Jeff Jacoby, an editorialist with whom I usually disagree but his editorial "Our &@*!^$# public discourse" on Sunday, April 22 (see link below) I could not agree with more. A point of personal privilege, however, is an admission that I am guilty of using profanity in both political and personal discussion as well at times. I plead mea culpa to that. I believe his article hits a Red Sox home run with the Ortiz example after the Boston Marathon bombing. What we say and how we say it says much about so much. One can tell one's educational level, one's ability to speak cogently correct English, the level to which we will stoop to articulate a point and how much off color language we think we need to use to prove that point.
The late 1960's, an era I loved and often want to relive, ushered in a freedom of many cultural things heretofore taboo. It loosened sexual mores, it freed up the dress code, it opened up topics for discussion one would never have mentioned before and it allowed women to say things only a man used to be able to say. An allowance of profanity in language never before used is now commonplace and permitted to be used in discussion to emphasize one's point.
It was refreshing, then, to me that the late 1960's era ushered in a freedom I never before experienced. I thought it was a social good after all who wants to remain imprisoned by so many ridiculous social customs illuminated by June Cleaver, Beaver's mother, wearing a hat, gloves and high heels to a barbecue while her husband was dressed in comfortable clothes? As often is the case human beings take a social good and create a monster ushering in a coarsening of culture with, as Steve Allen entitled his book, vulgarians at the gate.
The election of Donald Trump has ushered in a continuation of a cultural coarsening monstrosity on steroids creating a hardening of the national culture already on its way to the extremes of crudity. When bad language is permitted and used at the top by the president it sets a standard that it is okay not only to use vulgar language but to degrade one's opponent by any words necessary. The presidential licentious behavior sexual and otherwise, his using of ugly profane language when others are witness to what he said sums up the dastardly nature of the president, his allies and what our culture has become when six year olds are barred from listening to the 6:30 p.m. news. Donald Trump has given a permission slip to use the profanity he uses all the time and a toleration of a sidecar of violence associated with it. His many campaign appearances prove that beyond a reasonable doubt.
Personally, I will try to do better curbing my own use of bad language since I do have the ability to use correct English both in written language and its oral counterpart. I surely cannot say the president will curb his own profane and often hurtful language as well.
