Cursing … is a human universal. Every language, dialect or patois ever studied, whether living or dead, spoken by millions or by a single small tribe, turns out to have its share of forbidden speech. … The earliest writings, which date from 5,000 years ago, include their share of off-color descriptions of the human form and its ever-colorful functions. …
Your argument makes no sense because people curse more now and more publicly than ever. And studies actually show that the rich curse as much as the poor, its the middle class that's the most opposed to swearing. The reason for upper class swearing is different from lower class profanity though. The Upper class has the most resources in society, and with resources comes the ability to live your life pretty much however you want and even if people object to it they can't really stop you (as long as what you're doing isn't like criminal or anything like that). Because they have the most resources, the rich typically don't have to follow minor prohibitions in society restricting profanity, partying, or sex that other people are encouraged to follow. Another reason is that the middle class and the poor depend on the rich for both their income, and the rich's ability to organize and sell material goods for the 99%. Because of this dependence, they will be reluctant to judge them as harshly for their lifestyle as they would someone on their own socio-economic level.
In general though, upper class swearing is very casual, whereas lower class swearing is more likely to be done out of angst of some kind or anger due to the daily frustrations and worries that pervade lower class life.
Actually, in the creative industries it is, otherwise there is metamphetamine and of course with EMs you don't have to mess with chemicals, you can just code the perfect drug.
Probably not a stretch that most group or pack animals behave similarly - "swearing" as signaling status. I have 4 dogs (3 husky's and a malamute) and almost every day they will all start barking loudly and aggressively in very close proximity to each other (snouts almost touching) for a few minutes and then in an instant stop. What is interesting is that before they all start up they can be quite excited and/or on edge - you can tell that the energy changes and goes up a notch. During, the alpha male will show his teeth, growl, bark aggressively or even snap at the beta male who does the same but with less growling. The other beta male who is usually the most excited (youngest) but less of an alpha challenger usually just gets involved for effect. The female usually doesn't bark as much or nearly as aggressively (I guess she has nothing to prove). After they've vented, all the dogs are calm. It never leads to fights, although I'm sure it could if we didn't keep an eye on things, but who knows.
And which would those be? When having child pornography on one's computer is a federal felony, there is no sanity anywhere in the United States about sex misdeeds.
"Rules against sexual harassment "chill" profanity because seemingly mere profanity can be deemed sexually harassing"
Only under very specific conditions, at least in somewhat sane jurisdictions. It's probably more common for people who harass or bully others to hide behind profanity than it is for real profanity to be mistaken for harassment or bullying by the management/authorities. Obvious clues are assymetries of power or otherwise (it's not merely profanity when your boss gives you a nickname but he punishes you when you give him one, that would be bullying).
If A is totally not B then why mention it in the first place?
Because workplaces that don't have rules against profanity invariably have rules against sexual harassment. Rules against sexual harassment "chill" profanity because seemingly mere profanity can be deemed sexually harassing, if for no other reason than that women may perceive profanity as sexually harassing and it can be used for that purpose.
This fits in with another commenter's observation that profanity use is a function of the masculinization of a field. (Some folks still deem it rude to cuss in front of a lady, although their numbers are rapidly declining.)
"the upper classes may have sworn less because they were generally the class that specialized in warfare. Thus being more prone to violence politeness would have been functional to avoid potentially dangerous conflicts."
You mean prone to use conscripted peasant armies to settle their differences. But you're right, there was a strict etiquette to make sure costly conflicts would not break out because of misunderstandings or a slip of the tongue.
As an alternative, the upper classes (speaking historically, and primarily about the nobility rather than aspirational bourgeois) may have sworn less because they were generally the class that specialized in warfare. Thus being more prone to violence (due to both availability due to training and some selection for natural ability), politeness would have been functional to avoid potentially dangerous conflicts. The lower classes, being less skilled at murderous violence, would have had more scope for a hawk-dove equilibrium in impoliteness. The rise of campus speech codes might then be due to an increasingly litigious environment (i.e. violence by other means) which once again encourages "politeness" or at least tighter control of offensive speech.
If this is the case, one would expect impoliteness to have increased as violence was more tightly monopolized by the state and enforcement against violent behavior improved. You would also expect more politeness in areas where violence is common and enforcement is weak. If none of that is true, that would strengthen the signalling argument in comparison.
If A is totally not B then why mention it in the first place? Please don't be a politician about this and state clearly why you consider sexual harassment (and I assume bullying as well) relevant to the topic. You've already shown you think at least some instances of sexual harassment are actually good for productivity and overlap with swearing so much that (at least American) laws do not effectively discriminate between harassment and swearing. There are just so many crucial differences between profanity one one side and harassment and bullying on the other that I, as a red-blooded heterosexual male have absolutely no difficulty recognizing the distinction. Maybe it's a generational gap thing, like that time you wrote about loosening marriage/relationship norms leading to inequality issues for men, without even considering women would be just as much affected.
Saying "Existing laws against A discourage B" is not to say that A=B. If the legal definition of A is very broad, it may discourage a great many things besides the more narrow concept A' that most people wanted to discourage.
I second IMASBA's request for the reasoning behind conflating sexual harassment with profanity, especially since profanity is almost always either verbal or gestural, whereas harassment can, depending on how it is defined in certain environments, encompass a much wider range of behaviours.
"I think not swearing is a good habit, and the degeneracy of Ginsberg is a good illustration of how he failed to apply discipline to his lifestyle"
You can't just generalize like that: always exercising self-control (and according to your culture's definition of self-control) makes some people feel like zen masters, for others it feels like prison, like not really being alive. People have different personalities and it's best if we let them free to choose to swear, or not.
Your argument makes no sense because people curse more now and more publicly than ever. And studies actually show that the rich curse as much as the poor, its the middle class that's the most opposed to swearing. The reason for upper class swearing is different from lower class profanity though. The Upper class has the most resources in society, and with resources comes the ability to live your life pretty much however you want and even if people object to it they can't really stop you (as long as what you're doing isn't like criminal or anything like that). Because they have the most resources, the rich typically don't have to follow minor prohibitions in society restricting profanity, partying, or sex that other people are encouraged to follow. Another reason is that the middle class and the poor depend on the rich for both their income, and the rich's ability to organize and sell material goods for the 99%. Because of this dependence, they will be reluctant to judge them as harshly for their lifestyle as they would someone on their own socio-economic level.
In general though, upper class swearing is very casual, whereas lower class swearing is more likely to be done out of angst of some kind or anger due to the daily frustrations and worries that pervade lower class life.
Actually, in the creative industries it is, otherwise there is metamphetamine and of course with EMs you don't have to mess with chemicals, you can just code the perfect drug.
... because cocaine isn't noted for it's productivity-enhancing effects?
"Swearing surely has a signaling component, but it also conveys and is symptomatic of-"
So wait, it has a signalling component and ... another signalling component?
Interesting observation, but it's low status humans who, overall, swear most. (Still, it might be related.)
Probably not a stretch that most group or pack animals behave similarly - "swearing" as signaling status. I have 4 dogs (3 husky's and a malamute) and almost every day they will all start barking loudly and aggressively in very close proximity to each other (snouts almost touching) for a few minutes and then in an instant stop. What is interesting is that before they all start up they can be quite excited and/or on edge - you can tell that the energy changes and goes up a notch. During, the alpha male will show his teeth, growl, bark aggressively or even snap at the beta male who does the same but with less growling. The other beta male who is usually the most excited (youngest) but less of an alpha challenger usually just gets involved for effect. The female usually doesn't bark as much or nearly as aggressively (I guess she has nothing to prove). After they've vented, all the dogs are calm. It never leads to fights, although I'm sure it could if we didn't keep an eye on things, but who knows.
at least in somewhat sane jurisdictions.
And which would those be? When having child pornography on one's computer is a federal felony, there is no sanity anywhere in the United States about sex misdeeds.
"Rules against sexual harassment "chill" profanity because seemingly mere profanity can be deemed sexually harassing"
Only under very specific conditions, at least in somewhat sane jurisdictions. It's probably more common for people who harass or bully others to hide behind profanity than it is for real profanity to be mistaken for harassment or bullying by the management/authorities. Obvious clues are assymetries of power or otherwise (it's not merely profanity when your boss gives you a nickname but he punishes you when you give him one, that would be bullying).
If A is totally not B then why mention it in the first place?
Because workplaces that don't have rules against profanity invariably have rules against sexual harassment. Rules against sexual harassment "chill" profanity because seemingly mere profanity can be deemed sexually harassing, if for no other reason than that women may perceive profanity as sexually harassing and it can be used for that purpose.
This fits in with another commenter's observation that profanity use is a function of the masculinization of a field. (Some folks still deem it rude to cuss in front of a lady, although their numbers are rapidly declining.)
"the upper classes may have sworn less because they were generally the class that specialized in warfare. Thus being more prone to violence politeness would have been functional to avoid potentially dangerous conflicts."
You mean prone to use conscripted peasant armies to settle their differences. But you're right, there was a strict etiquette to make sure costly conflicts would not break out because of misunderstandings or a slip of the tongue.
As an alternative, the upper classes (speaking historically, and primarily about the nobility rather than aspirational bourgeois) may have sworn less because they were generally the class that specialized in warfare. Thus being more prone to violence (due to both availability due to training and some selection for natural ability), politeness would have been functional to avoid potentially dangerous conflicts. The lower classes, being less skilled at murderous violence, would have had more scope for a hawk-dove equilibrium in impoliteness. The rise of campus speech codes might then be due to an increasingly litigious environment (i.e. violence by other means) which once again encourages "politeness" or at least tighter control of offensive speech.
If this is the case, one would expect impoliteness to have increased as violence was more tightly monopolized by the state and enforcement against violent behavior improved. You would also expect more politeness in areas where violence is common and enforcement is weak. If none of that is true, that would strengthen the signalling argument in comparison.
If A is totally not B then why mention it in the first place? Please don't be a politician about this and state clearly why you consider sexual harassment (and I assume bullying as well) relevant to the topic. You've already shown you think at least some instances of sexual harassment are actually good for productivity and overlap with swearing so much that (at least American) laws do not effectively discriminate between harassment and swearing. There are just so many crucial differences between profanity one one side and harassment and bullying on the other that I, as a red-blooded heterosexual male have absolutely no difficulty recognizing the distinction. Maybe it's a generational gap thing, like that time you wrote about loosening marriage/relationship norms leading to inequality issues for men, without even considering women would be just as much affected.
Saying "Existing laws against A discourage B" is not to say that A=B. If the legal definition of A is very broad, it may discourage a great many things besides the more narrow concept A' that most people wanted to discourage.
I second IMASBA's request for the reasoning behind conflating sexual harassment with profanity, especially since profanity is almost always either verbal or gestural, whereas harassment can, depending on how it is defined in certain environments, encompass a much wider range of behaviours.
Like all good habits, they help statistically, not all the time, for everyone, everywhere.
"I think not swearing is a good habit, and the degeneracy of Ginsberg is a good illustration of how he failed to apply discipline to his lifestyle"
You can't just generalize like that: always exercising self-control (and according to your culture's definition of self-control) makes some people feel like zen masters, for others it feels like prison, like not really being alive. People have different personalities and it's best if we let them free to choose to swear, or not.