The dark side of language - and it's function

July 31, 2017

Language is what makes us human. 

Most species, from our cousins Hominidae or great apes to primitive beings communicate with sounds,  postures, scents or baring teeth in threat, an action quite close to expressions of rage among we homo sapiens.  It is language evolving in unknown ways, first as ephemeral  speech, and then in written form that allowed words to have meaning, eventually to define cultures, codes of behavior and laws.

This multifaceted human artifact, beyond the thousands of distinct languages associated with nationalities,  has been studied under the rubric of linguistics, but also within specialized areas such as legal terminology or cellular bio-chemistry as new discoveries open up a need for writing over existing concepts to define what is an ever changing “state of the art.”  As language expands exponentially along with knowledge itself, more people who are not within a discipline must accept conclusions that they don’t have the ability to verify ourselves.

 

We are left with trusting those who can evaluate the research and do the math, and then either go along with them; or by rejecting the concept as oppressive deem it “political correctness,  the potency of this shown in the Presidential election of 2016.   While deconstructing the concept of acceptable language in our culture should be an ongoing project, over the last few days there has been a culmination of the de facto attack on the formality of one specialized area of communication,  federal interaction with the citizens of this country. 

“Trump Talk” is an appropriate term, since nothing like this has ever been done before Donald J. Trump, first as a candidate and continued as President with spontaneous tweets, and then by Anthony Scaramucci who was rewarded by this President for his language with one of the highest positions in the administration, one word used being “fucking.”  (Then fired within days of his outburst)  The bowdlerization of this word is now rather archaic, since we are mature enough to accept that it denotes human behavior that can be an expression of love or of debasement; and to routinely censor it for its obceneness is to ignore the last half century of social revolution.  Scarmucci was using it not literally, or even figuratively, but as a “fighting word” in the phrase that his personal political enemy was a “Fucking Paranoid schizophrenic.  “Fucking” was the adjectival part of a phrase of infantile incoherent contempt that combined the profane with disdain for a tragic incurable mental illness. 

 

It would be a lost opportunity to focus on how this one mean-spirited marginally literate individual used this word in deciding, as the N.Y. Times did in a subsequent article, to take “fuck” out of linguistic purgatory.  A communication event can not be understood by evaluating the words out of context, as his usage, personal reward for it, and the broader effect should be carefully evaluated.

The “Day of Infamy” speech delivered by President Roosevelt was crafted to show contempt for the action of the Japanese government, yet was devoid of hatred of the people.  It was powerful enough to rally Americans to unselfish sacrifice of  lives and fortune to prevail in the war that was thrust upon them, yet it was absent words of hatred that prevented the reconciliation after this war with a steadfast ally.  In the midst of four years of carnage, ending with the destruction of a city by a weapon that still threatens the world, this President, and those who came after him knew the value of language carefully crafted to avoid the descent into deep and permanent hatred, even of enemies. 

 

The expletives that Scarmucci uttered were not so much an assault on sensibilities, but a fraudulent imitation of a visceral signal that should be reserved as a primal warning to another that they are in danger of a violent assault.  Such language is a vital buffer against mayhem that must be preserved for its specific use, rather than a trope for political advantage.  It is a survival mechanism that evolved because it prevented actual lethal violence among us, to be released from the depths of our being only when the next step would be catastrophic.

Communication must continue to be an art, one that we all learn and respect, as it is the subtlety that provides it’s potency, whether to share affection or to prevail in total war.  Shocking sensibilities by breaching norms only works once before the special potency of the word is lost.  We need not let “Trump Talk” degrade the protean ability of language to sooth or arouse, to seduce or infuriate --as this is one of the artifacts that has allowed enlightened civilization to prosper.  

Al Rodbell