by I do not know if there are any representatives of the Puritan tradition on this blog, but I may self-classify as one given my complaint in this post. I object to Vice President Biden’s choice of words in describing health care reform to President Obama. I object to Vice President Cheney’s choice of similar words on various occasions. I object to the fact that virtually no one seems to object anymore when a political leader chooses these words. I think that there is a real cost (though not a measurable cost, I confess) to a civilized society when we lose the ability to deem certain words so crude as to be beyond the pale of acceptable discourse.
Now we do have a few such words remaining, but the words are unacceptable by virtue of what they convey about their object — i.e., derogatory terms based on race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. It is important for those words to be out of bounds, to be sure, but I also think that it is important to a common sense of decency to have boundaries, including boundaries that are not defensible simply as derivations of Mill’s harm principle. Even if the word does not convey something deeply offensive about another person, there are words that we just do not say. I guess I don’t really care what those words are, as long as we have them. When the category of “words we just do not say” shrinks to nothing, I cannot help but wonder if one small thread of the social fabric also vanishes. Does Vice President Biden’s remark deserve as much attention as the passage of health care reform? Absolutely not. But it does merit some attention, doesn’t it?
You can’t out-Puritan me, Rob. For years, I’ve managed to teach Cohen v. California without ever actually uttering the words on Cohen’s jacket. How’s that for prudish?
I confess that I have used the term before. I was six years old, and I screamed it at some neighbors, thinking the term was merely a funny derivation of “suckers.” My mother’s reaction probably explains my prudishness today.
When I first heard it, I thought, “Truer words have not been spoken, Mr. Biden.” Time will tell how prophetic he is. Later, it occurs to me that from FDR we got the New Deal. From Obama, we get the big f’in deal. As for use of that specific language–stupid no doubt. The greater question is, “Did Biden really believe he needed to explain the gravity of the moment to Obama in such a way as he could not possibly be misunderstood?”