The value of &%$?@$%¢#!

I was watching Jeeves and Wooster last night (one of my favourite shows) and there was a scene where 'Wooster' exclaims, 'Blasted!' and all the women present, including Aunt Agatha, took great exception to it (see video below - "Bertie! Kindly restrain your language!"...which can be paraphrased with, "Kindly restrain your passion/opposition").



Now, literally, there is nothing vulgar about 'Blast' - unless, of course, it was to be expressed through one's rear end in a crowded restaurant during the main course, and within earshot of all present. But i suppose it is the expression of passion and and vigour that might at times seem vulgar to the relatively dispassionate.

  I suppose the curtailment of passion does, in a way, vasectomise and ligate the population into political and perspectival impotence, whilst rendering them objective enough to do their best to put up with a bad situation with a cool head instead of attempting to get rid of said bad situation. 

(see, 6mins:50sec onwards for the aforementioned scene)


Sometimes, methinks, too much of 'British stiff upper lip-ishness' tends to make people more accommodating when it comes to getting stiffed. Perhaps, that David Starkey had that in mind when he said that black culture was behind the recent London 'riots' - 'the whites have become black'.

  But if you think about it, if passion has no place in normal socio-political ventures, it might just be abused via riotous behaviour.  In cultures that do not frown upon passion, it can articulate itself in socially acceptable arenas and thus curtail its expression in more primitive forms.  But where it is introduced in a relatively clenched arse culture, it may only be accessed by the relatively disenfranchised and thus give it a bad name to the rest of stiff-upper-lippers.  

And we should also keep in mind that the passionate expressions of foreign cultures during the colonial era was also looked upon by British colonisers as evidence of a primitive and debauched nature.  I suppose, those whom seek to maintain the hegemony of any elite would frown upon such passion as it always has the potential of taking a politically untoward end if the exploited class ever decided to express its passion in its opposition toward their exploiters.

Sometimes, methinks, too much of 'British stiff upper lip-ishness' tends to make people more accommodating when it comes to getting stiffed.  It has its good side of course - as in promoting objective thinking, stopping to consider another's point of view, etc - but it has its bad side as well.

  Swearing isn't bad in itself, if it is adequately complemented by rational and systematic analysis. You could say that it is the 'voom' in the 'vava' of intellectual and creative endeavours. It is passion that is behind it. A raw expression of it. Best if it serves as primitive fuel for intellectual and creative resilience.

You could say that it enables one to take a step further than one otherwise might.  But then again, it might also lead one to not take steps in the right direction as well.  So long as one is aware of the positive value of swearing, one would be in a better position to defend oneself against the latter.  In that, it becomes a virtue.

At the end of the day, a 'swear word' is in itself a expression of passion.  A shortcut to motivational resources.  Just need to channel that energy up the right path that's all.

other perspectives on the issue,

ed