I was in my sophomore year at Centre College. I had been a Christian for about two years, and needless to say, most of my beliefs and values were still being formed. One thing that was a constant struggle was my mouth.
I was surrounded by guys on the soccer team that couldn't even say they loved their mothers without dropping three or four f-bombs. It probably took the guys twice or three times as long to say something because every other word was a swear word. Our communication probably would have been a lot more efficient if we would have just said what we were trying to say, but like Admiral Kirk said to Spock in Star Trek IV, "That's just the way they talk here. No one pays any attention to you unless you swear every other word."
I was sitting in class one day and a student, while answering a professor's question, dropped a curse word in the middle of his statement. I can't remember which it was, but it was a swear word. The professor stopped him cold. Then he proceeded to tell the student something that I would never forget.
He said, "You should never use profanity. It is the language of the unintelligent." The class was silent. What in the world was he talking about?
The professor continued, "While I do know some intelligent people who swear, I have never known an unintelligent person who doesn't. Profanity is the least common denominator of human communication. It expresses no great ideas, no great thoughts; it puts forth no great hypotheses or visions or dreams. It is the baseline of human utterances driven more by emotion than by thought."
We were pretty shocked. No one had ever heard this about our favorite words. The professor had just referred to us all as unintelligent (at least, using the language of the unintelligent) and had said some things that, while we didn't like them, were difficult to argue with.
He finished, "If your point requires profanity in order to make it, it isn't worth making. If your statement needs profanity for people to listen, it is a weak statement. You students are better than that. Make your points and your statements intelligently; using profanity to make them is a signal that it is an inherently dumb or weak argument."
We all walked out of class a little different that day.
The professor had made no moral arguments against profanity. To my knowledge he was an atheist, as a good many of my professors were. He was not arguing from a position of right or wrong; he was arguing from a standpoint of intelligent versus unintelligent. He wasn't making moral judgments- he was simply calling us to a higher standard of communication and expression.
He made that point several more times that semester- profanity was the language of the unintelligent; while he had known intelligent people who swore, he never knew an unintelligent person who didn't.
I wonder what that professor would say today as profanity has become even more mainstream than it was twenty years ago when I took his class. He would probably say the same thing- he would continue to call us to a higher level of dialogue, using words and sentences that put forth great ideas rather than base-level utterances needing four-letter-words for them to be heard.
This is why I choose not to swear. I agree with my professor. Profanity puts forth no great ideas, no great thoughts, proposes no great solutions to human problems, and operates from the baseline of human emotion rather than from thoughtful, considered, rational dialogue. If I feel that profanity is needed to get a point across, my point isn't worth making. My points should stand on their own without needing a four-letter-word to get it across. This calls me to a higher level of thought, consideration, and self-control, and those things have been very good for me as a person.
Today, I propose that we ascend to a higher level of communication and thought, leaving profanity and cursing behind for richer and more fruitful fields of human endeavor.
I was surrounded by guys on the soccer team that couldn't even say they loved their mothers without dropping three or four f-bombs. It probably took the guys twice or three times as long to say something because every other word was a swear word. Our communication probably would have been a lot more efficient if we would have just said what we were trying to say, but like Admiral Kirk said to Spock in Star Trek IV, "That's just the way they talk here. No one pays any attention to you unless you swear every other word."
I was sitting in class one day and a student, while answering a professor's question, dropped a curse word in the middle of his statement. I can't remember which it was, but it was a swear word. The professor stopped him cold. Then he proceeded to tell the student something that I would never forget.
He said, "You should never use profanity. It is the language of the unintelligent." The class was silent. What in the world was he talking about?
The professor continued, "While I do know some intelligent people who swear, I have never known an unintelligent person who doesn't. Profanity is the least common denominator of human communication. It expresses no great ideas, no great thoughts; it puts forth no great hypotheses or visions or dreams. It is the baseline of human utterances driven more by emotion than by thought."
We were pretty shocked. No one had ever heard this about our favorite words. The professor had just referred to us all as unintelligent (at least, using the language of the unintelligent) and had said some things that, while we didn't like them, were difficult to argue with.
He finished, "If your point requires profanity in order to make it, it isn't worth making. If your statement needs profanity for people to listen, it is a weak statement. You students are better than that. Make your points and your statements intelligently; using profanity to make them is a signal that it is an inherently dumb or weak argument."
We all walked out of class a little different that day.
The professor had made no moral arguments against profanity. To my knowledge he was an atheist, as a good many of my professors were. He was not arguing from a position of right or wrong; he was arguing from a standpoint of intelligent versus unintelligent. He wasn't making moral judgments- he was simply calling us to a higher standard of communication and expression.
He made that point several more times that semester- profanity was the language of the unintelligent; while he had known intelligent people who swore, he never knew an unintelligent person who didn't.
I wonder what that professor would say today as profanity has become even more mainstream than it was twenty years ago when I took his class. He would probably say the same thing- he would continue to call us to a higher level of dialogue, using words and sentences that put forth great ideas rather than base-level utterances needing four-letter-words for them to be heard.
This is why I choose not to swear. I agree with my professor. Profanity puts forth no great ideas, no great thoughts, proposes no great solutions to human problems, and operates from the baseline of human emotion rather than from thoughtful, considered, rational dialogue. If I feel that profanity is needed to get a point across, my point isn't worth making. My points should stand on their own without needing a four-letter-word to get it across. This calls me to a higher level of thought, consideration, and self-control, and those things have been very good for me as a person.
Today, I propose that we ascend to a higher level of communication and thought, leaving profanity and cursing behind for richer and more fruitful fields of human endeavor.
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