Originally Published Oct, 2021
As our culture changes, our language changes, for better or worse
I don’t know what the world is coming to, but I don’t think we’re doing much to help the next generation on their way. As Lt Col Frank Slade once snarled, I fear we’re not exactly preparing the minnows for manhood.
We seem to be getting rather soft even as the world feels a little spikier every year. It’s hard to know how we will survive as a species if this keeps up. Maybe I’m wrong, but it’s almost as if it’s no longer culturally permissible to ridicule, mock, shame, disparage, deride or denigrate your fellow man any more.
In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d think maybe we were being called on to no longer belittle, diminish, deprecate, cast aspersions on, decry, criticize, attack, speak ill of, sully, defame, slander, libel, besmirch, run down, abuse, insult, slight, revile, malign, or vilify another human being — not even our sworn enemies.
This, of course, just seems — well, wrong.
How else will they know how stupid, ignorant, dense, brainless, mindless, foolish, witless, slow, simpleminded, vacuous, vapid, halfwitted, idiotic, moronic, imbecilic, obtuse, doltish, gullible, naive, thick, dim, dumb, dopey, dozy, crazy, cretinous, birdbrained, pea-brained, bovine, soft in the head, brain-dead, boneheaded, lame-brained, thickheaded, daft, or barmy they are, if we don’t illustrate their obvious shortcomings with detailed explanations, or at least small words we think they’ll understand?
We need this culture to man up, except we can’t say that either, lest we disparage anyone’s gender or lack thereof. We can no longer ridicule a man for acting like a little girl because it besmirches, well, little girls for one. Which is fair.
But how we are supposed to teach our fellow men not to be wimps, wusses, pansies, cowards, weaklings, sissy’s, snowflakes, mama’s boys, crybabies, scaredy-cats, chickens, cream puffs, yellow-bellied candy-asses, cupcakes, pantywaists, or pussies?
Apparently, all these words have a cruel history of vilifying homosexuals and otherwise effeminate men, as well as contributing to an epidemic of toxic masculinity, misogyny, sexual harassment and bigotry. So, pretty good reason, I suppose.
Words have power and meaning and can be used really destructively, which is why we tend not to use such language in civil society. But what are we supposed to do when society becomes — well, less civil?
Are we meant to recite sonnets at those who abuse us? Respond with haiku or maybe a Broadway number? I no longer believe in physical violence, but I strongly believe in language that can cut you to the bone. I don’t want a license to carry a handgun but I do expect the freedom to arm and defend myself with words. Words of mass destruction, if you will.
No one is going to listen to a white man bitch and moan about not getting to abuse the rest of the world as they wish, and I don’t blame anyone for wanting it to stop. But I fear that we won’t actually change behavior, we’re just shoving it back underground.
You can’t legislate civility or decency. Some people deserve to be ridiculed and shamed. It’s fine if we decided this particular word is off limits, or that one is a no-no. Personally, I think there are no bad words, only poor uses, and inappropriate authors. But we’ve already determined that I don’t get to make the decision about what is offensive to someone else.
What I worry about is what happens when everything is offensive to someone, rather than offensive to everyone. What happens to art? What happens to literature? What happens to public discourse? It dies. It doesn’t die right away. It withers slowly, atrophying to nothing, and then it dies.
I have no interest in living in your perpetual Sunday School class of fairy tale, utopian dreams where no one is offended because no one is ever challenged. I prefer a free market of ideas, which unfortunately means you can still get “cancelled,” so I guess the next generation is going to decide what we can say and what we can’t.
It’s always been this way. Just ask the old white guy who USED to own the LA Clippers. Bet he didn’t see that shit coming. The times, they are a changin’. We evolve or we get tossed aside.
The difference is, we never had all these old, white people with such a public platform before. A mechanism where they could say whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, about whatever they wanted. Well, maybe we did. But only for the rich ones. Now we have the internet and anyone can join in.
We’re not going to rid the human race of hatred anytime soon. It doesn’t matter whether you call it bigotry or righteous indignation, anger towards another person is anger towards another person. The question is going to be, who holds the power?
After all, it was never about the words. It was always about the power.