Profanity-laced rap played from the salon speakers. A man and his barber discussed the fees associated with meal delivery, lacing their statements with the F word and other curses. A few steps away, the customer’s son, about ten years old, sat on a bench playing a game on a cell phone. As my tattoo-covered stylist snipped, I thought about myself four decades ago, going with my dad to Ralph the barber. Ralph greeted people loudly and shook hands with strength. He looked similar to the guys in the hair-product ads on his wall, his linen shirts tucked into pleated khakis. As a child, I spent many hours hearing him and my dad talk, but I never heard them swear. I never heard a swear word from the shop’s radio speakers. I don’t recall hearing vulgarities from speakers in any store or seeing them on the T-shirts of people on sidewalks. Now I often do. Public profanity used to be rare. Now, it is less so.
Is that a problem? Profanity’s increased presence indicates that more people today than in decades past think not. Maybe this is just society overcoming an outdated taboo, but it’s worth wondering about the reasons for the taboo. Despite cursing’s growing acceptance, it still offends some people, and in their eyes, the speaker looks obnoxious. Traditionally, all the more so when a man swears in front of women or an adult in front of children. This is because swearing conveys a lack of regard for the moral principles related to discipline and humility. It connotes self-abandonment to the primal, or at least a willingness to step into its territory.
Nearly all curse words concern either animal impulses or the divine. They reveal things hidden, such as defecation, urination, or sex. Or, they bring low the things held in awe, like the afterlife or God.
As to the first category, controlling bodily elimination is among the first disciplines any child learns. It’s a primary rung on the ladder to becoming skilled and able to offer value to others. In addition, children are taught to treat the subject with discretion around others. When an adult swears in a child’s presence, this signals to the child that self-control is maybe not as important as was taught. Like a termite nibling a house’s frame, it weakens the moral structure upholding the child’s nascent character.
Sex creates families and can ruin them if not controlled. Stable families tend to produce stable people with much self-control, allowing them to pursue goals despite wavering emotions. Civilization depends on creation and maintaining what’s created, like roads, judicial systems, and businesses. Such creation and maintenance requires discipline; hence, society’s interest in sexual morality. When a man swears in front of a woman, he brings the primal to light, signaling a disregard for such morality and an invitation for her to do the same.
Regarding the divine, beyond the fact of our own eventual deaths, we don’t really know what will happen, or even much of what’s going on now. We live surrounded by mystery and faith so pervasive that, like air, we don’t often notice it. We have faith that our hearts won’t suddenly stop and that oncoming cars will stay in their lane. We sacrifice to create while knowing that in a short time, all of our creations will be gone, but mostly we don’t despair because we have faith that it’s all for something, even if it’s hard to say what that something is. At the very least, and regardless of religious belief, the word “God” refers to a being that knows, and maybe is, that something. To invoke that word in anger over or blame for a trivial matter indicates that, in the moment of speaking, the speaker regarded the ineffable itself as trivial. For that moment he submitted to the nihilistic notion that because all we create will disappear, there is no value in creation.
If the taboo against cursing exists to preserve the morals an ordered society depends on, why do people do it? Maybe we sometimes want others to hear, but people often swear to themselves, like when banging their head on a cabinet door or running a lawnmower over a wasp nest. Pain and fear can make thought retreat, preventing it from filtering the words that come out. But, why are curses the sort of words that tend to come out when the filter is gone?
Technically categorized as intensifiers, curse words, when used as such, essentially mean “very.” Using the most versatile vulgarity as an example, someone back from a longer walk than expected might say “The road was fing long,” meaning that it was very long. A description of a prior night’s rager might include “it was a fing party,” meaning that the party was very good. In contrast, one might utter “f***ing traffic” while driving near Boston. Benign words can replace the profane, but some meaning escapes when doing so. That lost meaning, though, does not relate to the thing described, but to the speaker. When a person swears, he’s talking about himself; specifically, his emotions and willingness to breach the bounds of civility for their sake.
When injury induces profanity, the source of those words is the desire to express anger at the cause, even if the cause is oneself, and to convey intolerance for further harm. It’s profanity rather than polite language that shows the person’s willingness to become uncivil, i.e., violent, out of anger, and for defense. Swearing when describing some event or thing as good says that the goodness was emotionally moving and that the compliments aren’t mere politeness. When a person curses, he’s expressing that he means what he says.
As with properly ordered primal behaviors, swearing isn’t always detrimental. It can encourage camaraderie and strengthen bonds. Occasional cursing among a group of peers in a social hierarchy, such as players on a baseball team, can show that people are willing to be at ease and honest around each other. When the ranks in the hierarchy differ, such as a boss swearing cordially when talking with a subordinate, this can indicate an elevated level of trust. Too much swearing, however, will corrode. As a little alcohol can facilitate friendship among strangers, too much can lead to conflict, secrets imprudently shared, and sickness; excessive profanity can have the same effect on adults as on children and rot the foundations of their virtue.
Civilization is what separates humans from the animals. The elements of civilization, such as law, education, and technology, require sustained reasoning and effort. Morality guides the behavior of people in a way that encourages them to cultivate habits conducive to such work and punishes those who try to destroy or prevent it. A fundamental aspect of morality is restraining the animal self so that the constructs of reason can thrive. This discipline is a pillar of civilization, allowing people to create things of value. Profane speech chips away at this pillar, and its prevalence in public is a symptom and cause of civilizational decay.
Image: AT via Magic Studio