Peace in the Middle East
Just a few hours ago, I was discussing Israeli politics with a guy on irc, and he brought up this very interesting point. In Israel it is considered taboo to use the word peace in political discussion. He likened it to the word "fuck" in english-speaking countries. The whole conversation got me thinking about the sociolinguistic properties of words. I mean all words are from a phonological standpoint fairly equal. What is it that makes a word offending?
It clearly has to involve the semantic binding to the word. The problem I have with this is that many words can equally share that semantic binding. I do not need to use the word "fuck" . I can use many of the words that compromise its definition. The sentence "Is she fucking around?" can be easily replaced with "Is she having intercourse with other people?". One can be contrued mildly offensive, the latter not so much. They convey the same concept. They deduce down to the same linguistic content.
The more bizarre situation is the p-word in hebrew. In viewing this word, I see a very strange reason for the situation in America. In the entire history of Israel there has been no such thing as a peacetime. To mention the word peace is to be looked at as a clueless idealist. This is a terrible self-defeating outlook. Since it shows that what words we view as taboo are really manifestations of our own cultural values. Some have argued that censoring words censors thoughts, it seems really to be the other way around. Thoughts and concepts that a culture finds offensive will try to be eliminated from the record by censoring their linguistic representation. It seems like an insidious way to try to stop thought.
The effort though is silly since there will always be a way to express the idea. Since some event is going to occur that requires noting the concept. "Fuck" is a product of the culture of America. Deep under the silly "melting pot" culture that people tout as American, so the devout puritian culture that started our country. It is an old system of values. It is a very hypocritical set of values, but it there. The american way of working really hard to acheive your dream, is puritan in nature. For all the consumerism that has been associated with America there is still this puritan view. The puritan goal of get into heaven seems to have been replaced with accumulate as much wealth as possible.
There is also this derived fear of sex we got from them. All sexual behavior needs to be kept quiet and out of the public sphere. It is as if those children just magically appear. This is the climate that elevates a word like fuck to infamous levels. Hopefully soon people will realize you can't censor thoughts. Only a culture can. So, I think it might be hightime to analyze our own and make some judgements calls on these dirty words.
It clearly has to involve the semantic binding to the word. The problem I have with this is that many words can equally share that semantic binding. I do not need to use the word "fuck" . I can use many of the words that compromise its definition. The sentence "Is she fucking around?" can be easily replaced with "Is she having intercourse with other people?". One can be contrued mildly offensive, the latter not so much. They convey the same concept. They deduce down to the same linguistic content.
The more bizarre situation is the p-word in hebrew. In viewing this word, I see a very strange reason for the situation in America. In the entire history of Israel there has been no such thing as a peacetime. To mention the word peace is to be looked at as a clueless idealist. This is a terrible self-defeating outlook. Since it shows that what words we view as taboo are really manifestations of our own cultural values. Some have argued that censoring words censors thoughts, it seems really to be the other way around. Thoughts and concepts that a culture finds offensive will try to be eliminated from the record by censoring their linguistic representation. It seems like an insidious way to try to stop thought.
The effort though is silly since there will always be a way to express the idea. Since some event is going to occur that requires noting the concept. "Fuck" is a product of the culture of America. Deep under the silly "melting pot" culture that people tout as American, so the devout puritian culture that started our country. It is an old system of values. It is a very hypocritical set of values, but it there. The american way of working really hard to acheive your dream, is puritan in nature. For all the consumerism that has been associated with America there is still this puritan view. The puritan goal of get into heaven seems to have been replaced with accumulate as much wealth as possible.
There is also this derived fear of sex we got from them. All sexual behavior needs to be kept quiet and out of the public sphere. It is as if those children just magically appear. This is the climate that elevates a word like fuck to infamous levels. Hopefully soon people will realize you can't censor thoughts. Only a culture can. So, I think it might be hightime to analyze our own and make some judgements calls on these dirty words.
posted by James Ridley at 12:53 AM
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