Pardon My French

Self control begins with speech control.

The late comedian George Carlin became widely known for his monologue, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television." 

While most of his unmentionables are still bleeped out on the majority of network TV shows, the definition of what is acceptable as prime-time and social media fare keeps being pushed further toward the edge. And the movie, music and cable TV industries have long since adopted Carlin’s offensive words and more.

Some will argue this is inevitable, a part of normal changes in language and culture we just have to to get used to. But the impetus for current changes is based far less on artistic merit than on what will attract greater attention and higher ratings. In other words, profit and popularity matter more than the negative effect our language may have on our culture, and especially on our young.

According to Dr. David Walsh of the Institute on Media and the Family, today’s media producers are highly focused on the number of “jolts per show” (JPS’s) necessary to keep ever larger numbers of eyes glued to the screen, mostly for purposes of selling more products. Some of the easier attention-grabbing “jolts” they use are explicit sex, gratuitous violence, suggestive humor and, yes, shocking language, the latter being the easiest and most mindless means of all.

Of course, what initially jars our sensibilities soon loses its shock value, so the competition for higher ratings has writers constantly competing for the bottom line--all too often the basest line when it comes to their choice of language.

As a result, vulgarity has gone mainstream, has become a part of everyday conversation. According to the Center for Media and Public Affairs, “Words once reserved to register strongly negative emotions have become the standard lingo of movies, TV shows and music videos.” 

To the extent that Hollywood has become the nation’s primary story teller, both the language and the themes of their tales are profoundly shaping our culture, as a society’s stories always do. For the sake of future generations, how can we speak truth in ways that are truly respectful and life-giving?

In a 2005 policy speech to the Kaiser Family Foundation, then Senator Barak Obama said, “From the time they're young, we try to instill in our children a sense of what's right and wrong; a sense of what's important, of what's worth striving for. As best we can, we also try to shield them from the harsher elements of life, and introduce them to the realities of adulthood at the appropriate age... as parents, we have an obligation to our children to turn off the TV, pick up a book, and read to them more often.”

The coarsening of our culture and our language is not solely the fault of today’s media, including social media. A distressing number of parents routinely use vulgarities and swear words not only around their children but directly at them. And an increasing number of their offspring, at an ever younger age, are learning to out-swear their elders. After all, “everyone’s doing it.”

While government censorship isn’t likely to be of much to help here, we parents and other adults clearly need to get better control of our own speech. Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, in his book, “Words that Hurt, Words That Heal,” believes we should practice choosing words as carefully as if we were composing a telegram. Words represent power, and to learn to discipline our speech is to learn to discipline ourselves.

Or as one New Testament writer says “If you can control your tongue, you are mature and able to control your whole body.” (James 3:2b CEV)