nothing but the presence of anger or outrage. Who cares? Tell me what has made you angry or outraged, that’s more important.
The Campolo message was effective because it used profanity for shock value, but had a real message behind it. If he would have just said “shit” in the middle of his message it would have had NO value. The fact that he followed that up with information on starvation and action is what made it effective.
Mike said,
September 6, 2005 at 3:23 pm
Kent: Perhaps you are confusing profanity and obscenity. Profanity means to take something sacred and use it in a way which, by implication, demeans it. There aren’t a lot of sacred things in this world, therefore, there really aren’t a lot of ways we can agree upon profanity. If we agree that sexual intercourse is sacred, then “fuck” is a profanity.
btw Brandon, my OED add-on has this as the origins of “fuck”: “Fornication Under Carnal Knowledge”. I have no idea which origin is right. Even the Internet has its limits.
Obscenity is determined by community standards according to the Supreme Court and most people. By today’s standards then, there isn’t much that would be considered obscene all across the board.
JJ said,
September 6, 2005 at 5:27 pm
Just to add to the discussion of what constitutes profanity… I live in a French/English bilingual city. When I moved here I quickly noticed that the French seemed to swear a lot more than the English. After a while I asked about this, and learned that the reason behind that is that the French do not see any significance to English swear words… our words revolve around sex and body parts, body waste… not important, at least in contrast to the words that are obscene in French — they revolve around Holy Communion, the chalice you drink from during Holy Communion, the Temple, etc…
And to get back to the point of this discussion, I know that when I’m trying to explain my point to someone I may not know very well, or something, I tend to avoid cursing if at all possible, but among people I trust it doesn’t seem necessary. Saying that something ‘fucking pisses me off’ sounds completely different than ‘i am angry to the point of outrage’… the second one could even be seen as patronizing, and therefore not be taken seriously.
ninjanun said,
September 6, 2005 at 5:38 pm
It vexes me. I am greatly vexed.
:p
Brandon said,
September 6, 2005 at 5:49 pm
I’m really busy and haven’t posted yet today (though I hope to get one up tonight) and so I apologize that I have been absent from this little debate that I started.
I’ve written at length on the nature of those words we consider to be ’salty’ and I’d refer you to that discussion for my position on what makes a bad word bad. Or perhaps, this discussion of the words I don’t use.
Again, sorry for not being much of a sport when it comes to this discussion. Believe me, it’s one I value greatly, and would love to contribute to. But I simply haven’t had the time to attend to it as I would’ve liked today.
zalm said,
September 6, 2005 at 7:50 pm
For that matter, I haven’t had time to chime in yet either, even though I’ve got a lot invested in this discussion, too.
I will in time, but today is a doozy of a day.
As Brandon points out, the “salty” language aspect of his post is a conversation we’ve had many times in the past. But he starts out the post asking a very different question…
I realize I’m reframing things a little bit here, but I’ll ask this: if one of our goals on a site like this is to pursue truth in community, how do we go about expressing outrage or even disagreement in a way that doesn’t just harden the position of those who disagree with us?
Brandon said,
September 6, 2005 at 8:12 pm
Good question, Zalm.
I haven’t much of an answer. In fact, from a communication perspective, there’s scant evidence that such opinions actually change.
Of course, that’s not to say that we must engage in dialogue that polarizes. I think that perhaps a similar interesting question would be:
How do we engage in dialogue in which neither side substantively alters their perceptions or attitudes, but is still fruitful?
And, what does ‘fruitful’ mean? How can it be measured if suasatory effect isn’t the variable of interest?
In a way, we’ve come full circle to the question I asked over at your blog–what does it look like for us to ‘bridge the gap?’
Kent Willocks said,
September 6, 2005 at 8:25 pm
Mike: I intentionally included both profanity and obscenity. I am not particularly interested in formal or legal definitions here, but in how they are commonly culturally understood. Most of us know our own culture well enough to know when we are using a word that might be considered offensive. Most of the time we use those words, we know we are choosing to be ‘naughty’ in order to achieve a certain response.
As one who is no longer “held prisoner by the law” I won’t say the use of such language is a damnable offence, but I think at the least it is almost always culturally inconsiderate, and/or intellectually lazy.
Our freedom in Christ should never become license. Not everything is beneficial or constructive.
As a person who finds the church in America (on both extremes) to be a poor reflection of Christ, I don’t want to buy in to one extreme just for the sake of rebelling against the other. Often it seems like advocates of strong language are just trying to rebel against their narrow legalistic backgrounds.
I want to be an acurate reflection of Christ so I can work for the redemption of all, not just those I like.
Kent Willocks said,
September 6, 2005 at 8:44 pm
Brandon: I think dialogue is fruitful when it increases our respect for each other and causes us to think more deeply about what we believe, even when our positions don’t change. It is unfruitful when it demeans and dehumanizes those we disagree with.
I think our discussions here about the use of language are an example of fruitful dialogue.
The challenge is to remain civil and respectful when wrestling with a topic we feel much more deeply emotional about, such as: the survival of storm refugees, or the invasion of a foreign country.
Ultimately, God can change hearts and minds. We just don’t want our conduct or our language to throw up unnecessary roadblocks.
ninjanun said,
September 6, 2005 at 10:15 pm
I think the need for bad language is a lazy sellout to the lies of contemporary culture. The bad language is not really more honest, it is actually a euphemism, or an ugly metaphor, when we are actually just to[sic] lazy to use words that explain how we really feel.
What lies of contemporary culture would those be?
So if someone said (in all honesty–although perhaps not any more or less honestly than saying, “I’ve had a terribly frustrating and exhausting day”) they had a “shitty” day, they are being “lazy?” Why? Because they didn’t use words like “terribly exhausting and frustrating?” Is that really laziness, or just efficiency? They’ve still gotten their point across, they used shorter and less words to do so, and they also, perhaps, released a bit of their anger in doing so. I think it reaches the goal of communication rather well.
Plus, words like ‘frustrating’ and ‘exhausting’ simply don’t do justice to some situations, as I think was the point of Brandon’s original post. It’s not effective communication to use any word so much that it loses its meaning, and it’s advisable not to use expletives around those whom you don’t know well enough to gauge whether or not you’ll offend them, but that doesn’t mean that when one DOES use such words, you are being culturally inconsiderate and/or lazy.
I don’t know if I’m adequately addressing your point, Kent, but maybe that’s because I don’t understand exactly what you’re trying to say.
zalm said,
September 7, 2005 at 4:51 am
I understand what you mean, Brandon. And I think you draw a pretty accurate picture of most conversation these days, particularly in blogdom.
But I’m not yet ready to accept this as The Way It Is and move on to other questions.
We all write for different reasons. Many of us write because we’re on some sort of journey. We come to a site like yours or like mine to let our journeys bump up against each other. To the extent that this is true, I think it’s worth considering why we interact in this way, how we should go about it, and where we’d like this to take us.
If the answer to that last part is that we don’t expect to go anywhere because none of us is likely to change, then I’m not sure I have a very good reason for why we’re doing this in the first place.
In the series of posts that you so graciously linked to, I guess I’ve been trying to say that if our conversations over time are not transformational, then perhaps we’re going about them the wrong way.
Brandon said,
September 7, 2005 at 6:58 am
I see what you mean, Zalm.
I think what vexes me about the very meat of transformational conversations, is that transformation of opinion might not be the most important thing.
I’ve got a post–inspired by the great Dave Bazan–I’m hoping to get up today sometime that’s getting at this very idea. Picking it apart a bit…because I think it’s a tad abstract. (And, truth be told, I don’t even really understand what I believe until I write it…which is another factor that probably needs to be added into the equation of understanding transformational discourse.)
So, I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t believe that transformation of opinion is the ‘be all end all’ of a transformational dialectic. I think that it’s possible that folks of entrenched perspective can stay somewhat entrenched (although, there are a number fo caveats to that, which I’ll get to in my post) and still be transformed.
Thanks for this discussion, Zalm et al. I’m finding it challenging and insightful all around!
zalm said,
September 7, 2005 at 12:12 pm
Oh, I very much agree. I’d be a particularly poor kind of Christian if I thought that all we needed to change was our opinions.
Also, that would mean that the only thing that is dividing us is our opinions. But it’s gotta be deeper than that. Right?
I’m looking forward to this next post.
Kent Willocks said,
September 8, 2005 at 10:57 am
Ninjanun: I realize that there are some holes in my argument, and that the use of a word like ‘lazy’ can feel like an insult or an attack. Also, I realize I am not likely to convince you, so I was going to let this topic drop.
However, in the interest of beating a dead horse: I was mulling this over this morning and I wondered, if what you are saying is true, why is it so many people (myself included) seem to get by just fine without using bad language to express our strong emotions, and without feeling verbally deprived? Could it be that I don’t feel things as strongly as you, or am I just a hopeless do gooder? I don’t think so. Do I just enjoy thinking I’m better than you? I hope not.
I think the need for bad language is a choice. You choose to believe the shorthand is better and that you could not adequately express yourself another way. I choose not to.
ninjanun said,
September 8, 2005 at 1:22 pm
No, Kent, I appreciate you beating the dead horse, because I enjoy this dialoge, and want to understand where you’re coming from, even if we don’t agree.
I used to operate much the same way you do (didn’t ever cuss, didn’t think it was necessarily wrong, just something I chose not to do, thought it would be better to use more, erm, refined words, etc.), but now I do, on occassion, and around those people whom I know it won’t offend. Of course, the reason I know it won’t offend them is because they used profanity before I did, and they’re Christians, so it’s not really an issue of being a bad witness. Of course, you could make the argument that I might let an expletive slip in the company of someone I don’t know very well and damage my “witness,” but like I said, I think it’s wrong to use profanity so much that it loses its effect or rolls off the tongue for just any situation. That, I think is lazy.
And while I admit that the words themselves only have the importance and the connotation that we give it, both as a culture at large, and in our more private, intimate cultures (the circle of friends, for instance), no word is “bad” in and of itself, apart from context. For instance, the word “nigger” can be extremely insulting or a term of affection, depending on who is speaking it, and to whom it’s spoken to.
I remember (with regret) telling off a friend of mine for using “salty” language at work. What I didn’t understand is that her work culture (brawny construction worker types) used expletives in an entirely different way. I didn’t understand this at the time, and made her feel guilty about something that, in context, was not wrong for her to say. For her to use more ‘refined’ words would have made her uppity or prude to her fellow coworkers.
From the Salmon said,
September 18, 2005 at 3:57 am
A Place for Outrage
I’d like to pick up a thread of conversation that started back in my Conversation Peace series. If you remember, this discussion started with a proposal that, in a medium fraught with fractious debate that only hardens already entrenched positi…
zalm said,
September 18, 2005 at 4:04 am
Hmmmm… Trackbacks don’t seem to show up in Recent Comments. Consider this an “Ahem” to a post that I should have written a week or so ago.
Also, your link to “Some Viewing Statistics” done been busted.
Brandon said,
September 18, 2005 at 7:59 am
Interesting. I upgraded Friday, and it seems like b2evo hasn’t gotten all the kinks out just yet.
UPDATE…I fixed the issues, Zalm. Well, sort of fixed them at least. I basically got rid of the ‘viewing stats link.’
shelly said,
April 9, 2006 at 2:02 am
Personally, I think some “saltier” words suit the occasion, as they’re the only words that work. There’s only one I won’t ever say (the c-word…I think you know what I mean), and that’s because of its connotation toward women.
Meanwhile, “fuck” isn’t an acronym for anything…
http://www.snopes.com/language/acronyms/fuck.htm
…but it has been around in some form since the 15th century.
benjamin said,
April 9, 2006 at 4:27 pm
A c-word that’s derogatory to women… hmmm, let me think….
Conservative?