| | If you, as a seemingly sophisticated human being, can't get past a few words, which by nature are arbitrary but by convention and convention only have taken on negative meanings, then I suggest that you, not I, have growing up to do. Whether we say "sexual intercourse" or "fucking" is there, at the heart of the matter, a difference? No. These are two sides of the same coin, though by some accounts one is perfectly acceptable and the other is damnable. This sort of hypocrisy has no place in my life and I find it ridiculous that anyone in this day and age would let a four-letter word have power over him. Just as the "N" word is slowly becoming less and less poweful with the realization by the black community and celebrities such as Smokey Robinson that the word is just a word, I think we are not far from the desensitization of English-speaking peoples to "obscene" words. Such a desensitization will lead us back to concern over real evils and real threats.
On a related note, there was a "holier than thou" Christian girl in some of my classes in high school who would speak down to me if I were to drop a pencil, for instance, and follow it up with a "shit", while she herself would drop a pencil and follow it with a "shoot." These mere words are only the instruments with which we express our sentiments, so there is as much sin in "shoot" as in any "obscene" word. A truly good, temperate Christian would refrain from expressing any such sentiments at all; word choice is hardly a savior!
If Hitler never uttered an "obscenity" in his life, would he be any less evil? Ha! The absurdity of "obscenity"!!!
|
|
