Swearing or Cursing, Intelligence and Free Expression
Former VP Cheney infamously told Senator Leahy to go f*ck himself; Leahy had been targeting the former Halliburton CEO in political attacks regarding certain Halliburton contracts in Iraq, suggesting Halliburton was the beneficiary of Bush Administration favoritism. Cheney later described the moment as cathartic. Former Speaker Boehner more recently had notably targeted an F bomb at former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. (This was in response Reid's personal attacks on Boehner during fiscal negotiations.) Now personally I've not a fan of any of the 4 politicians, but I have no issue with the language the two Republicans used.This may shock some readers; after all, haven't I been ranting in the blog numerous times about the lack of civility in politics. Isn't it a form of moral defeat to engage in vulgarity, a sign of an uneducated person? Can't you find a more constructive way to express yourself?
Well, actually some scientists believe that the (almost universal) use of swearing is indicative of more intelligence (based on verbal fluency measures), and it often has functional purposes, including the release of endomorphins (e.g., many women curse during labor) or as an aspect of more authentic communication.
In the recent past, I worked with some Marines who were impeccably well-mannered and polite to me and others personally--but often engaged in conversation liberally laced in profanities (never personally or in anger). Don't get me wrong: in person, I almost never use profanity, even under stressful situations. If and when I do, it's usually when I hurt myself, e.g., the time my bare heel stepped on a thumbtack. (This is not to say I won't do it on social media, which I'll discuss shortly.)
There are several other verbal abuses of discourse in civil discourse. including direct or implicit personal attacks (as on Cheney and Boehner above), interruptions, a condescending, dismissive or accusatory tone, or uneven exchanges (where the other party is not really interested in anything you have to say but wants a captive audience for whatever he wants to discuss). As for the phony "what did I do?" reaction from Leahy or Reid, there was a provocative context that did not involve personal attacks from the Republicans.
I have a classic example from personal experience which I may have discussed in an earlier post from my days as a junior professor at UWM. I had an office bordering that of an older, tenured feminist MIS professor. I was in the middle of making a complicated point when I fuzzily became aware she was interrupting me, repeating some mantra. It suddenly occurred to me that she was objecting to my choice of words earlier in the conversation--and obviously had not been listening to anything I had to say since my alleged infraction. (I don't even recall what word she quibbled with; it wasn't your typical political correctness nonsense.) To be honest, her interruptions and arrogance in being the self-anointed speech police pissed me off, and I tactfully ended the conversation soon thereafter. She would have done better to raise her preference later in the conversation. Instead, I was not all that anxious to have more conversations with someone more interested in surface-level versus higher-order aspects conversation.
I will DELIBERATELY use a modest amount of profanity in social media (mostly of the nature of 'bullshit', 'goddamn', 'bastard', 'son of a bitch', 'moron', 'idiot'); I can remember only one time throwing an F bomb out there. I can be blunt and direct at times. It's intended to emphasize my strong opposition, usually to what some troll had commented; it's almost never out of anger or personal in nature. I have written nearly 15K tweets, and the proportion of tweets with any profanity is negligible statistically.
Yes, I know there will be people who object to the use of profanity under any circumstance; I've gotten reply tweets to that effect maybe 2-3 times. However, the intent of those tweets is not a personal attack. Usually I'm responding to some moronic meme or partisan talking point. Many times I'm just scanning trending hashtags. I'm not really out to convert the world to my point of view; there's not enough time in the day to debate everyone on Twitter who disagrees with me. I've more likely to single out a politician than a "progressive" college student, and I don't really go to a hashtag looking for some egregious Trumpkin or "progressive" to bash.
Will there be future tweets that irritate the self-anointed speech police? Probably. Will their protests have any impact on how I write future tweets? No.
Some of My Favorite Things
Let me be clear; I get no compensation or incentive of any kind with respect to the blog from any company or its products (and no company has ever contacted me).A few months back I bought a seltzer bottle from Amazon; Amazon also had a deal where you can buy 100 chargers for under $100. (One charger per liter bottle refill.) I'm not going to go into the pros/cons of seltzer water here, but I and others find it more interesting than plain water. The next step was to try out various flavorings to make seltzer water even more interesting. Hands down to date: A&W drink mix sticks, which my local Shoprite stocks. Of course, I've loved root beer since I was a kick, but I find the drink mix really complements seltzer water well.
I almost never do conventional soda any more; I rarely do fast food except when I'm traveling (maybe if I forget to pack a couple of protein bars for work). But I have liked the option like I've found at Jack in the Box for mixing flavors (before that I was a big fan of diet versions of Vanilla or Cherry Coke).
A personal pet peeve deals with crappy coffee cup leads. An example: I had to meet with my company supervisor taking a position in WV a few years back. This guy was a former Marine and went with me my first day to introduce me. The military in general has a fetish over spotless appearance (I still remember getting my ass chewed out in the Navy because my belt buckle wasn't polished enough to suit their tastes). So he met me my hotel and as I was leaving, a couple of coffee drops (not splashes) from the complimentary coffee cup splattered on my shirt. He had me go to my hotel room and change my shirt.
I've used a number of disposable cups and a variety of mugs with lids over the years, but it wasn't until I found a Contigo mug (with Snapseal/Thermalock lip) I think costing between $7 to $8. This is what I've been looking for for ages--no leaks or spills, easily portable. I highly recommend it.
