Using a four letter word because you can’t count to five?
A certain reader who displays the name Gryphmon is kind enough to write in with some condescending advice, and to tell me right from wrong, and to warn me against the ills attendant upon my desire for polite and wholesome language:
His comment: (quoting me) “My reading time is limited; I do not enjoy reading swearwords, and I do not owe it to the author to put up with their particular verbal peculiarities:” No, but you do at times owe it to yourself and those around you. I have little sympathy or respect for someone who walls themselves away in a tight cocoon made up of only ideas that they like or are comfortable with. Ignorance is not bliss, and doubly so when its deliberatly chosen. It is also a weakness, for as they say, its not the 100 things you do know, its the one or two things you don’t that can really hurt you.
Let us dwell for a moment on the breathtaking arrogance of this conceit, dear readers.
Not only it is dangerous to have standards for clean language (because what one does not know can hurt one, and who knows what important real-world safety tips one might learn from a pottymouth novel?) but to have standards is a weakness and a sign of self-imposed insular ignorance! Worst of all, it runs the risk of losing the sympathy of our dear Gryphmon, who is evidently a person of acute insight and deep feelings. (These deep feelings, to judge from his tone, are ones of starry-eyed and doting self-admiration.)
I owe it to myself (and the people around me!) to read more filth. Quick, someone hand me a John Norman novel.
Well, sorry, but I am father of three. I have changed enough diapers of small children, including incontinent small children, that the allure and drama of humanity’s scatological excreta has lost its mystery for me. I am no longer fascinated and charmed by reading descriptions of poop.
Nor do I come from the anti-matter universe where evil is good and good is evil, and bad taste is the sign of good taste, and good taste is the sign of bad taste. Being a philosopher, and a lawyer, and a news editor, I run little risk of entering a cocoon of ignorance where all voices agree with mine: these professions consist of nothing but disagreement. Indeed, I am puzzled why anyone would think that bad language is a sign of education, or intelligent conversation, or of anything at all except bad manners. Gryphmon here indulges in such an unoriginal cliche (equating filth with, of all things openmindedness), that I am shocked he does not choke on his own irony: haven’t we heard this equation (crude=refined) a million times before? Haven’t we all satisfied ourselves that the assertion has no merit, no logic, no evidence, nothing to back it up? Gryphmon is merely parroting an empty-headed slogan.
Instead, I come from a universe where recourse to a four-letter word is a sign of a lack of intelligence, of refinement, and most of all, a lack of vocabulary. Indeed, part of the reason why I put swear words in my writing was to show the characters as being uncharming, rough, ignorant, simple, commonplace men and boys without much education.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
