Let’s stop using foul language and do our culture a favor

There’s no doubt the immediacy of the Internet has coarsened public discourse. Not everywhere online, but, it seems, in more and more places. Of course, the same can be said of a coarsening of our culture in other areas. That is, language most people not too long ago avoided in public, if not in all areas of their lives, is now commonplace on television, in the movies, on radio, in music, and certainly in print.

I was reminded of this turn of events this morning by a friend’s Facebook post:

“Maybe it is just me, but has anyone noticed no one can seem to type anything on FB these days without using the ‘F’ word or some other swear? Ya, we say it, I’ve said it….and it isn’t pretty. Maybe time to ratchet back on the profanity, written and spoken….”

As I said earlier, it’s not just typing, and it’s not just on Facebook. But my friend makes a valid point. Wherever this coarsening of public discourse began, I think it had an element of shock value. My most vivid first impression was with comedians such as George Carlin, Eddie Murphy, and Robin Williams. All three are brilliant comics, with Misters Murphy and Williams also brilliant actors. They were brilliant whenever they performed standup comedy without profanity — on family television variety shows such as The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, or the daytime variety shows such as The Merv Griffin Show.

My former online forum, As Maine Goes, grew to a readership of over 2.5 million page views with 278,000 unique visitors annually. AMG encouraged online public discourse. Registered users didn’t all agree with each other. That would have been boring. But users were expected to avoid profanities in making their online points. With rare exceptions that’s exactly what happened.

Why did I impose such a policy? For a few reasons.

A “thread” is a written online conversation — somewhat like reading a movie script with two or more characters having a dialogue. Early on I noticed whenever someone first typed a comment including profanity, inevitably the thread progressed downward, a coarse oneupmanship — until I, as AMG owner, intervened. Yes, AMG was equipped with an online profane word censor, but users who insisted on using the “F” word and its cousins, were creative in finding unique ways around the auto-censor.

That was not what I had in mind for AMG so I established the “no profanity” policy. There are many, many words we can use to make our points. For anyone who refused to make points without profanities — there were forums other than AMG, or they could start their own forums.

Also, the magazines and newspapers publishing letters to the editor, or guest columns, were not accepting profanities. Neither were the radio and tv talk shows.

I’m not prudish. Yesterday I took a cellphone call from a friend. I was heading for a place to sit and talk when I walked into the sharp hardwood edge of a chair leg, splitting open the tip of the third toe on my bare left foot. I used a full volume “F” bomb in reaction. Ouch!

On the other hand, Eileen watched the first season of Amazon’s “Mozart in the Jungle” tv show. It was a very interesting show that could have helped introduce classical music to a broad audience — especially a younger audience. But the language of a few major characters is
gratuitously, consistently foul. I certainly will not recommend the show. And that’s too bad. Its creators had a good idea.

Coarse language loses shock value with repetition. Then we become numb to it and accept its use in more and more public places. Call me old-fashioned, but I think that’s lazy, unnecessary, and culturally corrosive.

Scott K. Fish has served as a communications staffer for Maine Senate and House Republican caucuses, and was communications director for Senate President Kevin Raye. He founded and edited AsMaineGoes.com and served as director of communications/public relations for Maine’s Department of Corrections until 2015. He is now using his communications skills to serve clients in the private sector.