Judicious recourse to euphemism?

Universal Declaration of Fucking Rights (Part #8)

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Fooling ourselves? That sanctions (even legislative sanctions) govern reference to "fucking" is consistent with the incapacity to engage with that reality in strategic terms. This inhibits recognition of the consequences for unmanageable population increase, or other problematic conditions of society -- preferably framed by positive euphemisms (Barbara Ehrenreich, Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, 2009; Smile Or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World, 2010).

When its values are otherwise so severely challenged, how appropriate is the relevant Biblical injunction to the current condition of society: Don't use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them (Ephesians 4:29, New Living Translation).

The dilemma is highlighted from a religious perspective, as argued by Robert Berendt: The world around us is full of filthy language, and it's easy to become indifferent to it all, but God wants us to take a different viewpoint toward the words that come out of our mouths (Foul Language, Beyond Today, 6 July 2006). Given the important Christian dimension to the election of the leader of the world's superpower, and the use of foul language by the protagonists (as noted above), the question can be asked otherwise (Kelli Mahoney, Should Christians be Using Foul Language? About Religion, 31 January 2016).

Issues of divinity also highlight the curiously unexamined confusion between the divine right of kings (and presidents?) and problematic assumptions regarding any droit du seigneur -- with both translating into problematic issues of sexual abuse by clergy, gurus, employers, and the military.

Intercourse? Given the inspiration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it could well be argued that this experiment would have conformed more appropriately to the requirements of political correctness through use of the term "intercourse" instead of "fucking". This is especially the case since use of the latter term in the media and in web documents may well be subjected to the severest censorship -- to the point of being signalled as an error in some spell check applications. As implied above, political correctness can however be manipulativly used as a fig leaf to denature official recognition of abuse and structural violence.

"Intercourse" has been explored in another context in relation to efforts by the InterAction Council in 1997 (as amended in 1998) to elaborate a draft Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities, for consideration by the United Nations as a complement to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). In a reaction to it, the UN approved a Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (53/144, 9 December 1998).

Following the methodology adopted here, that proposal of 1998 was adapted to produce a Universal Declaration of Responsibilities of Human Intercourse (2007). The neutrality of "intercourse", as a euphemism or a metaphor, is otherwise valued for its wider implications, as highlighted separately ("Human Intercourse": "Intercourse with Nature" and "Intercourse with the Other", 2007). Unfortunately this same neutrality renders the result innocuous and ineffectual at a time when a more radical approach is required by the crisis. Use of "fornication", whilst acceptable to the media (although somewhat archaic) is of limited relevance since it is primarily associated with "fucking" outside the marital framework -- itself radically called into question at this time.

Swearing: Condemned as "profanity", the publications daring to explore the implications of "fucking" are relatively rare and confined to particular cultures (see references below). The extensive Wikipedia article on "fuck" is a notable exception, as with its entry on the documentary on use of the word (Fuck, 2005), and on the study by Christopher M. Fairman (Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties, 2009).

Given its widespread use at all levels of society, the increasingly outdated attitude to use of "fucking" has been clarified by a recent study from the perspective of cognitive science by Benjamin Bergen (What the F: what swearing reveals about our language, our brains, and ourselves, 2016)? The latter makes the points:

Nearly everyone swears -- whether it's over a few too many drinks, in reaction to a stubbed toe, or in flagrante delicto. And yet, we sit idly by as words are banned from television and censored in books. We insist that people excise profanity from their vocabularies and we punish children for yelling the very same dirty words that we'll mutter in relief seconds after they fall asleep. Swearing, it seems, is an intimate part of us that we have decided to selectively deny.

The title of that book, using "F", is consistent with media practice in avoiding sanction and censorship -- as necessarily with use of "F***" in reviews of that book by the more daring. Clearly there are boundaries that can only be challenged with difficulty, if books and reviews are to be ensured. In its review of that book, The Economist notes:

The [US] Federal Communications Commission may warn or even impose six-figure penalties on a broadcaster that allows even a "fleeting" expletive on air, as when Bono, a singer, told an awards-show audience that winning was "fucking brilliant". A mother in South Carolina was arrested for shouting "Stop squishing the fucking bread!" at her family... A North Augusta city ordinance includes in its definition of disorderly conduct "any bawdy, lewd or obscene words... while in a state of anger, in the presence of another". (Weapons of Crass Construction: most swearing is perfectly harmless, 8 October 2016)

Given that context, however, it is as yet unclear whether legal action will be taken against those disseminating the much-publicised Trump video -- with all its offensive language and allusions.

Media guidelines: Exceptionally, the issue has been reviewed by a liberal newspaper, specifically with regard to relevant editorial guidelines for use of "fuck" -- indicating its preference for using it primarily when quoting others. It offers comparative data on its usage by other UK media (David Marsh, Is there too much swearing in the Guardian? The Guardian, 14 April 2010). The latter cites Charlotte Brontë (author of Jane Eyre):

The practice of hinting by single letters those expletives with which profane and violent people are wont to garnish their discourse, strikes me as a proceeding which, however well meant, is weak and futile. I cannot tell what good it does -- what feeling it spares -- what horror it conceals.

Framed in terms of "strong language" by the BBC, this is understood as language that has the potential to offend (Strong Language: guidance in full, BBC). This extensive commentary indicates that the strongest language, with the potential to cause most offence, includes "fuck", and is subject to mandatory referrals to "Output Controllers" (presumably with no pun being intended). The guidelines for BBC's Channel 4 offer the additional insight that such language should not be used before the "9 pm watershed". Further comment framing the BBC's perspective is offered by philosopher David Edmonds (Why do people swear? BBC News, 27 February 2017) . Wikipedia offers a commentary on Seven Dirty Words You Can Never Say on Television (1972) -- including "fuck".

This raises the question as to the requisite strength of language in framing and responding to the crises of civilization -- and how efforts might be made to constrain its usage in favour of "weaker language" -- or even of "enfeebled language". Is it possibly the case that it is "weak language" -- as preferred by the United Nations -- that is currently undermining effective collective response?

"Go fuck yourself"? What significance should be attached to this common expression in swearing -- an injunction in various languages and at every level of society? As a seemingly impossible exercise in physical contortion, is it a metaphorical indication of a degree of self-reflexivity which is a challenge for a society in crisis?

The possibility could be related to the arguments of Hilary Lawson (Closure: A Story of Everything, 2001; Reflexivity: The Post-Modern Predicament, 1985) and Douglas Hofstadter (I Am a Strange Loop, 2007). The challenge of collective self-reflexivity and self-awareness might well be fruitfully reframed in such terms (Sustaining a Community of Strange Loops, 2010), notably in the light of cybernetic feedback of a higher order. Beyond the increasing acceptability of reference to masturbation, the explosion of enthusiam for "selfies" may be heralding such a transformation of awareness.

Fucking the future? It is curious that verbal use of "fuck" (and related terms) is governed and strictly sanctioned by convention, although such sanction only extends to a limited degree to the physical process it indicates -- when non-consensual.

However, other than through the conventions of marriage (increasingly bypassed or themselves abused), there is no oversight or sanction with regard to the fucking which so problematically exacerbates governance of society through the increasing numbers so casually engendered. The challenge to coping capacity and resources, and the increasing unrest, will condemn this unconstrained period as inhumane in the eyes of the future. The systemically requisite constraint is being inadvertently transformed into fatalities from violence, starvation and disease.

As short-termism, the focus on immediate benefits is considered increasingly questionable (Roger L. Martin, Yes, Short-Termism Really Is a Problem, Harvard Business Review, 9 October 2015; Joe Biden, How Short-termism Saps the Economy, The Wall Street Journal, 27 September 2016). Reminiscent of the one-night stands that many favour, many governments and businesses can be recognized as arrogating to themselves the right to "fuck the future". They effectively subscribe to the principle: Focus on the next business cycle -- or election -- and fuck the future.

The attitude is otherwise reflected in various song lyrics (Fuck the Future), echoed in lyrics with respect to past (Fuck the Past) which are temporarily held on YouTube, for example, prior to their removal following protext. Framing the past in this way, recalls concerns at the problematic erosion of collective memory through destruction of cultural heritage and the shredding of archives (Societal Learning and the Erosion of Collective Memory, 1980). The framing of the Holocaust as a "detail of history", is echoed by cultivated forgetfullness of other horrors perpetrated in recent centuries -- by nations now self-righteously condemning others for similar acts in the current period.

Foul language and befouling the environment: Otherwise celebrated as the intimate process whereby people are engendered, the conflation of fucking with foul language is especially relevant to the inability to encompass the problems of society -- readily acknowledged as increasingly "foul" and "bad" in their own right.

The issue is especially significant in the use of the media for purposes of negative campaigning to crush opponents, framing enenies as essentially "foul" and worthy of elimination -- "whether by fair means or foul".

Institutionalised shunning precludes research on the relation between fucking and the desperate quest for aphrodisiacs -- so fundamental to endangering wildlife. Equally beyond discussion is the complex of associations between the overriding attraction of genitalia (as intensively cultivated by advertising) and the foulness of the physically proximate source of excreta. One controversial example of such cultivation is the designer brand name FCUK of French Connection (Rebecca Gonsalves, FCUK: The logo that became a no no, The Independent, 2 May 2012). A sense of this proximity is offered by an argument critical of Donald Trump, by Will Self (Donald Trump is a giant fatberg blocking the political sewer -- but holding our noses will not help, New Statesman, 17 October 2016):

Back in the early 1950s, when the terms of British political debate were defined by the so-called activators, who sought to rebuild the nation in one ideological image or another, the term "admass" was coined to describe that proportion of the population judged susceptible to the siren song of advertising. It is the members of this admass who have created the fatberg: a faecal-spatial analogue of their credulousness.

The wider implications of ever increasing numbers for the production of ever more waste are similarly shunned -- despite the dramatic evidence of marine waste and emergence of the Great Pacific garbage patch. With respect to systematic befouling of the environment, the negligence of science with respect to waste disposal around Antarctic research stations has been striking. The pattern is echoed in the case of space junk in orbit, and increasingly on other planets. "Fucking with reality", as variously recognized, merits exploration as the fundamental process of science (Beyond Harassment of Reality and Grasping Future Possibilities: learnings from sexual harassment as a metaphor, 1996).

The human strategic drama is further highlighted by the manner in which human waste offers the primary association for use of perhaps the most common "dirty word" -- punished at an early age by washing out the mouth with soap. Its embodiment in metaphor is also indicative of the challengs of a civilization blinded by euphemism (Harry G. Frankfurt, On Bullshit, 2005; Aaron James, Assholes: A Theory, 2014; Viable Global Governance through Bullfighting, 2009).

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