The Dumbing Down of Decorum

    In the last year, I’ve heard a lot about political commentator Megyn Kelly. So I thought I would listen to a couple of her broadcasts. She is passionate and she’s crystal clear about where she stands on political and cultural issues. She’s a lifelong Catholic (well, not everyone can be a 5-star Gnostic, can they?) and, with her husband Douglas Brunt, has three children, the oldest of whom is in her mid-teens. 

    I also noticed she laces her broadcasts with language that at one time would get kids sent to their rooms without dinner. I have to  admit that Kelly’s obscenities caught me a little off guard. It almost seemed they were intended as a shock effect, like a 13-year-old trying out vulgarities she’s picked up at school. When she says these things, I wonder if she cares that her children—or someone else’s kids—may be listening. For all I know, perhaps this is commonplace in the Brunt-Kelly home.

    Of course, Kelly is not alone in her crudity, especially in the United States. A WordTips analysis of 1.7 million tweets found that our country, by a huge margin, has the dubious honor of leading the world in swearing. We're #1! Nice... To be fair, all one has to do is watch a few episodes of Bravo TVs Real Housewives of Whatever County, or those shows about the young people working on high-end cruise ships in the Mediterranean or off the Florida coast. I would need the calculator they use at NASA to count how many times the FCC person had to hit the “beep” button. 

    Evidence of a fondness for expletives extends beyond social media and television. For decades, F-bombs and scatological language have been common in films. Books appear with this same profanity in the title. In 2007, for example, just a year before his death, the eloquent conservative William F. Buckley published “Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription.” The shopping website Etsy features an entire subsection “Obscene T-Shirt,” most of which are too gross to cite on this family-friendly website. 

    Then there are the people we encounter in our everyday lives. Right here in bucolic Bucks County, Pennsylvania, passing cars sometimes blare out the hard-core lyrics of rap and heavy metal songs. It’s commonplace to hear passersby on the sidewalk slinging out casual curses in conversations with friends or on the phone. 

    Now, to be fair, some observers applaud this practice. Search online for “Is swearing bad?” and you’ll find plenty of articles and blogs arguing a positive case for expletives. Some of these writers contend that cursing relieves stress and is a plus for good health. Others hold that that swearing accents our passion or anger, and can convey honesty. 

    Meanwhile, those opposed also make their case. Of these, Anna Brink in “Why Is Swearing Bad, Mom?” makes the most succinct and commonplace arguments against profanity. While waiting in line at a store, she and her young son listened as two teenage employees bantered back and forth unleashing all manner of expletives. That incident determined Brink to arm herself with answers if her son asked why swearing was bad. She came up with these four objections: the words you choose influence what others think of you, the opportunities you receive, your relationships, and your ability to communicate effectively. “Using ‘garbage words’ instead of thoughtful words,” she concludes at the end of her article, “throws away the beauty and usefulness of language.” 

    Let me make another case for cleaning up our collective act. Since 2018, acclaimed actor Robert De Niro (and I'm a huge fan) has launched several obscenity-heavy fusillades against Donald Trump while Trump was both our president and more recently, a candidate for that office. Most observers found De Niro’s tirades either repugnant or juvenile, and some fans of his movies have sworn off watching his films forever. It’s one thing to take the president to task with a strong condemnation of his policies or his character, but for many, the bellowed curses were a bridge too far. Ironically, De Niro’s obscenities bounced right off Donald Trump, if he was even aware of them, while they ricocheted back and cost De Niro any gravitas he may have possessed. 

    And here’s my point: this gravitas, this dignity of manner, the way we carry ourselves, and how we are perceived are undermined by our misuse of language, whether by lies, by blaming others for our failures, and yes, by cursing. It is one thing to unleash an expletive when slamming our fingers in a car door or in some desperate fight on a battlefield. Trust me, I’ve let loose a few phrases when the golf ball did not behave as I wanted it to behave. It is quite another to make swearing a regular component of our everyday language or to serve as a weapon for attacking another. Pop-off responses are understandable, but casual profanity damages the foundations of our humanity. 

    As a teenager, George Washington copied out his now famous “Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior.” Of these 110 Rules, Number 49 reads “Use no reproachful language against any one neither curse nor revile.” With the possible exception of the Battle of Monmouth, when he spoke sharply to General Lee about a retreat in progress, throughout his life Washington held his tongue when it came to uttering oaths. 

    In August 1776 at Valley Forge, he asked others to do the same. There, Washington issued a general order to his officers and men which began, “The General is sorry to be informed that the foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing, a vice hitherto little known in our American army is growing into fashion.” Likely equating profanity with blasphemy, he then enjoins all to turn away this “impiety and folly.” He ends by noting “it is a vice so mean and low without any temptation that every man of sense and character detests and despises it.” 

    Look, contrary to popular belief, I’m not a complete moron. I know that I stand on shaky ground when I talk about stuff like this, or my dream of everyone reading Shakespeare and Tolstoy, or listening to Beethoven and Mozart, or at the very least, understanding that Schindler’s List is a better movie than Barbie. When people tell me, “Peter, you’ve become a cranky old bastard. Times have changed and people are gonna do what they do. Get off your high horse and leave us the hell alone.” I get it. And up to a point...those people are right. But I don’t have to like it. I don’t have to like the idea of people using the English language...the language of Shakespeare, Wallace Stevens, and Cormac McCarthy...like they use Kleenex. And it gives me a chance to howl at the wind like the prophet Jeremiah as he berated the Israelites for turning their backs on Yahweh. Hey...my grandfather would have loved that last example! That one’s for you, Grampie!

    Look, many of you know me. I’m no prude. And maybe this is just a consequence of old age. But I do know this: Words have consequences. If you’re using the word “fuck” in your sentences the way that many people use the word “like” over and over and over again, the consequence is that you sound unintelligent, unserious, and uncivilized. And in this new century, our dress and our manners have taken a tumble. Corrupting and dumbing down our language constitutes another step into that degradation of culture and decorum. The wise and wonderful Oscar Wilde once said that, “It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.” Constant vulgarity is not charming. Here endeth the lesson.

Write to Peter: magtour@icloud.com